3. Question No. 3—Housing and Urban DevelopmentHon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing and Urban DevelopmentQuestion No. 3—Housing and Urban Development3. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: Does the Government continue to pledge to build 100000 affordable homes over the next 10 years through its KiwiBuild programme as stated in the Speech from the Throne?Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): There has been no change to the pledge since the Speech from the Throne. As I said yesterday Cabinet will consider the KiwiBuild reset in June and it's inappropriate for me to speculate on what Cabinet may or may not decide. What has changed is that the housing market and the programme need to respond. When we came to office we stopped the sale of existing homes to foreign buyers and we closed tax loopholes and we know that this has had an impact because first-home buyers now make up 24 percent of the market and wages are now growing faster than house prices.Hon Judith Collins: Then why did he tell the media yesterday that the target was like American nuclear ships: it is a neither confirm nor deny situation"?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Simply because we said that we would review the KiwiBuild programme and in fact the entire housing programme. Cabinet has yet to make decisions and it's inappropriate for me to speculate on what Cabinet may or may not decide but meanwhile we are getting on with building affordable houses State houses and housing the homeless.Hon Judith Collins: What responsibility does he take for the design of KiwiBuild that he took to Cabinet in December 2017 which he has now told us has to be reset?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Of course as the Minister I take responsibility but this is not an easy thing to do. If it was easy perhaps the former Government might've had a crack at it. It's a difficult thing. No Government in 40 years has tried to do what we are doing and that is work with the private sector to build affordable houses.Hon Judith Collins: Is it acceptable for him to sign contracts worth around $700 million for housing and then when these contracts start falling over to essentially explain that he's going to have to reset and is just learning on the job?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well first I don't sign the contracts. Second those contracts are not falling over; they are delivering affordable houses.Hon Judith Collins: Can any policy that doesn't include a target to build 100000 houses really be called KiwiBuild when the first words of his first press release that he put out on KiwiBuild were "The Government's KiwiBuild initiative will deliver 100000 affordable houses over the next 10 years"?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: We are not deterred by the teething problems that KiwiBuild has faced. We are committed to building affordable houses. We will do everything in our power as a Government to turn the market around to give young Kiwi families the opportunity they've been denied for the last decade and we're not ashamed about working with private industry to deliver those outcomes.Hon Chris Hipkins: What reports has he seen on recent positive changes in the housing market that affect potential first-home buyers?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: When we came to office we stopped the sale of existing homes to foreign buyers and we closed the tax loopholes that turbocharged property speculation. We know this has had an impact because first-home buyers now make up 24 percent of the market the highest share of the market since 2007 and overseas buyers have dropped by 81 percent. I've seen reports recently that wages are now growing faster than house prices. This compares to 2016 when house prices rose 16 percent and wages rose just 1.8 percent. This Government's sound economic management means that mortgage rates are as low as they've been in a very long time.Rt Hon Winston Peters: How could the overseas buyership have dropped by 81 percent when the previous Government claimed their influence to be only 3 percent?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well the previous Government denied that overseas buyers were having any kind of—SPEAKER: Order! Order! I've sort of worked out there's no responsibility for that and the maths is a bit questionable too frankly.Hon Judith Collins: So how many of the first-home buyers over the last 18 months that he's referred to have accessed the HomeStart programme established by National rather than the KiwiBuild programme established by himself?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well I think it's pretty obvious to most people that the HomeStart programme has been going for a while and we support it. The KiwiBuild programme is just getting off the ground and believe me KiwiBuild HomeStart and all the other things that this Government is committed to doing will make a massive difference because we are standing up for young first-home buyers in a way that that Government never ever did for nine years.Hon Judith Collins: Does the Minister stand by his statement to media last year when questioned on the design of the KiwiBuild programme that he offered to "stake his job" on its success and if he does then has he offered his resignation to the Prime Minister yet?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I have not because I'm utterly focused on getting the reset of KiwiBuild right and I take a lot of pride as do all my colleagues in the Government in what we are achieving across the whole housing programme. We've got more than 2000 new public houses built since we've been in Government. That is a huge achievement. We have increased the amount of emergency and transitional housing. We stopped the sell-off of State housing that that Government was doing. That Government reduced the number of State houses by 6500 in the middle of a housing crisis. We're committed to increasing the stock of State housing by 6500 in our first four years."