Since Labour came to office, it has spent $1.4 billion paying for people to live in motels, National’s Housing spokesperson Chris Bishop says.

“Emergency housing is a social and economic disaster. It has proved ruinous for taxpayers and catastrophic for thousands of families around the country.

“Labour has simply been writing big cheques to motel owners to try to wish the problem away. Their “hear no evil, see no evil” approach to the problem has now created a permanent government machine dedicated to overseeing nearly $1 million of taxpayers’ money per day paid to motel owners.

“People in emergency housing now spend an average of 23.1 weeks in emergency housing, up from 3.5 weeks in December 2017. People are staying longer, the government is spending more and there is no end in sight, with Budget 2023 documents forecasting hundreds of millions to be spent in the coming years.

“Labour’s attempts to get on top of this problem have been an embarrassing failure. Budget 2022 allocated $355 million for a “reset” of the system but a year later just $600,000 has been spent.

“Labour has overseen a housing catastrophe. As well as the thousands of families living in motels, 480 live in cars, the social housing waitlist has quadrupled to over 24,000 families, and rents are up $170 per week.

“National will supercharge social housing, adopt a Social Investment approach to getting support to people who need it, end Labour’s war on landlords, and work with the private sector and community providers to house people in need. We will also comprehensively overhaul our planning and infrastructure funding system so that New Zealand goes for housing growth.”