As the clubbing of Twyford in the house continued yesterday I did a bit of research into his housing commitments and various reports from treasury and MBIE.

Judith Collins had him all at sea over costings and eligibility for KiwiBuild homes plus the revelation that Auckland Council are set to slam developers with a $50,000 per section charge that will increase house prices even further.

Just last week Phil Twyford was abusing treasury officials, calling them kids fresh out of university. This was after their report that suggested his claims and plans were rather heroic. Quote:

Housing Minister Phil Twyford has called Treasury officials kids “fresh out of university” who have got their figures wrong on the impact of Kiwibuild on residential investment.

In Treasury’s Half Year Update it had forecast around $5.4 billion of additional investment in the period to 2023 associated with the Government’s house-building programme in the period to 2023.

In yesterday’s Budget Economic and Fiscal Update 2018, Treasury had halved the figure over the same period to $2.5b. While it said the investment activity was not lost, it believed it would take longer.

“This activity is not lost, but instead a greater proportion is assumed to occur outside the forecast period.”

Asked how Treasury could have got it wrong, Twyford told reporters: “I just think some of these kids in Treasury are fresh out of university and they’re are completely disconnected from reality.”

“I don’t agree with Treasury’s numbers. They’ve made some very questionable assumptions,” Twyford told reporters today.

“Unfortunately, the bean counters in Treasury are somewhat disconnected from reality. The officials in MBIE, who are much closer to the industry and are actually involved with making Kiwibuild happen, they actually estimate that the impact on investment could be as much as $11 billion for the same period,” he said. End quote.

He got told off for that. Note he said that he valued officials from MBIE above those from treasury. Yet, just two months ago, he was slamming MBIE officials for wrong advice on KiwiBuild: Quote:

Housing Minister Phil Twyford has dismissed figures from his own officials suggesting KiwiBuild homes will be much less affordable than the Government has claimed.

Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) documents released to Newshub Nation last week under the Official Information Act suggested first-home buyers would need a household income of $114,000 a year to afford a so-called affordable $600,000 KiwiBuild home.

That’s above the average nationwide household income of $98,000, and just shy of the Auckland average of about $120,000.

Mr Twyford had previously estimated $60,000 would be enough.

“I just don’t think the MBIE modelling was very accurate or true to what’s going on,” he told The AM Show on Friday morning.

“It depends how you do the modelling – it depends on interest rates, the term of the mortgage, the price of the house. It depends on those assumptions.”

He said he trusts data from property analysts CoreLogic over that from MBIE, calling it “much more true”.

“I don’t agree with all the advice we get from officials.” End quote.

It certainly looks like Phil Twyford doesn’t trust MBIE either… despite his later assertion that he did.

The other possibility is that both tresury and MBIE are right and that it is the minister who is wrong.

Unfortunately, he is so vainglorious that he will never admit he is wrong.

Jacinda Arden has shown how silly she is by attacking treasury for advice on Phil Twyford’s forlorn KiwiBuild project: Quote:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says her housing minister was wrong to call Treasury officials “kids” – but has sided with him in disagreeing with their view that the Government’s Kiwibuild promises are too ambitious.

But rather than get personal, the Government would “just get on and build houses” to prove Treasury wrong, Ardern said. End quote.

Good luck with that. Seven months down the track and all Twyford has done is relabel some houses started under National. Not a single new house has been built or planned. Quote:

Housing Minister Phil Twyford last week slammed the “kids at Treasury” over an analysis that halved the impact Kiwbuild would have on residential construction, which contradicted a sunnier forecast from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

In the Budget documentation on Thursday, Treasury analysts reduced the amount of additional residential investment they believe the Government’s flagship Kiwibuild policy will bring in by 2023, down from $5.4b in December to $2.5b last week.

The prediction does not point to the number of homes actually being built, but does look into the value of additional residential investment as part of the home-building scheme – value that mostly comes from actual home construction.

Twyford called Treasury “kids” who were “fresh out of university and they’re completely disconnected from reality”.

Ardern said she and Finance Minister Grant Robertson also disagreed with Treasury over its Kiwibuild forecasts.

“In fact MBIE take a different view from Treasury and that’s not unusual … we often have two government departments with competing views.

“One of the things Treasury hasn’t taken into account, for instance … some of the elements of Kiwibuild which include buying off the plans so there are some different mechanisms they’ve used to make those forecasts.” End quote.

Treasury are pretty smart. Attacking them like this shows how much pressure the government are under. Quote:

Twyford’s comments have upset public sector union the PSA. Its national secretary, Glenn Barclay, said it was disappointed by the minister’s “personalised” comments.

“It is public servants’ job to give free, frank and fearless advice to politicians. Sometimes, this will involve giving those politicians advice they do not like – but that is their role in ensuring an open and transparent democracy,” Barclay said.

“The age of the public servants who prepared this advice is irrelevant, as their work is endorsed by their Department – in this case, Treasury. We would hope the Minister reflects on this incident and chooses not to take this tack in the future.” End quote.

It is poor form, especially considering that when in opposition Labour’s then leader, Andrew Little, attacked Gerry Brownlee for criticising treasury: Quote:

Labour Party leader Andrew Little has called Mr Brownlee arrogant for dismissing the report.

Treasury produced “considered reports” that provided options to ministers, he said.

“It is totally wrong and arrogant in my view for a minister of Gerry Brownlee’s seniority to be dismissing that work in the way that he has.” End quote.

Maybe Jacinda might like to have a chat with Andrew Little about her and Twyford’s arrogance.

Sneaky Phil Goff has landed himself in a spot of bother with his underhanded and furtive manner in dealing with LGOIMA requests. The NZ Herald reports: Quote:

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff is being investigated by the Ombudsman for refusing to give councillors a full copy of a stadium report they can only see under guard by his mayoral staff.

Councillor Cathy Casey said the Ombudsman’s office had acknowledged a complaint she made yesterday about the mayor’s behaviour.

In a response to Casey, an investigator from the Office of the Ombudsman, Nick Kenney, said the office was considering the issue she had raised on an “urgent basis”.

Labour councillor Efeso Collins said he had also requested a full copy of the report through the Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman has the power to recommend solutions or remedies, which public agencies have a duty to comply with. End quote.

Both Casey and Collins are left-wing councillors. They aren’t the only ones angry, either: Quote:

Several councillors are livid with Goff for only giving them a redacted version of a $932,000 PwC report for a national stadium in the central city – and making them come to his office to see the full copy under the guard of mayoral staff.

Goff was not available for comment today, but a mayoral spokesman said it was the first time under his leadership a commercially sensitive report had not been made available in full to councillors.

He said a number of councillors had seen the full report in the mayor’s office and were happy with the arrangement.

In a letter to the Ombudsman, Casey said after being told she could only see the full report in the mayor’s office she felt “completely undermined and untrusted as an elected ward councillor Auckland Council”.

“Can the Mayor impose such restrictions of me? Can he really withhold in part a report paid for by ratepayers’ money?” Casey asked the Ombudsman.

Councillor Mike Lee said on Facebook that pages and pages of the PwC report given to councillors were completely blacked out.

“Extraordinary. I have never seen anything like it … it would seem the CIA is a model of transparency compared to Auckland Council,” he said.

Albany councillors John Watson and Wayne Walker have seen the full report under the watch of mayoral staff, but were not allowed to copy it or take it away.

“It’s pretty insulting behaviour. PwC are paid nearly $1 million for this and we are not allowed to have a full copy and reflect on it,” Watson said. End quote.

Disgraceful and underhanded behaviour from Phil Goff and his staff. Quote:

Goff, who called for the report after being elected in October 2016, has used its findings to discuss plans for a new national stadium in downtown Auckland with Sports Minister Grant Robertson.

He told the Herald on Friday a downtown stadium could be configured for Super Rugby and NRL matches, test matches, and large concerts at a cost of between $1.1 billion and $1.5b.

The PwC report said a national football stadium “would bring tremendous economic and social benefits to Auckland and New Zealand”, including major events attracting local residents and visitors, jobs and environmentally sustainable design and operating solutions.

Large-scale stadiums require considerable investment but are “highly unlikely to be able to generate returns that can cover the cost of securing that capital“, the report said.

It has recommended proceeding to the next stage of developing a master plan for a national stadium.

Goff has no sign-off from the 20 councillors to proceed further with a national stadium and planning committee chairman Chris Darby has said there will not be a “single dollar” in the new 10-year budget for a stadium.

Goff said the report had identified six possible locations for a national stadium, citing commercially sensitivity for not naming them. End quote.

What we have here is a report that doesn’t really fit with the narrative that Goff wants to advance, so he withheld it, then massaged its release, but not before he lined up Grant Robertson for a discussion over funding. I’ll bet that Robertson was never shown the report either.

Goff has been caught metaphorically, like his predecessor, pants down. This time, thankfully, not in the Ngati Whatua room.

Jacinda Ardern is saying the government need to do more on poverty and they plan to do so. Radio NZ reports: Quote:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the government has more work to do when it comes to helping the country’s poorest families.

The Child Poverty Action Group has raised concerns about the $5.5 billion families package not doing enough for the children of the worst-off families.

The group wanted benefit sanctions removed for families where there are children, as well as changes to the amount of money beneficiaries could earn before their payments were docked.

But there was no action on that in the Budget.  

Economics spokesperson Susan St John said people working on the front line with those families were seeing a growing amount of distress.

“Many families simply do not have enough to eat and that is not good enough for a developed country,” she said.

Ms Ardern said the poorest families would have more money in their pockets through the families package, which kicks in on 1 July.

That was only a first step, she said.

“We’re now undertaking a piece of work around the way our welfare system works and I do expect to see further recommendations off the back of that too.” End quote.

First, though, they have to help rich kids at university, and plow a billion dollars into foreign affairs and subsidising sexy horses.

Once that is all taken care of then they can help the poor.

Jacinda Ardern stated her entire reason for being in politics was to alleviate poverty yet, by every measure since becoming prime minister and being in a position where she can actually make a difference, she has failed. She has preferred rich kids over poor kids, preferred diplomats over poor kids, sexy horses over child poverty and virtue signalling over substance. She’s closed well-performing charter schools out of spite and ideology, despite posing for selfies with kids from those same schools. She won’t front them and she won’t meet them and tell them why she’s closed their schools. She said she’d visit Taranaki the week after she returned from meeting the Queen… and seems to have lost the map to get there or can’t programme the GPS in her Tesla.

If she was a bloke we’d say she is all mouth and no trousers. Her sloganeering is becoming tiresome.

Stuff had a big story yesterday headlined “There’s less crime but more people in prison“.

They have some fancy interactives:

Well, duh!

It is simple stuff really, but Stuff can’t seem to get the correlation. The left just can’t figure that crime is going down because more crims are getting locked up… not in spite of them being locked up.

It stands to reason that if you lock up ratbags and keep them locked up they are no longer out on the streets committing more of the crimes that put them in prison in the first place.

These charts show that the system is working. Being tough on crime works.

Unfortunately, the crim-hugging wombles out there think that because crime is reducing we can let criminals out. That is seriously wonky thinking. Most of the people in prison are in there for violent or sexual crimes. If they are let out they will likely commit more of those crimes, and so if Andrew Little gets his way he may well, literally, have blood on his hands

What on earth was Jacinda Ardern thinking when she started channelling Ed Miliband? Quote:

New Zealand knows it has poverty issues, and an emerging class of working poor, but we’re not paying enough attention to the “squeezed middle”, Jacinda Ardern says.

On Thursday, the prime minister and her finance minister, Grant Robertson, will deliver their first Budget.

Ardern has spoken extensively about rebuilding the foundations of good health and education systems, but there are specific groups of Kiwis she hopes the Budget will help.

On Wednesday, Ardern said as well as helping those in poverty, and the working poor, the Government also needed to help those middle New Zealanders feeling the pinch.  

“There is this other cohort of people who just feel like some of these services aren’t accessible, and we don’t pay enough attention to that,” she said.

Ardern was referring to people who were working, but were feeling the squeeze due to a range of factors, like high housing costs.

Other costs, like the upkeep of a car and petrol, school-related costs, and things like GP visits added to the daily struggle.

And while unemployment is at its lowest in a decade – at 4.4 per cent in March – wage growth has stagnated, meaning after costs, a growing number of households had barely any discretionary income.

Almost 50 per cent of Kiwi families say they’re just getting by day-to-day due to financial issues, according to the Salvation Army.

Ardern said the Government had changed the threshhold of Working for Families payments, to try and capture more of the country’s working poor and squeezed middle.

The payments would mean 380,000 families would have an average of $75 more in their pocket a week.

Other measures, including cheaper GP visits and improved healthcare and education systems would also help these people, she said. End quote.

Lovely slogans invented by someone else. Quote:

Miliband also returned to the theme he enunciated in his first newspaper article after he became Labour leader in 2010, which was published in the Sunday Telegraph. In that piece Miliband pledged to champion Britain’s “squeezed middle”.

The Labour leader talked of how the middle classes are facing a squeeze, though in a slight change of wording he stopped short of talking about the “squeezed middle”. He wrote: “Today, the British middle class is being squeezed by a cost-of-living crisis as never before – and people grafting to join it find that the obstacles in their way are getting bigger… No one saw this protracted squeeze on the middle coming.” End quote.

They’re done. They are so out of ideas they are now stealing UK Labour’s slogans from 2014.

Jacinda Ardern has always been the master of the bumper sticker slogan – it is as deep as she gets. But it is really sad to see her resorting to using failed UK Labour leader Ed Miliband’s failed slogans. Or, was it one of Nancy Pelosi’s failed slogans? Quote:

Former U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi used the term in November 2006 to provide context to the domestic agenda of the U.S. Democratic Party. The Center for American Progress (CAP) issued a report of the same title in September 2014.However, variations on the theme have been used by politicians attempting to describe the financial challenges facing the middle class and to appeal to the middle class voter for much longer. End quote.

Poor Jacinda Ardern. She’s been reading too many leftist treatises and has loaded up her baby-brain with failed slogans from other losers.

Duncan Garner calls Phil Twyford’s Kiwibuild scam for what it is, a hoax: Quote:

Seriously, what has Labour and its MPs been doing these last nine years? Eating their lunch?

We’d been led to believe its flagship Kiwibuild idea was this amazing, smart and innovative housing policy.

We’d been told it was an answer to the housing crisis for those who couldn’t get into their first home.

I was thinking wow, our best architects and planners had come up with something very new and impressive and all on a large scale. I was thinking, think big, but 2018 style.

And I assumed KiwiBuild meant just that;  as Housing Minister Phil Twyford said, 100,000 homes would be built.

Now we learn, um no, that’s not the case. It’s Kiwibuy, that house, your house, any house will do. End quote.

Labour promised additional houses on top of what the private sector was producing. Now they are buying up private sector developments and not adding a single extra house. Quote:

Labour has simply thrown its arms up in the air and put up a classified advertisement the size of a house that calls for all houses to be bought and sold as Kiwibuild dwellings. Labour wants the biggest shortcut to success possible.

It wants to buy current homes under construction or off the plans and call them Kiwibuild’s own. It’s a total hoax.

And what, Labour suddenly wants to partner up with the private sector? How convenient. End quote.

Private sector partnerships for schools are evil, but not for building affordable homes? Quote:

What happened to development on a genuine scale and with true Government buying power. End quote.

Another slogan with no substance behind it. Quote:

Sure, Labour and the 100,000 homes promise was impressive and is ambitious, but just how many new homes will it really provide on top of what was being built anyway.

It may be just marketing and a bit of spit and polish when someone else did the hard work.

To me, it looks like Labour and Twyford have made this all up on the back of a moving envelope.

It is underwhelming nonsense from a party that looks bewildered and blinded by the size of the challenge. It lacks detail. End quote.

The answer as to how many new homes it will provide is none. This is a zero-sum game. For every house that Twyford’s billions buy is a private sector dwelling taken by the government. Not a single new house is going to be built this way and the deficit between what was promised and what is actually delivered growing by the day. They are already more than 5,400 houses behind schedule. Quote:

Maybe we trusted them too much in the face of the National government that had buried its head in the hands of the brutal market and the forces that come with that.

Perhaps Labour was just lazily waiting its turn to govern, but this week’s revealed no-one anywhere did the hard work. It’s a public downtrou. End quote.

Nine years in opposition, just waiting to govern again, with no work or effort. Think about the arrogance behind that. Quote:

What sort of grip does Twyford have on his own beast of a policy when he doesn’t even know the entry price point of a one-bedroom place? It’s worse, actually: he wrongly hiked prices by 10 per cent. Hardly good enough.

I’ve been told three figures: under $500k, $500k and closer to $550k.

Twyford told me on The AM Show yesterday that it’s just gone up to $550k because, blah blah, National didn’t do anything.

Where did that come from? He later said sorry, he misspoke, but I wonder if he’s simply spoken too soon. You have to know the price when it’s your own policy you’re trying to sell. 

When Labour said it would build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 years, I got excited and thought, great, why can’t our best brains build this?

But it appears no-one even asked them which makes the build or buy Kiwi thing a big fat zero. One hundred thousand to go …   End quote.

Yep, the whole scam is a hoax; a fraud on the voters all sold by Phil Twyford. It will be his head that rolls, if Jacinda Ardern can find the courage to hold an inept minister to account.

Phil Twyford’s housing trickery is coming undone fast. His mouth writes cheques this government can’t cash.

On the ‘Nation’ yesterday it was shown up by the Salvation Army: Quote:

The Government will be hard pushed to meet its pledge of 1500 new social housing places before the end of this winter, according to a Salvation Army social policy expert.

“It’s unrealistic to think you can find 1500 more places by the end of winter. It’s just not going to happen. There’s just not the capacity there to do that,” Alan Johnson told Newshub Nation on Saturday.

But the Government thinks it is possible, announcing a $37 million dollar investment to urgently increase social housing supply to help the homeless this winter.

“No one needs to live in a car this winter,” said Housing Minister Phil Twyford at the announcement last Friday.

He said the 1500 places are “all secured and they’re all funded”.

“They’re a mix of new and additional public housing, so state- and community-provided housing, transitional and emergency housing, and Housing First places.” End quote.

Winter officially starts on 1 June. If there is a single person living in a car after 1 June his mouth will have gotten himself in trouble again.  Quote:

The Housing First scheme finds homes for the long-term homeless and those with multiple or complex needs.

“Most of them are available now but we’re going to continue through the winter to meet that target of 1500,” said Mr Twyford.

“We’ve made really great progress in the last six months and we’ll continue to go flat out through the winter.”

But figures released by Mr Twyford’s office show just 36 percent of the 1500 places are available now, and most of those are in transitional housing.

Only 306 of the 1071 new state housing places are ready, and 236 of the 416 transitional housing places.

No details were provided for the other 13 places promised. End quote.

That’s not most. The correct statement would have been that most places aren’t ready. Twyford is busted again with a fib. Quote:

The Government’s also pledged to build 1000 new social houses each year, but Mr Johnson says that number needs to be doubled to keep up with demand.

“We think 2000 is the minimum – that’s what we require to stop things getting worse,” he told Lisa Owen.

“Particularly with an aging population of people who don’t own their own house when they reach retirement. There’s going to be massive demand from that group of people as well.”

Around 127,000 people over 65 will need rental accommodation by 2020, according to the Salvation Army’s 2017 report Taking Stock: The Demand for Social Housing in New Zealand.

“Either the Government or Housing New Zealand need to stump up with some serious cash to build these houses… social houses, state houses,” said Mr Johnson.

“There is some serious money that needs to be borrowed or found from tax revenue to fund this, and we think in the order of a billion dollars a year… for ten years.” End quote.

The government and Twyford are being exposed in a huge way because of the big talking and false promises of Twyford and Ardern.