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Speaker 1: Well, the latest census Stata is out with numbers for

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Speaker 1: all sorts of data points, from ethnicity, home ownership, and income,

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Speaker 1: to gender and sexual identity. But the numbers that most

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Speaker 1: interested me today are buried in the housing stats, and

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Speaker 1: at first glance they might not seem like the sexiest.

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Speaker 1: But get this back in twenty eighteen when we lasted

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Speaker 1: the numbers, about one in six households in New Zealand

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Speaker 1: recorded mold that was bigger than an a four piece

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Speaker 1: of paper in their house. Okay, you hit around that,

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Speaker 1: but one and six more than twenty one percent of

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Speaker 1: households at that time recorded dampness at home. But despite

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Speaker 1: our famously crappy housing stock, the numbers have meaningfully improved.

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Speaker 1: So today eighteen percent of houses have dampness, which is

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Speaker 1: what a three point four percent improvement, and from one

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Speaker 1: in six homes previously, one in seven households now records

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Speaker 1: mold at home. So in real numbers, that's roughly seventy

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Speaker 1: thousand fewer damp homes and roughly fifty thousand fewer MOLDI

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Speaker 1: homes than we would have had if our housing was

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Speaker 1: at the same standard as it was in twenty eighteen

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Speaker 1: and you've got to say that is real success. So

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Speaker 1: what's changed in that time, Well, obviously newer homes are

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Speaker 1: more likely to be built to a better, warmer standard,

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Speaker 1: but I also think you can you can credit some

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Speaker 1: of that improvement to the healthy home standards. And while

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Speaker 1: of course bringing rental stock up to standard has come

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Speaker 1: at an expense, it is surely nothing compared to the

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Speaker 1: cost of healthcare for those who would otherwise be getting

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Speaker 1: sick and cold, damp, moldy homes. There isn't all that

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Speaker 1: much that the previous government can hang its hat on

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Speaker 1: in terms of enduring change, But personally I reckon that

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Speaker 1: policy is a winner. For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive.

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Speaker 1: Listen live to news Talk sai'd Be from four pm weekdays,

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