Kieran McAnulty is severely underrated: How Chris Bishop Got Away with Blowing Up Kāinga Ora & State Housing

Last week, Kieran McAnulty called out Chris Bishop and Nicola Willis for their claims that Kāinga Ora’s costs were too high.

They had claimed Kāinga Ora’s cost were 12% higher than market i.e. private devlopers

But Kāinga Ora’s Chair had already explained why last year:

"We're not building to sell, so we'll be maintaining these houses over an extended multi-decade period. So we want to make sure that we're putting in the right fittings etcetera that will, at the right cost, be better.

"The other thing that is quite a big factor for us is the land that we hold isn't always optimally configured and property developers can pick and choose what land is going to be the lowest cost to build on - which is partly topology, but partly sort of form factor, etcetera, which leads to greater efficiencies - and we don't always have those degrees of freedom."