Be very nervous. 

That’s my advice regarding the Government’s big re-set for state housing provider Kāinga Ora. 

Don’t get me wrong. Some of the stuff it’s doing makes perfect sense. But, overall, there’s potential for it to be a real cluster. 

Let’s start with the positives, though. It seemed to me that, under Labour, Kāinga Ora had become some sort of urban development agency. 

In fact, I’m pretty sure that was the pipedream old Phil Twyford had back in the day.  

Which, when you think about it, is somewhat ironic given it was Labour that came up with the plan in the first place to have the state provide a roof over the heads of people who can’t afford their own place. 

You would think that Labour, of all parties, would have the basic gist of the state housing programme embedded in its DNA.  

So, tick: I’m all for housing minster Chris Bishop’s plan to get Kāinga Ora to focus on its knitting - which is to provide houses and be a good landlord. 

The Government’s also going to sell 800 or 900 state houses a year and demolish about 700. These will, generally, be the old-school weatherboard and tile jobs. The places that people talk about having “good bones”. 

Two hundred of the ones that are going to be sold are worth around $2 million each - which has more to do with their locations. Some of them are in places like Remuera. 

And that makes sense to me. Although, to be fair, Kāinga Ora has already been doing this. The Government’s just getting it to do more sell-offs.  

And it’s going to replace them with new builds. It’s also going to do some alterations to other existing properties. 

And the upshot is - according to the Government, anyway - is the number of state houses will stay the same as it is now. 

Woohoo! Big deal! 

Because, when you think about the fact that there is a social housing waiting list with 20,000 people on it; plus 1,000 households living in emergency housing; the Government crowing about keeping the number of state houses the same is a pretty hollow. 

On top of that.. According to the last census, there are also 5,000 people living “without shelter”. 

So you take all of those numbers and, surely, it tells you that we should have more state houses than we do now.  

In fact, not should - we need to have more state houses than we have now. 

You’d think so. Well I would, anyway. Not Chris Bishop, though.  

Labour, of course, is ripping into the Government. Saying that this plan shows it’s more interested in cost-cutting then housing people. Which I agree with. 

And it’s one reason why I’m saying we should be very nervous about what the Government is doing. 

The other reason - in fact, the main reason why I’m saying we should be nervous about the Government’s new plan for state housing - comes down to 14 seconds from the minister’s interview with Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB this morning. 

I heard him and thought 'hang on a minute'. 

He said: "Fifty percent of people on the register, they just need a one-bedroom unit. They don't need a three or four-bedroom unit, they just need a one-bedroom unit. And, actually, we can build that really cheaply and some of the stuff we're doing on the granny flats, for example, making it easier to build one or two-bedroom granny flats on properties will make a real difference there."  

He’s right when he talks about what types of properties people need.  

This has been known for quite a while. Which is why we've seen Kāinga Ora demolish some of those big houses and replace them with more smaller homes on the same site. 

And the reason more and more people only need one bedroom is because we do not have as many large families anymore. Society is way different from back in the day when Michael Joseph Savage turned up at 12 Fife Street in Miramar in 1937 to open the very first state house. 

So yep I get all that. 

But when we get the housing minister talking about granny flats and state houses in the same breath, that’s when we need to start getting nervous. 

Especially when you join the dots to the minister’s announcement yesterday where he said: “Ministers are clear that Kāinga Ora should be building or acquiring simple, functional, warm and dry houses, as quickly and efficiently as possible.” 

Which, for me, is code for a whole bunch of one-bedroom granny flats built in a rip, shit and bust fashion. 

And we should be very nervous about that prospect. 

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