New Zealand commission launches inquiry into ‘massive human rights failure’ on housing

Crisis has been marked by escalating rents, high rates of homelessness and substandard conditions

New Zealand's housing crisis has become a massive human rights failure", the Human Rights Commission has said, as it launches a national inquiry into the problem.

Successive governments have failed New Zealanders," chief commissioner Paul Hunt said in a statement as he announced the inquiry. New Zealand governments have signed up to a critically important human right: the right to a decent home. For generations, they have promised to create the conditions to enable everyone to live in a decent home, but this has not happened."