He has criticised Labour’s response to the housing situation, attacking Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s initial promises to fix the crisis five years ago.
"Jacinda Ardern said in 2017, ‘I refuse to stand by while children are sleeping in cars’," Mr Bishop said in a statement yesterday.
"It is a tragedy that any child in New Zealand is going to sleep in a car every night," he said.
"Living in an emergency motel isn’t much better, but that’s the reality for around 4000 other Kiwi kids — four times as many since Labour took office."
The Prime Minister’s office declined to comment on Mr Bishop’s comments last night.
He said Labour had built just 1.4% of its promised 100,000 KiwiBuild homes and it was spending $1million a week on emergency housing.
The state house waiting list was up by 20,000 applicants in the past five years.
In this year’s Budget, the Government allocated $335million to review and redesign the emergency housing system.
A plan is due to go before Cabinet in the next few months.
Statistics from the end of September show the waiting list for emergency housing is now more than 26,500, while the average occupancy is now more than 20 weeks — up from three weeks in 2018.
Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni has previously said: "This goes back to the housing crisis that we inherited [from the National government]".
Mr Bishop said it was an "utter failure" by the Government, and claimed Labour did not have a plan to fix what is now a "housing catastrophe".
"Labour’s flagship housing policy, KiwiBuild, is the poster child of their inability to deliver," he said.
"In July 2018, the Government said that KiwiBuild would deliver 1000 homes within a year, another 5000 by June 2020, and 10,000 in total by June 2021.
"But as of September 2022, they have only built 1430 KiwiBuild homes."
Mr Bishop said, at that rate, KiwiBuild would reach the 100,000 mark in 2315.
"KiwiBuild is arguably the biggest policy failure in New Zealand’s history," he said.
He also said National would partner with the community housing sector to get more houses built, reverse Labour’s tenant tax and brightline test extension, and use a social investment approach to get people into transitional housing with "wraparound support". — additional reporting RNZ
By Rachel Maher
