Government used KiwiBuild funds to settle disputed land at Ihumātao
ACT New Zealand has requested the Auditor-General investigate the issue revolving around the government’s purchase of the disputed land at Ihumātao using “taxpayer money.”
ACT confirmed that the government took $29.9 million from the KiwiBuild program Land for Housing to buy the disputed land from Fletcher despite the Treasury’s warning, which the Auditor-General assessed separately in 2019.
“That assessment found Land for Housing followed a well-defined process which the Auditor-General considered ‘robust.’ It was based on a clear two-stage process: ‘assessment of land for entry into the program and identification of an appropriate development partner’,” said ACT leader David Seymour.
In a letter to the Auditor-General, Seymour insisted that the land at Ihumātao did not meet the criteria described in 2019 and therefore should be investigated.
“The Treasury would appear to agree with me,” Seymour added. “In the days before the government announcement last December, the Treasury clearly argued that using funding from the Land for Housing Programme was not advised because the decision appeared to be at odds with the proposed approach.”
ACT added that the government might not build a house at the disputed land as ‘Save Our Unique Landscape’s (SOUL)’ only public statement since the agreement’s announcement did not mention housing at all.
“The government can’t escape the fact that the agreement it signed on the future of land at Ihumātao only says houses ‘may’ be built there, and since the agreement was announced, there hasn’t been any commitment that a single house will actually be built there,” said ACT Housing spokesperson Brooke van Velden.
“Almost four months on from the announcement, the governance group responsible for agreeing on the future use of the land hasn’t even been appointed,” she continued. “The longer we don’t get an announcement of a development partner and a plan for building houses, the harder it gets for the government to fit its decidedly square funding peg – the Land for Housing fund – into the round hole that is Ihumātao.
“That’s just one reason ACT has asked the Auditor-General to investigate what appears to be a wholly inappropriate use of taxpayers’ money,” van Velden concluded.
