Jacinda Ardern defends herself after Christopher Luxon attacks Government's record of getting things done

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is defending herself after the Opposition leader lashed out at her, suggesting the Government can't get things done. 

National leader Christopher Luxon criticised Ardern at the Party's annual conference in Christchurch on Sunday.

"Being in government isn't about telling people that you care. Saying you care while taking no meaningful action is empty. Caring means identifying the problem, devising a solution and getting things done," Luxon said. 

The National leader also accused the Government of having an issue around taking accountability. 

Ardern was put to the test by AM co-host Ryan Bridge on Monday who asked: "Do you accept accountability that more kids are living in cars this winter than when you came into office?" 

But the Prime Minister pushed back on the question, saying it could not be answered with a simple yes or no. 

"That question requires more than a yes or no," Ardern hit back. "Do I want anyone to be living in a car? No. Is it acceptable in a country as wealthy as New Zealand for people to be living in cars? No, but of course, the numbers that we use to measure that is when an individual comes forward to seek housing, we ask them, 'What are your current circumstances?' And they will tell us if they are living in a car.

"Then we will move to get them into emergency housing or transitional housing or public housing. So when they come and tell us that, it doesn't necessarily mean that is where they stay, but it will sometimes be the circumstances of those when they eventually do come forward to seek support."

It comes after National Housing Spokesperson Chris Bishop hit out at the Government last week over the number of children living in cars. 

"Housing Minister Megan Woods said in June 2021 that, 'What we don't have is people living on the streets and in cars'. Just a couple of months before she said this, there were 435 people living in cars including 198 children.

"The latest figure is now 480 people but the Minister won't provide the number of kids, even though the Ministry of Social Development collects this data.

"The number of Kiwis living in cars has quadrupled in the last five years that Labour has been in Government and there is little doubt that kids are included in that number," Bishop said in a statement. 

But Ardern hit back at the criticism, saying her government had "created 10,000 public housing spaces" and suggested if the previous National government had built at the same speed as them - things would be very different. 

"Here's the difference between us and the last government on this, we didn't cap emergency housing special needs grants. So if people need help, we support them. 

"We have quadrupled transitional housing. We've created 10,000 public housing spaces. You know, that's building more houses than any government since the 1970s. 

"Do we still have need we're catching up on? Yes, we do. After five years, the ability to still build enough houses to clear that waiting list we haven't been able to do yet. 

"Had the last government built at the rate we are now, we would have almost cleared the public house waiting list. So I'm willing absolutely to be accountable and to respond to need. The problem is, unfortunately, the last government didn't."

While it is technically true the Government has delivered 10,000 new houses in its tenure it hasn't built that many. 

Data from the Government's public housing tool shows from June 2017 to June 2022 the net change in total public houses is plus 10,125. Of those 8339 were newly built while 4104 were redirects (community housing providers leasing private properties), 1442 were bought by the Government and 927 were leased. In that same period, the number of removed or adjusted stock was 4630 and minus 57 which were transferred from Kainga to community housing providers. 

However, the Labour Government has still overseen 10,000 houses being added to the state housing fleet which is in stark contradiction to the previous National government. 

In fact, in 2020 then National housing spokesperson and now Deputy Leader, Nicola Willis admitted the previous National Government sold too many state houses. 

Willis said National sold or converted "a couple of thousand" state homes while in power. She also accepted that had resulted in a net loss of state houses under National. 

"I think what we can see from that is yes, the Government needs to build state houses

"What I don't think is that that was good; what I would like to see is the Government continuing to build state houses, that's absolutely a policy that either National or Labour needs to continue in the years ahead," she told Stuff.