Housing Minister Megan Woods must explain why her claims of change at Kāinga Ora should be taken seriously when its CE and senior leaders defiantly defended their decision to publish an advertisement about a Labour Party candidate, even after being admonished by the Minister, National’s Housing spokesperson Nicola Willis says.

“Minister Woods previously assured Parliament that Kāinga Ora had learnt its lesson over its flawed decision to publish an advertisement about Labour candidate Arena Williams, stating that she had written ‘to the organisation on 3 August, making it clear that this was well short of my expectations’.

“Emails I revealed in Parliament today show Kāinga Ora ignored that criticism, thumbing their nose at the Minister when these issues were raised publicly.

“These emails show senior staff at Kāinga Ora in November saying a number of concerning things:

• A General Manager saying ‘I don’t like the implication of apology from us when we did no wrong’; and
• The Chief Executive saying ‘…as I am sure you will have been told, the judgement call you made was fine, I am happy to stand behind you on it. This little maelstrom will pass quickly, I just hope it doesn’t make you too risk averse!...’
• The Chief Executive saying ‘the key issue for the Minister is the comments in your emails rather than the decision per se’

“Kāinga Ora’s senior leadership clearly have not taken the Minister’s concerns seriously and have refused to take responsibility for their actions, months after concerns were first expressed to them by the Minister.

“I’m also astonished that even after the damning report into this saga was released last week by the Public Service Commission, no one at Kāinga Ora has been held accountable for its failure to meet its duties as a custodian of taxpayer money.

“I will now write to the Public Service Commissioner to express my renewed concerns over the comments made in these newly-released emails, as it appears as if he was not privy to these during his investigation.

“New Zealanders deserve much better from an agency that employs more than a dozen people on salaries in excess of $300,000 a year.

“Minister Woods must explain why she continues to have confidence in the leadership of Kāinga Ora when not one person has been held accountable for these extraordinary failings.”

Please find a timeline of events here and excerpts of Kāinga Ora’s Official Information Act response here.