It’s hard to tell what’s worse: the National government persisting in prioritising money and non-existent1 “growth” over lives and well-being, or the many people that believe this is the way to succeed.
Homelessness spiked up 53% over a few short months in NZ’s major metropolitan city, Auckland in March. Now it’s at 58% as the video above shows.
And although Luxon denied his '“success” at driving down emergency housing numbers was to blame, and lamented media not praising it, the numbers don’t lie.
The government threw out 94% of those in Auckland emergency housing by January 2025,2 “saving” itself $1bn.3
Homelessness spiked so strongly in a few short months, that in March 2025, Auckland Council sent a ‘please explain and please help’ letter to central government, urging the government to come clean and tell Council exactly where those leaving emergency housing are going.
Auckland Council:
"Reliable, comprehensive data is crucial for understanding the scale of the crisis and ensuring policy responses are evidence-based and effective…..
With social housing being cut and social housing programmes being stopped, this situation is going to get worse.”
Housing First Auckland programme manager Rami Alrudani:
“People on the streets are telling us that they've been excluded. From [emergency housing] they've been excluded even to access.. sometimes in certain situations, transitional housing or other options."
It’s clear the National government does not care.
Last week at Question Time, Luxon boasted about how his government is doing a “fantastic” job in housing, and wouldn’t even acknowledge the spike in homelessness, saying:
“This is a government that's incredibly proud of its housing record.”
The problem is not confined to Auckland’s 58% rise.
Wellington has experienced a 40% hike in homelessness.
Tauranga City Council notes homelessness has spiked in its city too, as 30 councils around the country form a support group to tackle the rising problem.
National Party, on the other hand, are ignoring the issue, and making it all but impossible to get into emergency housing, with applicants calling it a “trap” and the large majority of applicants declined help.
Last week, Christchurch’s Methodist Mission executive director Jill Hawkey said most of those they help have been turned away from emergency housing - without being given a reason -
“We could count on one hand the number of people who have been offered emergency housing.”
It gets worse.
New State House Builds Effectively Halting
Last year, Chris Bishop’s Kainga Ora “turnaround plan” translated to 400 net new social homes a year, and then caps i.e. stops state builds from 2026 - even as the social housing waitlist hovers at ~20,000.
Luxon was ironically in Parliament lambasting Labour on this too - deriding Labour’s housing track record when Labour oversaw and built thousands of quality homes a year - closing the 14,000 to 16,000 housing gap left over by John Key’s government.
Labour dreamt big and that delivery was solid on a 25% debt ratio, leveraging it to a 100% asset base, now worth $70bn.
National only ever planned a miniscule fraction of that effort (possibly 0.05)4, and capping inventory5 from 2026 means they’ve given up, and are handing it all to the profit-seeking private market instead.6
The message is clear: under-delivery is acceptable in New Zealand, as long as long as no-one dreams big and controls the populist narrative.
Beneficiary sanctions
Finally, National’s much touted benefit beneficiary sanctions, which experts warn will only exacerbate problems, may increase homelessness and poverty even more. Under one sanction, the money card, the government won’t allow the money cards to be used for rent.
The government doesn’t even expect their various sanctions to help people into work i.e. it seems purely ideological and punitive in nature.
Where do we as a society feel this will all go?
The answer is crime, domestic violence, mental health, homelessness, unemployment, and cumulative, increasing costs to our society and culture.
It’s the American model, born in Kiwi land.
So where is this government investing around that?
Prison, of course
I’ve previously written, and warned about the new mega prison National hired international multinationals to build, as well as Luxon’s ‘money is no obstacle for us’ stance when it comes to prisons.
The Waikeria prison is now open and expected to be full soon. Criminologists have repeatedly told the government that based on empirical evidence and experience, these mega prisons merely harden criminals, and create “crime schools”, while Sir Peter Gluckman noted imprisonment only increases generational crime and problem youth.
But - investors will profit - as National pours in nearly $2bn a year on corrections, and plans to exceed record7 prison numbers by 2026.
Is this the society8 we want to build?
It appears that for some, unfortunately, the answer is, yes.
Did You Know?
Courtesy Vanessa -
Related Articles:
Mega prison would cost mega bucks, so follow the money (Newsroom)
New Waikeria Prison to be quickly filled as prison muster hits record high (Newsroom)
Cartoons
Nicola Willis's "growth budget" doesn’t grow GDP per capita (video)
Compared to January 2024
$1b savings is over 4 years. And reminiscent of the way its pay equity changes “saved” itself $12.8bn. i.e at citizens’ expense.
From my back of the envelope calculation, assuming the measure of 400 net new homes in 2025 and 2026, that equates to 5% of Labour’s delivery. There is some budget for social service providers but at this rate, the amount and effect is unclear. Still, it’s a small proportion and unlikely to put a dent in the 20,000 Kiwis waiting on the social housing register. Note, this is an approximate calculation given missing data points.
Cut off at around 78,000 state homes
Social services budget remains a drop in the budget for other providers. While National spend taxpayers money to underwrite private developers instead on general projects.
Prior re-record was 10,280 and National Party Ministers back then acknowledged it was a “fiscal and moral failure”. Mitchell plans to exceed this by 2026
We also can’t ignore the backdrop of all this is a severe and drastic reduction in mental health support - this includes closing high suicide risk centres in Auckland to “save money”.
Food bank budgets cut with many closing, vulnerable tamariki social services slashed, health system being privatized for poorer outcomes and higher cost.
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