which allowed the state to build and lease houses to workers, was passed in 1905. However, only after the election of the First Labour Government in 1935 was there large-scale state involvement in the New Zealand housing market. One of many measures that was undertaken by the First Labour Government was the launch of a state housing scheme to provide every New Zealander with a home that, in Walter Nash’s words, would be “fit for a cabinet minister”. The Department of Housing Construction, with its own architects, was established, and by 1940 almost 10,000 new single-unit dwellings had been constructed.