The Government is being accused of taking Māori housing policy backwards and weakening its commitments under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, as a major new report finds Māori remain disproportionately affected by the housing crisis.
The Aotearoa New Zealand Human Rights Foundation’s new report, The right to a decent home in Aotearoa New Zealand: review 2023–2026, finds little evidence of progress towards ensuring everyone has access to adequate housing since a landmark Human Rights Commission inquiry three years ago. Instead, it says the direction of housing policy has shifted towards market-led solutions, greater reliance on private providers and less emphasis on human rights and Te Tiriti-based accountability.
The report argues the right to housing in Aotearoa must be grounded in Te Tiriti, requiring the Crown to work in partnership with tangata whenua and respect and support Māori rangatiratanga.
“The Government has actively discouraged a Te Tiriti o Waitangi rights and accountability framework, taking Aotearoa backwards without justification. This is clear in the end of dedicated funding for Māori-led housing programmes, in favour of contestable funds that pits Māori housing providers against other providers.
“We call on the Government to reinstate dedicated funding for Māori-led housing, and to work in partnership with tangata whenua in housing decisions,” Jacqueline Paul said.
Shift away from Māori-led housing programs
The report identified the conclusion of Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga - a Māori housing programme jointly led by Te Puni Kōkiri and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development between 2021 and 2025 - to illustrate this stance. The programme supported “by Māori, for Māori” housing solutions, including papakāinga and iwi-led projects centred on intergenerational living, connection to whenua, collective ownership, cultural revitalisation and whānau-centred design.
An evaluation cited in the report found it was an effective delivery model which allowed housing to be designed around whakapapa, whanaungatanga, manaakitanga and kaitiakitanga. But that funding has ended, with the Government returning to a Flexible Fund approach in 2026.
This was signalled in Budget 2025, which saw much of the funding previously dedicated to Māori housing rolled into a broader Flexible Fund, requiring iwi and Māori housing providers to compete for investment alongside other providers, including commercial developers.
“The nature of the funding relationship under the Flexible Fund is not conducive to a partnership or the Crown’s Tiriti commitments,” the report says, noting that the absence of explicit resourcing commitments and shared decision-making limits the extent to which tino rangatiratanga is embedded in the housing system.
Warnings over emergency housing reforms
The report points to changes to emergency housing as another area of concern, revealing officials warned ministers before the changes were introduced that they could be inconsistent with the Crown’s obligations to Māori.
Advice from the Ministry of Social Development to ministers Louise Upston, Chris Bishop and Tama Potaka warned the changes “may have negative implications for consistency with the government’s obligations related to housing under the Treaty of Waitangi and international law”.
The advice warned the changes could conflict with the Crown’s Article 3 obligation to achieve equitable housing outcomes for Māori and have a disproportionate impact on Māori, who make up 55 per cent of people in emergency housing. The report says tighter access to emergency housing is particularly concerning because declining people without alternative accommodation risks increasing homelessness.
It also says the reforms are inconsistent with findings from the Waitangi Tribunal’s Wai 2750 Housing Policy and Services Kaupapa Inquiry. In the first Kāinga Kore report, the Crown accepted it had a partnership duty to engage with Māori in developing housing policy and services. MSD officials subsequently warned the Government’s emergency housing changes did not meet that principle because concerns raised by emergency housing applicants had not been adequately taken into account.
Declining progress across international standards
The report identifies barriers to secure housing for rangatahi Māori and notes that household crowding remains particularly high among Māori and Pacific whānau with children.
Foundation chair Aaron Packard said the Government needed to change direction.
“If Aotearoa is to meaningfully address the persistent housing crisis, the government must put human rights and Te Tiriti obligations at the centre of housing policy,” he said. “Instead, recent government policy has moved in the opposite direction, entrenching inequality and reinforcing the treatment of housing as a speculative asset.”
The report assesses Government policy against seven principles used under international human rights law to determine whether people have access to a decent home: whether housing is habitable, affordable, secure, accessible, culturally appropriate, suitably located and connected to essential infrastructure and services. Across all seven measures, the report finds there has been either insufficient progress or backward steps.
Among the policies singled out are Budget 2026 changes increasing income-related rents for social housing tenants, efforts to move more households from social housing into the private rental market, tighter emergency housing eligibility, the removal of Kāinga Ora’s 15 per cent accessibility target and a tougher approach to Kāinga Ora tenancies.
The report says the Government’s move towards treating social housing as temporary is particularly problematic for Māori whānau with tamariki, who are among those experiencing significant insecurity in the private rental market. It also points to the sharp increase in Kāinga Ora tenancies being ended - seventy-four tenancies ended in 2024/25, compared with none in 2021/22, following the Government’s decision to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take a firmer approach to antisocial behaviour and rent debt.
Calls for action and systematic reform
The Foundation is calling for several of those policies to be reversed and for a human rights and Te Tiriti framework to be embedded across housing decisions.
Its recommendations include reinstating dedicated Māori-led housing funding and Kāinga Ora’s accessibility targets, reversing moves to push households from social housing into private rentals and restoring the Sustaining Tenancies programme. It also wants independent accountability mechanisms across the housing system, including a mechanism where Māori make decisions about Māori housing, alongside data collection which respects Indigenous data sovereignty.
Paul said ensuring adequate housing was within the Government’s capability.
“It is well within the capability of the government to ensure that homes are built to enable people to live a life of dignity. “But without the commitment from government, there is no way to ensure it happens. The result is sub-standard housing.”
Associate Housing Minister, Tama Potaka, has been contacted for comment.
