for ensuring the housing is fit for purpose and
meets human rights and Te Tiriti obligations.
This responsibility requires developing and
implementing standards and mechanisms for
monitoring, independent review, and remedial
action, such as an effective and accessible
complaint process.44
Notably, constructive accountability also includes
independent review carried out by bodies such
as a national human rights institution like the
Human Rights Commission, Ombudsman, Tenancy
Tribunal, or other independent arrangement.
A government’s internal reviews to check that
strategies, policies, initiatives, and practices
are fit for purpose and performing adequately
have an important role to play. Internal reviews
42
Human Rights Commission
can identify whether strategies and policies are
upholding the right to a decent home grounded on
Te Tiriti o Waitangi. However, if the reviews are not
independent, they are not forms of constructive
accountability.
Government must also progressively
realise the right to a decent home in all
other respects
Alongside the four immediate obligations outlined
above, government must take deliberate, concrete,
and targeted steps towards full realisation of the
right to a decent home for everyone in Aotearoa
New Zealand, including effective measures to
address unfair disadvantage.