Nearly two and a half years later, the Government kicked off its re-election bid by ploughing $5.3 billion into roads and highways, projects which barely earned a mention during the last campaign.
That's not to say last month's big splash on infrastructure was poorly conceived. The bitumen binge will ease congestion and improve productivity on big chunks of the country's roading network.
The $1.1b for rail, too, is a welcome injection after the sector suffered what Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters called "a malignant, derelict, brainless policy of running rail down to sabotage a key strategic asset in this country".
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described the spending programme as "a once in a lifetime opportunity to invest in New Zealand". Her language was the sort of way Labour used to talk about housing, before it was given the chance by voters to tackle it.
Granted, it was never going to be easy; when Labour found itself in government and Twyford trumpeted KiwiBuild, many industry stalwarts vociferously doubted the scheme could reach its target of building 100,000 homes in decade.
But the fact that KiwiBuild would look to succeed where the open market had failed and promised to serve as a circuit breaker for first-home buyers increasingly locked out of property ownership was why it was so laudable.
Instead, it was scrapped, in the words of Twyford's replacement as Housing Minister Megan Woods, because it was "overly ambitious".
Only 315 KiwiBuild homes have been constructed in the past 18 months - leaving Labour's record on housing until this week looking little better than National's.
Yesterday, however, the Government unveiled its latest attempt to cut through the crisis with a $300 million plan for homelessness - including $175m for 1000 transitional homes, to be delivered by the end of the year.
Since taking office, the Government has announced funding for 6400 public housing places, as well as to maintain 2900 transitional housing places and funding for 1103 homeless families to move into specially designed Housing First accommodation.
But the hard truth is, neither the Government nor the private market is building enough houses. And further moves on social housing are unlikely to delight the thousands trying to purchase their first homes, with Kāinga Ora already accused of spending millions buying houses out from under potential first-home buyers
Kiwibank economists estimated that between July 2018 and the same time last year, the deficit of houses in New Zealand had increased from 100,000 to 130,000.
After years of "drift", as Twyford put it, voters have 218 days to decide whether this administration has been ambitious enough on housing.
