Report says New Zealand is going backwards on housing rights

A human rights group says New Zealand has made "almost no progress" on the right to a decent home since 2023, and that some government decisions have actually made housing worse.

The Human Rights Foundation released the report, called "The Right to a Decent Home in Aotearoa New Zealand: Review 2023-2026". It is the Foundation's first report since it was restarted under new chairperson Aaron Packard, with patron Dame Silvia Cartwright. The group was first set up in 2001 by former human rights commissioners.

The report checks government housing decisions against New Zealand's promise to work towards everyone having the right to a decent home.

The Foundation said its findings show New Zealand is "running backwards" on housing rights and its commitments under Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Packard said the government needed to put human rights and Te Tiriti at the centre of housing policy. Instead, he said, recent policy has gone the other way and treated housing more like an investment to make money from than a basic right.

The report found that the way people experience housing in New Zealand is "deeply unequal". It acknowledged some small improvements, such as less dampness and mould in homes. But overall housing inequality had barely changed, especially for Māori, Pacific peoples, disabled people and renters. Household crowding had got worse, and was especially high for Pacific and Māori families with children.

The report pointed to specific government decisions. It said the government's 2025 housing plan focuses on building more homes quickly and cheaply, but does not include standards to make sure those homes are actually fit to live in. Budget 2026, the report found, puts up social housing rents and pushes people towards private rentals without doing anything to make those rentals affordable.

Housing Minister Chris Bishop said there was more work to do but the government was making progress on its plan to fix the housing crisis, according to RNZ.

The report uses standards that come from the United Nations. Te Kāhui Tika Tangata, the Human Rights Commission, lists seven principles for housing: that homes should be liveable, affordable, accessible to people with disabilities, secure (meaning you can stay without fear of being kicked out for no reason), culturally appropriate, in a good location, and close to services like schools and hospitals.

There is a longer history of concern about housing in New Zealand. In 2020, a UN housing expert named Leilani Farha found that some parts of New Zealand had enough houses and apartments, but they were only affordable for the few who could pay. In 2023, the Chief Human Rights Commissioner called for the government to set up a housing watchdog, pointing to the number of people still living in cold, damp homes.

The wider context is how government housing policy lines up with the human rights agreements New Zealand has signed. The Human Rights Act makes it illegal to discriminate against someone based on race when it comes to housing. The Commission has also written its own report for a UN review on racial discrimination, covering 2018 to 2025, and has flagged housing as a key issue in its disability rights work.

What the Foundation's report does is bring all these threads together. It says the government's decisions have not just failed in one area but show a pattern: building homes quickly without quality standards, raising social housing rents in Budget 2026, and pushing people towards private rentals without making them affordable.

Packard's point about housing being treated as an investment connects to a wider concern. The Commission's own materials say racial discrimination in housing is against the law, and the Foundation's report shows that housing inequality hits Māori, Pacific peoples and disabled people the hardest.

The government says it is making progress. The Foundation says any small gains, like less mould and dampness, are being cancelled out by policies that make housing less affordable, less secure and less culturally appropriate.

This is the first report from the restarted Foundation, and it puts the group right in the middle of the housing debate. Whether it changes the government's mind is another question. The housing plan and Budget 2026 are already underway, and Bishop's response was to acknowledge the report without changing course.