Housing Minister Megan Woods was appointed as Housing Minister as part of a reshuffle when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stripped Twyford of the portfolio. Mark Mitchell
Housing Minister Megan Woods was appointed as Housing Minister as part of a reshuffle when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stripped Twyford of the portfolio. Mark Mitchell
The Government's new head Housing Minister, Megan Woods, will present the much anticipated KiwiBuild reset plan to Cabinet in late August.
But she won't say if the name "KiwiBuild" will survive the policy's reset.
In January, former Housing Minister Phil Twyford said a KiwiBuild reset was coming in a fewweeks.
That was subsequently pushed out to April, then to June.
Last month, Twyford said it was coming in early July.
But this morning, Woods confirmed Cabinet would get to see the new proposal later next month.
National's housing spokeswoman Judith Collins said the fact that the reset unveiling has been pushed back again showed a "great degree of incompetence".
Woods was appointed as Housing Minister as part of a reshuffle when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stripped Twyford of the portfolio.
Woods leads a team of ministers, including Twyford, who are responsible for housing.
Ardern said KiwiBuild has stood out as an area that "needs a sharper focus" and the Housing portfolio was "too great for one minister".
Woods told media this morning that she spent the past few weeks digging into the KiwiBuild portfolio and developing her thinking on the reset, as well as the Government's wider housing policy.
"As I've said before, KiwiBuild hasn't worked the way we wanted it to and we will be making changes.
"New Zealanders want us to be honest when something isn't working, and for us to keep trying to get the settings right."
She will put together a Cabinet paper during the next couple of weeks, before presenting that to Cabinet at the end of August.
But asked if the policy would still be called KiwiBuild, Woods wouldn't say.
"The name is the furthest thing that I've been thinking of when I've been looking at the issue over the last 26 days that I've had the portfolio."
National's housing spokeswoman Judith Collins said the fact that the reset unveiling has been pushed back again showed a "great degree of incompetence". Photo / Mark Mitchell
The KiwiBuild policy has been perhaps the biggest thorn in the Government's side.
Twyford promised 1000 KiwiBuild homes would be completed by July, then 5000 by next year, then 12,000 a year each year until 2028.
As of late June, just 119 KiwiBuild houses had been built.
Collins said the Government was retreating from the policy.
"When in Opposition, they had a policy that they had no idea how they were going to deliver it.
"Now we have KiwiBuild houses that can't be sold; we've got a massive mess and now we're told something will be renounced in August – it's just a nonsense."
Woods this morning confirmed that the Government would unveil changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) tomorrow.
This was an area that many developers had expressed concerns, she said.
