Social housing reform is always going to be uncomfortable

Sunday, 24 May 2026

EDITORIAL: It is an almost universal truth that Government programmes designed to help the poorest and least able among us often end up benefiting those best able to advocate on their own behalf — or who have someone else willing to do so.

And so it is with social housing.

Social housing in New Zealand has had a long, uneven and evolving history.

While Michael Joseph Savage’s first Labour Government, elected in 1935, embarked on an at-scale state house building programme, it was Richard Seddon’s earlier Liberal Government that first attempted Government-supplied housing, albeit with limited success.

Both Governments were responding to housing shortages and shared a common vision: houses should be well-built and allocated to working families in traditional (Pakeha) nuclear households.

The first National Government, elected in 1949, later allowed tenants to buy their state houses.

And so began a back-and-forth over the role of state housing that has continued for more than 70 years. Originally, the programme grew to have two core purposes: to provide housing for largely Pākehā workers and to support the country’s housebuilding industry during a period of physical shortage.

But society changed. New Zealand became richer. State housing increasingly served people from a far wider range of backgrounds and circumstances. Family structures shifted. The kinds of homes being built and where they were built changed. Many state houses were sold.

KiwiBuild’s promise of 100,000 homes marked the last major Government attempt to return to large-scale housebuilding for eventual private ownership. What the Savage Government took 41 years to build, Labour promised to build in 10 — and after six years produced barely more than 2% of that target. It was a comprehensive failure.

It is onto this long-running policy see-saw that Housing Minister Chris Bishop stepped on Thursday with a policy package of genuine substance.

The core idea is simple. People in social housing currently pay income-related rents. That contribution will rise from 25% to 30% of income, with the extra money redirected into increasing accommodation support for those renting in the private market.

Effectively, Bishop is attempting to put the affordability of public and private housing for people of modest means on a more even footing, while prioritising social housing for those in truly marginal circumstances who would struggle to rent otherwise: people with severe illness, disability, advanced age or complex social needs, including former prisoners.

That requires a more rounded definition of need — one not based solely on affordability.

Bishop argues a new approach is needed so appalling situations - like paralysed and wheelchair-bound New Plymouth man Shane Emeny languishing on the wait list in an emergency motel room for four years - don’t happen.

But at the same time, he was both direct and correct when he said state houses are among the most expensive ways ever devised to provide housing for the less well-off.

At present — aside from Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ deeply unfortunate comment that people in social housing had “won the Lotto”, for which she quickly apologised — access to social housing is, in many ways, itself a lottery.

And as with too many Government programmes, those least able to advocate for themselves are often the ones who miss out.

It is difficult to see how this policy, serious and clearly the product of considerable work by Bishop, wins National many votes. But that does not make it unimportant.

There has, in fact, been cautious support from parts of a sector usually hostile to National-led Governments, particularly around the idea of better targeting support toward those with the greatest need.

There are, obviously, legitimate questions. Did these policy changes really require income-related rents to rise? How do you encourage movement through the system without destabilising people who have finally achieved some housing security? And how, in practice, will all of this actually be implemented?

Social housing is hard. On one side is the efficient management of more than 77,000 homes; on the other is the management of tenants facing a huge range of difficult circumstances — all within a limited pool of public money, regardless of who is in Government.

Too often, the political incentive is simply to keep the issue out of the headlines. But Bishop has attempted to grapple with it seriously, and for that he deserves credit.