But the initiative should not be seen as perjorative, for the previously "untouchable" status of state housing means that it is long overdue for review and reconsideration.
At the very least, questions need to be asked.
Is it performing its essential role of providing homes for the most vulnerable and needy in society? Does the current stock exist in the appropriate configurations and where the most urgent need is found? Where does the balance between renovation of old stock and the construction of new lie? What are the projected needs for the future; how are shortfalls to be met? And is the State always the best "manager" of such housing?Several of these questions receive consideration, at least tangentially, in a report to the Government by the Housing Shareholders' Advisory Group (HSAG).
Members of the Salvation Army, the Auckland City Mission and the New Zealand Housing Foundation sat on the panel and have contributed to the recommendations.
These include that the Government should focus on the "high needs" sector, should consider working with third parties to deliver community housing, and investigate ways to move state house tenants whose needs, arguably, no longer warrant them.
The Government is considering its response.
It has not yet detailed what this might be but Housing Minister Phil Heatley has given tentative indications of intent.
Mindful of the political sensitivity of the issue, he has been careful to state that whatever is decided, the elderly, the infirm and the vulnerable will not be adversely affected.
Otherwise, the minister has not been shy of spelling out some of the more problematic realities pertaining to the perennial shortage of social housing in this country.
In the House last week, he pointed out that a state house is "currently the only benefit in New Zealand where once someone is in, that person's need is never reassessed".
In other words, a state house is, if required, a home for life, regardless of changing circumstances, steady employment, inheritance, Lotto wins, or other windfalls.
To address this apparent inconsistency - or what many might regard as an unfair subsidy - the Government is considering introducing "reviewable tenancies" of, for instance, three, five and 10 years, for new state-house tenants.
The rationale for this is greater flexibility.
Mr Heatley also said that while there were more than 5000 Housing New Zealand Corporation tenants paying market rents who could afford "to rent from the landlord next door", there were 4000 families classified on the waiting list as high priority for a state house; and further that more than 2700 tenants occupied homes that were "underutilised" - with spare, unoccupied, bedrooms - and a similar number of tenants in houses that are deemed to be overcrowded.
Developing an approach to state housing which enables the State to apportion accommodation efficiently and more fittingly is not inherently ideological, as much as the Government's opponents might attempt to establish such a claim.
If Mr Heatley is correct in his assertions of the 5000 tenants paying market rents to the State that they could just as easily be paying to private accommodation providers, then this makes sound economic sense; likewise, that a single tenant in a four-bedroom house might be asked to make way for a family of seven living in a two-bedroom flat.
At the behest of HSAG, the Government is also considering the devolution of a considerable portion of its stock to community housing providers.
The current state housing stock is in the region of 70,000 units with an estimated value of $15 billion.
The proposal is to shed some 20% of this to community providers, which, it is argued, are better placed to manage it than a government department.
But this is an enormous sum - $3 billion - and it has to be asked whether the infrastructure exists to manage and distribute it with the necessary oversight and expertise.
And also, as will be claimed by detractors, whether this is not a de facto paving stone on the road to "privatisation" of so-called state housing which, in the end, will do little to address the imbalance between the availability of social housing and the seemingly ever-growing need for it.
