Judith Collins has dished out some advise to Jacinda today, saying dump Phil Twyford. "If she doesn't, I'm going to have fun," she says.
That's because Ms Collins, National's housing spokesperson doesn't believe Mr Twyford, the Housing Minister is doing an effective job rolling out KiwiBuild - which she labelled as an "indictment" on the Government, on TVNZ1's Breakfast today.
Ms Collins told Breakfast that KiwiBuild under Mr Twyford’s leadership – and with $2 billion allocated to it in last year's Budget - had produced just 33 houses in 12 months. Over the same period, the private sector had built 35,200, she said.
"It's a staggering indictment on the government and Phil Twyford’s leadership on this," Ms Collins said.
"I would say to Jacinda Ardern, a bit of advice for someone who has been in politics a little bit longer, to shift Phil at her next reshuffle because if she doesn't I’m going to have so much fun over the next year."
Ms Collins said the Government should not be trying to compete with the private sector and should instead make the process of building houses easier.
"When you look at what the role of the Government is in this, it should be about de-regulation, it should be about sorting out the planning rules, the Resource Management Act, it shouldn’t be trying to compete with a sector that has already delivered 35,200 houses in the time that the government has produced 33," she said.
Ms Collins defended the National Party's attempts at reforming the Resource Management Act while they were in government.
"We were trying very hard to do that (reform) and we didn’t have the numbers to do it," she said.
"We had the support of the Act Party, the Maori Part wanted some concessions, some of which they got, United Future would not support and the Labour Party in opposition would not do a thing to assist."
The Government should reach out to National and work together on Resource Management Act (RMA) reform, Ms Collins said.
"The government should talk to us about RMA reform, planning reform making sure that the environment is protected at the same time."
"I’ve said to David Parker who's in charge of the RMA work for the Labour Party and the government that we’re happy to work with him."
Ms Collins said she didn’t want KiwiBuild to fail but she predicted it would meet its demise inside 12 months.
Ms Collins' blistering criticism comes as Mr Twyford admitted he could not guarantee 1000 KiwiBuild homes would be built by July, 2019 .
"I think it's going to be tough to meet that target. We're working flat out to meet that target. I'm not going to give you a prediction right now. We're not setting a new target," Mr Twyford said.
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