The Mana Party's candidate for Ikaroa-Rawhiti says housing for Maori right throughout the country is at crisis point.
Te Hamua Nikora says only 45% of Maori own their own homes compared to 70% for Pakeha.
On Thursday, on behalf of his movement, he made a housing policy announcement.
His party is calling for a halt to the sale of state housing in the eastern Maori electorate.
Mr Nikora says about 200 state houses are being sold off in Gisborne and Hawke's Bay - when they should be kept for whanau and there are about 1000 empty state houses in the region.
Mana is also proposing to update and extend a former Maori Affairs housing loan scheme to help Maori into their own homes.
Under the scheme, first-time home buyers would be offered low-interest deals on newly-built $200,000 homes, with no deposit.
