The Government has been widely panned over its major announcement yesterday on housing. There are a few positive takes on the “reset”, but generally it has been viewed as an embarrassing backdown at best, or at worst a sell-out of those needing the housing crisis addressed. One political journalist has even branded yesterday’s announcement as “easily the worst day politically” for the Labour-led Government so far.

This criticism isn’t just politicking from conservatives or the right. The most severe criticism has come from progressives and the left. This isn’t really surprising because – as with Jacinda Ardern’s capitulation on the capital gains tax – the announcement suggests the Government has essentially given up on bringing transformational change to the housing crisis. Many of those who might be sympathetic or supportive of the Government are those most deeply disappointed with what Housing Minister Megan Woods is now doing with KiwiBuild.

To get an idea of critical reaction from the political left, it’s worth reading the No Right Turn blogpost: Not impressed. He calls the reset a “broken promise” and is disappointing about the tinkering announcements, suggesting they might actually make the housing crisis worse.

He concludes that the reset shows Labour, as with other political parties, simply isn’t interested in solving the housing problem: “while the obvious policy we need is a mass house-building programme of state and affordable homes, to crash both house prices and rents, the property owning class – which includes almost every MP – don’t want that, because it would devalue their assets and their landleach income-streams. So instead we get this sort of bullshit, spending billions on producing the impression of action, while actually doing nothing much”.

It’s not only leftwing bloggers who are unimpressed. For a scathing assessment of yesterday’s announcement see Newsroom editor Bernard Hickey’s latest column, Young renters just got double toasted, in which he argues those suffering from the housing crisis have now been abandoned by this government.

Hickey argues that the jettisoning of the basic KiwiBuild promise was entirely unnecessary: “to abandon the entire target for the entire 10 years is simply silly because the first year’s target was missed. Urgent and large scale action by the Government could have cleared the way for a 100,000 house build over the next 10 years. Labour just gave up at the first hint of trouble”.

As to all the minor announcements made yesterday, Hickey thinks they’re a “distraction” meant to help sell the capitulation to the public: “It also tried to dress the broken promise by making it easier to use more KiwiSaver money for home deposits and to be able to borrow more to buy a first home. Neither will sweeten this dead rat much. It’s more of a rotting and hairy cat.”

Hickey says the conclusion we can draw from the KiwiBuild reset is that Ardern’s reputation is now settled, and it goes to “prove she is just another transactional smile-and-wave politician who believes she is better at wielding the status quo than the other lot. She has now forfeited any right she had to talk about being transformational and claiming ownership of a generation’s dream.”

Similarly, in an opinion piece for RNZ, I’ve argued that Labour and its coalition partners now risk losing support from their core supporters who were relying on seeing real progress on the housing crisis, and those struggling with housing might legitimately feel “ripped off” – see: Government should be held to their 100,000 KiwiBuild promise.

Here’s my conclusion: “much like the CGT backdown – the government’s other key policy to deal with the housing crisis – it will shake the confidence of supporters who are wanting to see the transformational change promised. The Year of Delivery becomes an empty slogan for those depending on real change. When it comes to next year’s election, the governing parties might find their lack of courage leads to fewer of their supporters being mobilised to vote… Having won power in 2017 on the basis of promises like KiwiBuild, it would be apt if the Labour-led government lost that power in 2020 because of their failure to deliver.”

RNZ’s Tim Watkin points out that this failure of delivery and ambition is what Labour used to criticise the last National Government for: “Twyford was famous for mocking previous Minister Nick Smith by saying ‘you can’t live in a consent’. Truth is, you can’t live in a reset either” – see: You can’t live in a reset.

Watkin labels yesterday’s announcement a “disaster”, saying “amidst the announcements came the smell of burning rubber as the government preformed some of the biggest political u-turns you’ve ever seen.” Green co-leader Marama Davidson was also at the announcement, claiming the KiwiBuild reset put housing “back within the realm of lower income people”, but Watkin says “It’s hard to see how.”

Political journalists have also been damning in their reports. Henry Cooke, who has probably written more on KiwiBuild than any other journalist in recent years, says: “KiwiBuild is now a shadow of the huge promise it once was” and that the reset was a “serious humiliation for the Government” – see: KiwiBuild emerges from nine months in the shop a shadow of its former self.

He disputes many of the claims of the Housing Minister. For example, on the notion that the Government is still delivering a significant house ownership programme, he says: “that’s like selling someone a car and delivering a scooter. They both serve the same purpose, but the product is not what was said on the tin.”

As to Megan Woods’ new mantra that “KiwiBuild is a lever, not an outcome”, Cooke says: “That’s fine and good if you’re looking at the housing market from the perspective of a minister, but if you’re a young buyer who thought with 100,000 homes there was sure to be one for you in the mix, KiwiBuild sure as hell was the outcome, and an outcome you wanted. Bad luck.”

Cooke also outlines how the Government is failing to deliver in other areas of housing. And some of the new announcements seem half-baked at this stage – for example, “the fact this progressive home ownership plan has still not gone to Cabinet beggars belief.” And he says that the changes to eligibility will not “change the problems with KiwiBuild thus far.”

As to cancelling the 100,000 house target, and the refusal to replace it with anything new, Cooke says: “Every Government breaks promises made during elections. But few break ones this big and this specific.”

This broken promise will come to haunt Labour in the future, according to Claire Trevett: “it has given Labour a credibility problem. This will cause Labour problems in future elections when they put up similarly ambitious policies. Ambitious is a kind way of saying unbelievable. It gives voters greater cause to doubt whether they can actually deliver. It has, in short, become Labour’s folly” – see: The lesson of KiwiBuild, the Little Engine that couldn’t (paywalled).

The failure to adopt a new target is also a problem for accountability she says: “The 100,000 figure was replaced by the rather more nebulous ‘as many homes as we can’. That is far less pithy – but also much harder to hold the Government to account for.”

This nebulous promise is highlighted by Herald political editor Audrey Young who says: “It is not a line that would be acceptable in many other policy areas. Imagine the farmers saying: ‘We will lower methane emissions as much as we can, as quickly as we can'” – see: KiwiBuild reset – Megan Woods gives masterclass in surrendering to failure (paywalled).

Young says this abandonment of targets is confusing, because in other policy areas Labour is adamant about the importance of such goals – for example: “It is clear the Government can’t make up its mind about targets. It’s good for child poverty reduction to have an overall target and short-term targets, so much so that it is now a statutory requirement to set targets.”

She also marvels at the chutzpah of the new Minister of Housing in selling such negative news as being so positive: “Woods gave a masterclass today in political communication that should impress not only her hapless predecessor, Phil Twyford, but every other member of the Cabinet that could be prone to trouble. Let’s not call it a reset. It was backdown to behold, a political surrender painted as showing courage and honesty to voters.”

Little attention has been directed, so far, at the logic of stripping a fifth off the KiwiBuild budget and putting it into a separate programme for the Greens’ nebulous “rent-to-own” scheme. But Newsroom’s Marc Daalder covers this in his article, KiwiBuild reset shows how badly policy was bungled.

Here’s his main point, questioning the scheme: “the Government concedes that only 4,000 people are expected to benefit from this. That’s 20 percent of the KiwiBuild budget put towards helping put people in just 4 percent of the now-scrapped 100,000 homes. While that money will eventually be paid back to the Government and recycled into KiwiBuild, that could take years. This raises the question: wouldn’t the money be better spent on state housing?”

In terms of Megan Woods’ decision to scrap plans to continue with hundreds of KiwiBuild houses and sell them on the open market, Daalder says: “the entire situation underscores how significantly the Government’s flagship policy was bungled.”

For economist Gareth Kiernan the reset was a missed opportunity, and he laments the “sticking-plaster solutions” that were announced – see: KiwiBuild reset proves Government still doesn’t get it. One preferred solution, he says, would have been to focus more on state housing supply: “the Government has missed the chance to shift its building programme from the middle-class welfare of KiwiBuild to concentrate on social housing, where the needs are evident.”

Kiernan also suggests that other more fundamental problems remain in the housing market, which he argues the Government are not grappling with – especially partnering KiwiBuild with mass construction technologies.

It’s not all bad for the Government. Some commentators have been supportive of the KiwiBuild reset. For example, today Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking says the Housing Minister has been sensible – see: New KiwiBuild Minister Megan Wood showing signs of common sense.

Today’s very congratulatory editorial in the Dominion Post makes the argument that modern governments aren’t equipped to make significant market interventions like KiwiBuild, and therefore Megan Woods is to be commended for recognising this and abandoning “unrealistic” goals – see: After the fantasy, Woods restores some sense in KiwiBuild.

The editorial points out the gist of the new KiwiBuild approach: “The reset KiwiBuild will help fund buyers into new homes, rather than build those houses for them.” Therefore: “The rethink is less a reset and more of a recognition that modern governments no longer have all the answers. Nor the means. They have steadily withdrawn from the many markets and industries they once controlled and must use greater wisdom to understand what they can change, and how to go about it.”

Former CEO of the Property Institute of New Zealand, Ashley Church, awards the Government with a 10 out 10 mark for scrapping the Kiwibuild targets, and a 10 out of 10 for making it easier for buyers with smaller savings to get together a deposit to buy houses on the open market – see: 5% deposits for first home buyers will remedy housing travesty.

Church says Woods “has delivered. The main features of her near-total rewrite of the previous policy have rendered it virtually unrecognisable – but the changes are mostly pragmatic and bring KiwiBuild more into line with the commercial and cyclical realities of the market.”

Finally, for humour about the reset, see The Civilian’s parody news report: Government says it will now build just one really nice home.

By Adelaide Sirox Kari in Port Moresby

Since Papua New Guinea’s EMTV News broadcast a story on an eviction at Red Hills settlement in Port Moresby, many viewers have asked about a student who was shown crying at the site of his demolished home after returning from school on the day of the eviction.

Two bulldozers under police escort destroyed about 250 homes in the settlement a week ago, forcing more than 2000 people – many of them children – to become homeless.

EMTV News visited Tokarara grade 9 student Raydan Repono’s family to see how they have been coping since the eviction.

READ MORE: School children hurt from eviction at Red Hill

It was footage that EMTV News had captured on the day of the eviction that showed a Raydan, overcome with emotion, sitting and looking on helplessly.

He cried at the sight of the place he once called home that was now being demolished before his eyes. For this student and all the other families at the eviction site, life has now become a daily struggle.

EMTV News was able to capture his family scrambling to pack what they could before the bulldozer ripped through Raydan’s home.

Yesterday Raydan explained how he felt that afternoon.

Court battle
What used to be their canteen that had provided income for the family who resided at the area since 2011 was all gone.

Through his tears, Raydan said he hoped they would win the court battle so that his family could rebuild their home again.

While EMTV News spoke with Raydan’s family, Ata Aluao, another evicted victim approached EMTV News asking to share her story also.

Ata’s family was not so lucky as their home and all their belongings were destroyed, but Ata’s real concern was her daughter in Grade 12 and another at Pacific Adventist University (PAU) who now have no roof over their heads.

Since the eviction a stay order was taken in the National Court by the settlers, who are represented under the Redhill’s Association. But even with this stay order a second eviction took place.

EMTV News contacted the Lands Department since the eviction to clarify if 16 portions of land where the eviction took place are under an expired Urban Development Lease.

EMTV News items are republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

by Dr Bryce Edwards

Given the ongoing problems with the Government’s flagship housing policy, it seems inevitable that a major change of direction is required for KiwiBuild. A consensus is growing that the policy either needs to be revamped or replaced with something more effective and ambitious.

Today the New Zealand Herald has called for the Government to “think again about KiwiBuild” – see its editorial: KiwiBuild not only weapon in armoury. The newspaper emphasises that there are other options for dealing with the housing crisis, some of which the Government has already been successfully utilising: “Tax proposals, tenancy laws, banning foreign buyers, state house building and infrastructure bonds were all just as important.”

The problem with KiwiBuild lies at its very core, as it has not been well thought out: “Not much market research appears to have been done before KiwiBuild was adopted. Some should be done if the Government is determined to press on with the programme.”

For the most rigorous and important ideas about fixing KiwiBuild, it’s worth looking at what economist Shamubeel Eaqub proposes. He wrote the original book, “Generation Rent”, about the housing crisis, and especially how it’s impacting on those at the bottom. Two days ago, his strong views about how “KiwiBuild is not fit for purpose” were published in Catherine Harris and Bonnie Flaws’ article, Kiwibuild should build more rental properties economist Shamubeel Eaqub says.

Eaqub argues that it’s time for the government to shift to building rental properties – and perhaps even more state housing. He claims that KiwiBuild’s core focus on increasing home ownership is simply misguided, especially given that the Labour-led Government isn’t willing to adequately fund the programme. The economist says that even if KiwiBuild meets its target of 100,000 houses, and if the private market also builds 250,000 homes, New Zealand will still be short of 200,000 homes. So however you look at it, the Government’s current plans are inadequate: “Not only are we not keeping up with population growth we are not even meeting current need. We need to much more ambitious about scaling it up massively.”

Rental housing has traditionally been the best way to deal with a housing crisis according to Eaqub: “The reason why I think build to rent has to be the answer is because that is how they solved the housing crisis post-war in Europe.”

To achieve a big increase in rental housing, the Government has to go beyond the current KiwiBuild plans: “Eaqub said that the problem is too big to be able to fix with $2 billion, the size of KiwiBuild’s fund. Instead he said we could partner with institutional investors to build rental properties or use the deep pool of money in Kiwisaver.”

Back in December, Eaqub also made the case for the Government to move more into providing rental accommodation rather than the less-affordable KiwiBuild houses, saying that the market doesn’t have the capacity to provide much social housing: “At the moment there is no one who can really do that, but if the Government says we’re in the market to essentially procure X thousand units of ‘build to rents,’ and we’re going to underwrite the rent at some kind of indexation, the stuff would be built” – see Catherine Harris’ Kiwibuild could ‘underwrite rental and social housing’.

For further critiques of KiwiBuild by Eaqub, see Dan Satherley’s KiwiBuild: Government ‘recalibrating’ targets for under-fire housing scheme. In this, the economist argues that KiwiBuild is currently the wrong solution to the problem. He says it was “never going to fix the underlying problems of the housing market”, which include “planning rules, infrastructure and funding for local government”.

He reiterates that just trying to get prospective homeowners into brand new houses is the wrong approach: “The new houses are expensive. In reality, what we really want to do is increase the supply of rental stock. That’s what New Zealand desperately needs – good quality rental stock that’s owned by institutions and well-managed.”

Also questioning the focus on brand new houses is Massey University economist Oscar Lau, who says: “why do the homes have to be brand sparkling new? New properties inevitably attract high bids and poorer families who just want to own a modest home will miss out. Instead of building new homes, the Government could buy a wide range of existing properties of different sizes, ages and in different neighbourhoods – and auction them off to qualified buyers” – see: An alternative to KiwiBuild that makes economic sense.

Therefore, KiwiBuild could be selling existing homes rather than building new ones, and leave the expensive new homes to the private market. Lau explains further: “This way the Government doesn’t need to meddle in property development. It doesn’t need to struggle with construction schedules. To avoid exciting the market, it would need to buy gradually and orderly, rather than splurge. More importantly, it could release some KiwiBuild land to the market for development, so new supply will balance its purchases.”

If the Government is determined to focus on home ownership, then it’s going to have to get more ambitious, and find some bigger and better ways of delivering. One such way is to use mass prefabrication, which the Government has so far been reluctant to invest in with KiwiBuild, probably because of the initial cost outlays.

Other countries have, however, successfully used mass prefabrication to solve housing crises. For the best outline of this, see Catherine Harris’ The key to Sweden’s million houses target – and Kiwibuild’s.

Here’s the key part of the article: “If you think the Government’s KiwiBuild target to fix the housing shortage is overly ambitious, just look at Sweden. In 1965, with a population of 8 million, the Nordic country began its ‘Million Homes’ plan to build 10 times as many houses as New Zealand’s target within 10 years. By the end of 1974, it had exceeded its target by 6000… How did they do it? Largely through prefabrication.”

In this story Harris says, “Research suggests offsite manufacturing can slash 15 per cent off the cost of building and speed up the time it takes by 60 per cent.”

One person with an interest in this is Warehouse founder Stephen Tindall, who says “You can construct houses for almost half the price that they cost here” – see the Herald’s If anyone can bring house prices down, it’s him: REINZ welcomes Tindall’s KiwiBuild interest.

According to this story, “The Real Estate Institute has backed Warehouse founder Sir Stephen Tindall’s interest in KiwiBuild, indicating that if anyone can bring down house prices in this country, it’s him. Bindi Norwell, REINZ chief executive, welcomed Tindall’s announcement that he was assisting one of the 102 off-site manufacturing KiwiBuild tender parties”.

Perhaps, therefore, the Government just needs to contract one big company to progress KiwiBuild. This is the view of “construction industry expert” John Tookey, who is reported as arguing that KiwiBuild “would have been more efficient to award a large scale contract to one company” – see Emma Hatton’s Building industry not surprised KiwiBuild won’t hit target.

The same article also suggests that the current KiwiBuild bureaucratic processes need streamlining. Property Council chief executive Leonie Freeman is reported explaining why developers haven’t been more involved in KiwiBuild: “Some of the feedback we’ve received is that from then on the process has been slow and very bureaucratic.”

Others in the construction industry are forecasting some big changes to KiwiBuild. For example, Property Institute chief executive Ashley Church outlines expected alterations: “This will take the form of changes to eligibility criteria, a coordinated Government ‘charm offensive’ to private developers, or some form of state subsidisation or delayed payment, or any combination of these” – see Catherine Harris and Bonnie Flaws’ article, Kiwibuild should build more rental properties economist Shamubeel Eaqub says.

The same article also draws attention to the Government’s progress on establishing Urban Development Authorities (“UDAs have the power like the NZ Transport Authority to use the Public Works Act if necessary to confiscate land”), and the promise to establish some sort of “shared equity scheme” for new home buyers.

In terms of possible rent-to-own schemes, it’s worth reading Stephen Forbes’ The Labour-Greens confidence & supply agreement promotes ‘progressive’ housing ownership models.

Here’s the key part: “Under the confidence and supply agreement between the Greens and Labour, both parties agreed to develop a rent-to-own scheme, or a similar progressive ownership model, as part of the KiwiBuild programme. Despite comments from minister for housing and urban development Phil Twyford last year that the Government was looking at the feasibility of shared equity housing, no details have been officially announced to date.”

But is the problem of the housing affordability crisis even one of supply? This is apparently what KiwiBuild is predicated on, and Peter Lyons challenges this in his column, Housing issue more complex than Govt might have thought.

Finally, is the Labour-led Government even inclined to fix KiwiBuild? Chris Trotter has written an extensive and insightful column about how the KiwiBuild scheme was created specifically within Labour to uphold neoliberal or conservative policy settings, and therefore there will be little appetite amongst the “Labour right” to bring about a housing programme based on “transformation” or “kindness” – see: On how middle class housing subsidies overwhelmed the social housing priorities of the Labour Party’s rank-and-file members.

by Dr Bryce Edwards

Is the Labour-led Government “disconnected from reality” over its fledgling house-building programme? KiwiBuild minister, Phil Twyford, says he is “pretty gutted” by his realisation that the house building agenda will fail to get anywhere near its targets this year. 

It’s merely the latest in a long-line of bad publicity, stuff-ups, and questions for the Kiwibuild scheme. And this will have many voters and aspiring home-owners losing confidence in the Government’s housing plans. And inevitably KiwiBuild is once again picking up new nicknames – such as “KiwiBusted”, “KiwiFraud”, or Simon Bridges’ chosen term, “KiwiFlop”.

Disconnected from reality?

It was only a few months ago that Phil Twyford was laying into critics and even government officials who suggested KiwiBuild might not deliver the promised number of houses on time. For example, when Treasury forecast that Kiwibuild was only going to have half its forecast impact on construction, Twyford rebuked the officials, saying “Some of these kids in Treasury are fresh out of university, and they are completely disconnected from reality”.

Now Twyford has had his own reality check, and yesterday told media that he wasn’t going to be able to deliver on promised Kiwibuild numbers for this year. While the Government is promising 100,000 affordable KiwiBuild houses, the target for July of this year is only 1000, of which only 33 appear to have eventuated.

This is all best covered by Henry Cooke in his news report, Phil Twyford says only 300 KiwiBuild homes are due to be finished by July, which quotes the minister saying “It’s clear now that we won’t meet our first year target, and that’s a real disappointment to me… It’s been tougher than we expected for the first year.”

In this story, Opposition spokesperson Judith Collins is trenchant in holding Twyford to account: “He clearly cannot do the job. He’s been a minister since November of 2017 and delivered 33 homes – in that same time the private sector has built 35200… He’s got no excuse because he had this portfolio in opposition for over six years. He should have worked out how hard it is to have interventions in the property market.”

Although the Government has promised 1000 houses by July of this year, Twyford isn’t confident enough that they will even deliver 500, according to Jenna Lynch, who also reveals that some KiwiBuild houses aren’t selling to first home buyers and are being released onto the market, “defeating the whole point of the programme” – see: KiwiBuild houses might not end up with first home buyers.

Twyford has been joined by both Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Finance Minister Grant Robertson in conceding defeat on the KiwiBuild numbers, but Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters isn’t giving up – see Jason Walls’ Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters still thinks 1000 KiwiBuild houses can be built by July.

Having been asked about the targets, Peters told reporters today: “We’re not giving up at all – we’ve got six months to wind this up as fast as we can, and practically we will.” He added: “We’re going to recommit ourselves in our first Cabinet meeting to getting this thing back on track.”

Ongoing problems with KiwiBuild

In explaining KiwiBuild’s failure to reach its targets, Phil Twyford appears to be pointing the finger at the construction industry and developers. He said yesterday that “It’s been more difficult than we expected to really shift developers off their existing business model which is about getting a return on capital from small numbers of mid to high end homes.”

The Minister also talked about this last year in an interview with Newsroom’s Thomas Coughlan, in which he characterised setbacks as merely “teething problems” – see: Twyford on his hopes for 2019. Apparently, Twyford “believes the teething issues have come from the state of the residential construction sector, which is dominated by small firms, with low productivity, who are incentivised to build expensive rather than affordable homes.”

There are some other problems with the KiwiBuild scheme. Anne Gibson, for example, looks at some of the figures listed on KiwiBuild’s official website and finds that although 46,807 people registered as being interested in KiwiBuild, only 267 have actually become “pre-qualified” to purchase a house – see: KiwiBuild monitor: 33 complete, 967 to go by July, Twyford says target ‘tough’.

In response to the low numbers of eligible buyers, Mike Hosking wrote last year about these figures: “You would have heard of the thousands that applied, of course. The Government wanted you to hear that. The thousands that signed up for the updates, the thousands that showed an interest. But an interest isn’t a deposit, it isn’t a deal, and it certainly isn’t a sale” – see: So where’s all the KiwiBuild buyers then?

Hosking has also written earlier this week on the housing programme, summing up the alleged failings of the scheme, so far: “the homes that aren’t built, the homes that don’t sell, the tenders that don’t attract bidders, the prices that are too high, the locations that don’t parent right, the sizes that don’t suit” – see: New Year, same old KiwiBuild stuff-ups.

In this column Hosking looks at the mystery surrounding ex-KiwiBuild CEO Stephen Barclay, who has resigned. He comments: “yet another cock-up in a long line of cock-ups that’s plagued this grandiose farce since day one.” And he complains that “no one is fronting in terms of just what has gone wrong”.

There is plenty of speculation about why Barclay has stepped down. For the most plausible, see economist Gareth Kiernan’s article, Resignation another step to KiwiBuild failure. He suggests that perhaps Barclay had his “wings clipped” with the organisational re-configuration that happened last year in the KiwiBuild programme. And if so, “the prospects of getting a new head of KiwiBuild with the initiative to turn Phil Twyford’s dreams into reality seem slimmer than ever”.

What happens next?

Given the apparent mess that the KiwiBuild programme is in, should it be scrapped? Should the Government go back to the drawing board? Or should the Minister responsible be sacked?

Unsurprisingly, Judith Collins is calling for Twyford to go. She was on TVNZ’s Breakfast today giving advice to the Prime Minister: “I would say to Jacinda Ardern, a bit of advice for someone who has been in politics a little bit longer, to shift Phil at her next reshuffle because if she doesn’t I’m going to have so much fun over the next year” – see: Judith Collins: Ardern should dump Twyford over KiwiBuild – ‘If she doesn’t, I’m going to have fun’. Collins also forecasts KiwiBuild’s “demise inside 12 months”.

On The AM Show, Duncan Garner suggested Twyford needed to go, saying “you’ve flopped Phil… In any other world, Phil Twyford would be dog-tucker, out” – see: Duncan Garner lets rip on ‘toxic’ KiwiBuild not hitting targets. But, despite the “poisonous” failure of KiwiBuild, he says that Twyford will be “protected for now”.

Garner also suggests that the Labour-led Government needs to look again at the whole KiwiBuild programme: “Freeze this policy, rethink it, even ditch it, it’s been changed so much anyway who knows what it even stands for now.”

Over on Newstalk ZB, Mike Hosking declared that the minister is “deluded” and “so far out of their depth it’s dangerous” – see: KiwiBuild fiasco is far from over.

But there’s also a fair bit of praise for Twyford: “I tell you what I do admire about Phil Twyford, the embattled, bewildered Housing Minister: At least he fronts. He fronted with me yesterday, and took a pasting because you can’t hide or argue your way around the cluster or calamity of facts and the avalanche of bad news that’s fallen down on top of him. But at least he is there to actually fight his corner. Many people these days run and hide. I also admire him for bulldozing over the Unitary Plans in places, like Auckland, where for years councils have refused to make enough land available for building.”

So, should Twyford be sacked? The Spinoff’s Alex Braee writes about the issue today, and he agrees that the Minister deserves to be fired, pointing out that Twyford’s mistakes are worse than those of sacked minister Clare Curran: “This failure is vastly more serious, both in political perception terms, and in terms of how much of a real world impact it has” – see: Kiwibuild set to fail at first hurdle.

Yet Braae declares that it is better that Twyford stays: “Perhaps a more fitting punishment for Mr Twyford, after presiding over a horrendous botch of one of the government’s most important policies, would be that he has no choice but to continue. Then again, there’s a cabinet reshuffle expected early this year, so someone else might find themselves with the nightmare job of fixing this.”

Finally, despite all the criticism and pessimism about Kiwibuild, there are still some enthusiasts pointing out the arguments in its favour. For the best effort, see Barnaby Bennett’s What almost everyone is missing about KiwiBuild.

Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk

Tourists have been fleeing the Indonesian island of Lombok since yesterday after a magnitude-6.9 earthquake killed at least 98 people – a death toll expected to rise, reports Al Jazeera.

More than 200 people were seriously injured in Sunday’s shallow quake as rescue workers scrambled to reach survivors in remote areas.

National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the damage was “massive” in northern Lombok. In several districts, more than half of homes were destroyed or severely damaged.

READ MORE: What you need to know about the Lombok earthquake

Al Jazeera reports Nugroho saying the death toll will “definitely increase”, adding more than 20,000 people had been displaced.

Thousands of buildings collapsed, especially in the north, near the earthquake’s epicentre, and power and communications were down in some areas on the popular tourist island.

A tsunami alert was issued immediately after the quake struck, sending panicked people running to higher ground, but it was later rescinded, Al Jazeera reports.

“When it happened, we stood with residents in the middle of the street and watched houses collapse around us,” said Yustrianda Sirio, who was visiting the island.

‘Screamed hysterically’
“Many of us screamed hysterically.”

Some airlines have added extra flights to help tourists leave the island, while about 1200 foreign and domestic tourists were evacuated by boat from three Gili islands off Lombok’s northwest coast, said Nugroho.

Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen, reporting from Tanjung in northern Lombok (see video), said: “The destruction here is unbelievable.

“After there was a tsunami alert yesterday, a lot of [tourists] panicked; they climbed into trees, they ran into the hills, a lot of people got injured there,” she said.

“There’s no arrangement, there’s no transport, there’s no food, there’s no water for them, so a lot of them are completely lost, they’re completely confused, still scared and the only thing they’re telling me is that they want to leave the country as soon as possible.”

The Indonesian military said it was sending a vessel with medical aid and supplies and would provide logistical support.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz