Requests that Auditor-General investigate the issue
The government has drawn flak after ignoring the Treasury’s warning against using KiwiBuild funds to purchase disputed land at Ihumātao.
According to Newshub, the government used a workaround to buy the disputed land from Fletcher’s for $30 million despite the Treasury’s warning – taking cash from the KiwiBuild program Land for Housing.
The Treasury warned: “If Cabinet wants the Crown to purchase the land at Ihumātao, we do not recommend doing so through the Land for Housing Programme.”
New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke slammed the government for “[using] taxpayer money meant for building houses to block houses instead.”
“It appears that the government has spent KiwiBuild funding outside of the scope for which Parliament approved it. Aside from being undemocratic, this spending opens the government to the risk of a costly legal challenge,” Houlbrooke said.
“The result of the government’s land deal is fewer houses at Ihumātao, built more slowly. The land purchase has also incentivised protestors across New Zealand to use occupation as a tactic to block new housing – we’re already seeing this at Shelly Bay and Opua,” he continued. “It’s little wonder house prices keep leaping up when politicians are actively intervening with taxpayer money to make things worse.”
National requested the Auditor-General investigate the alleged misuse of taxpayer money to settle the Ihumātao land dispute.
“It’s bad enough that KiwiBuild has failed, but it’s even worse if Ministers are now treating it as a slush-fund for their pet projects,” said National’s Finance spokesperson Michael Woodhouse.
“The Land for Housing programme was set up with the explicit purpose to rapidly provide new housing. Funding for the programme was included in budget appropriations voted for by Parliament, and Treasury documents described it as being ‘intended to facilitate the development of KiwiBuild affordable homes’.
National’s housing spokesperson Nicola Willis said the government’s actions put an existing housing development at risk, adding that it still has not said when and how many homes will be built at Ihumātao.
“Taxpayers aren’t a bank to be called on to clean up the government’s poor decisions, particularly when it is meddling in private property rights,” Willis said. “More than 20,000 Kiwi families are on the waiting list for a home right now. The government shouldn’t be spending $30 million on stopping 480 much-needed houses from being built.”
