How Kiwibuild failed Māori and Pasifika | WATCH - Property News AU/NZ | propertynoise.co.nz & propertynoise.com.au

PHOTO: KiwiBuild homes. (Source: Supplied)

New statistics have revealed the failure of KiwiBuild to increase home ownership rates for Māori and Pasifika New Zealanders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxm2p2H0gmE

Figures released to Q+A with Jack Tame under the Official Information Act show just 4.8% of KiwiBuild buyers who gave their ethnicity on their application forms are Māori, and 4.4% are Pasifika.

These figures are well below the ethnicity breakdown of the general population, which is 16.5% Māori, and 8% Pasifika.

Eleven percent of KiwiBuild buyers chose not to list their ethnicity.

The numbers cut against one of the Government’s stated goals with KiwiBuild – to lift home ownership rates for under served communities.

KiwiBuild’s head of delivery Helen O’Sullivan stepping down

As then-minister Phil Twyford put it in 2018, “we’re determined to make sure Māori whānau get the benefits of the KiwiBuild home ownership programme”.

“Like Pasifika communities, Māori have been hammered by the housing crisis, and we’ve seen Māori home ownership drop to half the rate of the general population.”

In total, 47% of KiwiBuild buyers who gave an ethnicity are Pākehā or New Zealand Europeans, compared to being about 70% of the general population.

KiwiBuild doomed from the start

Asian New Zealanders, including Chinese, Indian and Korean communities, purchased 39% of KiwiBuild homes, compared to being about 15% of the general population.

In response to these figures, current minister Megan Woods acknowledged KiwiBuild “isn’t shifting the dial enough when it comes to Māori and Pasifika families”.