Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill

We spent some part of the debate on Part 1 of the Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill talking about the issue of reviewable tenancies and that is because Part 1 confers on Housing New Zealand the power to implement the so-called reviewable tenancies straight away after the Royal assent. But the substance of provisions on reviewable tenancies is actually included in Part 2 of the bill.

I want to speak to my Supplementary Order Paper 396, which reflects, I think, some of the wisest and most considered advice that we had from submitters at the Social Services Committee. What this would do is that it would exclude from the provisions on reviewable tenancies the following groups: tenants with a disability, tenants aged 65 or over, and tenants with school-age children. This reflects the advice from people like the academics from Otago University, from its Housing and Health Research Programme, and a number of others who made the point that extending insecurity of tenure to families with school-age children would have a very harmful effect on the well-being of those families and particularly the educational achievement of children. So many of my colleagues have made the point so persuasively, particularly the Hon Phil Goff, who made the point that having stability and continuity is perhaps the single most important benefit of the State housing programme in that it gives to our most vulnerable citizens not only a roof over their heads but also a place that they can call home, a place for families to raise their children.

We know that the vast majority of poor people in this country actually do not live in State houses; only 4 percent of the population are housed by Housing New Zealand. Most of the very poor people in New Zealand today basically eke out an existence in the private rental market, which is largely unregulated. Most of the houses at the bottom end of the private rental market are crap. They are of poor quality, they are uninsulated, they are cold, and they are damp. On top of that, tenants in the private rental market are basically at the whim of the landlord. Within 90 days for no particular reason they can be turfed out of their homes.

That is the great fallacy underlying this policy of reviewable tenancies: it is based on the notion that once people earn somewhere over the 25 percent threshold then they should be turfed out of a Housing New Zealand house. Well, where are they going to go? We are in the middle of one of the worst housing crises in living memory. There is a terrible shortage of affordable housing in most of our main centres and people simply will not have anywhere to go. So the effect of this policy of reviewable tenancies is simply to more ruthlessly push people through a revolving door in State housing. As my colleagues have said, instead of doing the obvious thing, which is to build more houses—because 4 percent is patently inadequate in a society and an economy such as ours—what this bill does is it just simply and ruthlessly pushes people more quickly through the revolving door. It is wrong, it is unjust, and it is a betrayal of the things that generations fought for and stood for.

People built this country on the notion that the people at the bottom of the heap deserve a fair go and the institutions that were built in this country through the middle years of the 20th century were designed to give every child in this country a start in life, a decent opportunity to get ahead. State housing was one of those institutions and this Government and successive National-led Governments over the last few decades have unpicked that and undermined the very foundations of State housing in this country. This bill and the imposition of insecurity of tenure, taking away that stability that families so desperately need, just shows—I do not know—a contempt for people who are State house tenants. It shows a wilful disregard of the evidence that the most credible submitters came to the select committee and spoke about.

We do not want to see reviewable tenancies included in this bill, but if they are included, then I ask the Committee to give serious consideration to my Supplementary Order Paper 396, which would exempt the most vulnerable categories. In 2011 Phil Heatley, when he was the Minister of Housing, announced that new State house tenants would be subject to these reviewable tenancies, but he publicly promised that existing State house tenants would not be included in this and he promised that the elderly and the disabled would not be included. Well, this bill explicitly wipes away that political promise. It explicitly gives the power to the Minister of Housing to apply reviewable tenancies to all State house tenants, including families with school-age children, the disabled, and the elderly.

Because there are not enough State houses and because this Government has not done nearly enough to address the fundamentals of the housing crisis, this horrible bill will give the power to Nick Smith to turf 80-year-olds out on to the street because there simply are not enough houses, and that is a disgrace. It is a repudiation of decades and decades of successive Governments’ policies, which they have defended, that Housing New Zealand should at least offer a secure, decent roof over the heads of this country’s most vulnerable people. It is absolute arrogance for the Minister to reject the advice of his great mentor, the Productivity Commission, which advised against this policy. The Housing Shareholders’ Advisory Group, as my colleagues have pointed out, explicitly advised against reviewable tenancies, and yet here they are, right at the heart of this bill. Otago University academics announced world-acclaimed public health research that clearly demonstrated the benefits of having secure and stable State housing in terms of the reduced hospitalisation of children, and yet this bill and this Minister rejects that. Instead of doing the obvious thing and building more State houses, what this bill does is it just pushes people through the revolving door ever faster.

I want to comment also on the policy that this bill reflects to shift the income-related rent subsidy to social housing providers. I suppose this is the other key feature of this bill. The Minister has said that it is his vision that Housing New Zealand should become just another tenancy provider, competing in a contestable market with the community housing sector for both tenants and subsidies. It is certainly a view that Labour shares. We want to see a larger, more capable, empowered community housing sector with groups like the Salvation Army, the Housing Foundation, and Habitat for Humanity. They are groups that do an enormous amount of good, and they want to do more. They want to provide their services to a larger group of New Zealanders, and we support that, but we do not support it by simply having Housing New Zealand being carved up, with some of its most important powers devolved off to the Ministry of Social Development or elsewhere, and having 20 percent of the Housing New Zealand stock, as the Minister of Housing has said, being dished out to other organisations in some kind of quasi-contestable market.

If there is one lesson to be learnt from the last couple of decades and the process of devolution of social services, social development, and health services to the community sector, it is that unless adequate funding follows those services and those responsibilities, then the people who will suffer at the end are the recipients of those services. You need only think of the care of the elderly, the care of the disabled, and the mental health services, where, unless adequate funding follows those services, the most vulnerable people suffer. I predict that the National Government’s policy of devolving housing to the community housing sector will be followed by a lack of funding in future years. That is the threat, not only—

I would like to continue just for a moment where my colleague Phil Twyford left off and say to the community housing sector, which would very much like some of the State houses that the Government is talking of handing over, to beware—to be very wary of this Government and its past record when it comes to handing over facilities to the NGO sector, to trusts and others. We have seen this Government’s record in the past, and I need only look at health to see where many of our small hospitals were offered to community groups. A very good example would have to be the small hospital at Te Puia, which was handed over to Ngati Porou with great fanfare. What was never handed over—and now you see the results of it—was any funding for the ongoing capital works of that hospital. It is now in a bad state of repair because a small NGO or a trust does not have the ability to undertake the maintenance and the upkeep of such a facility.

So I say to the community housing sector, look very carefully at the fish-hooks in this Government’s proposal. They may well get some houses from Housing New Zealand, but there will not be the money to go with it to maintain them. They will be asked to maintain and find the money to maintain these houses into the foreseeable future, and it will not be long before, cap in hand, these organisations will come to a Government in the future and say: “We cannot maintain them. We need help.” So that is my warning, carrying on from Mr Twyford’s very good presentation.

But I want to turn to my Supplementary Order Paper 397. I have a Supplementary Order Paper to amend clause 17, which contains the definition of “community housing provider”. I want included in there local councils because this bill makes it clear that community housing providers are made up of NGOs and others, but it does not clearly say that councils can be community housing providers and can, therefore, be eligible for income-related rent. So what my Supplementary Order Paper does is make it clear that a community housing provider can also be a council.

The reason why I have put this forward is that local government has been a key component in social housing in New Zealand for many years. Christchurch City Council and Wellington City Council together represent the largest social housing providers in New Zealand. Those two councils are significantly bigger than any other community-based provider, and they have dominated social housing for more than 50 years. So despite their role in social housing, it does not appear that they will be eligible for income-related rents.

I just want to put the case, particularly from Wellington City Council and its social housing. If you look at Housing New Zealand and Wellington City Council, you would see that together they hold 95 percent of all social housing here in Wellington. There is a similar tenant profile both for Housing New Zealand and for the city council. The city council here has 2,240 units; Housing New Zealand has 1,900. They have about 110 units for every unit from other community housing providers. The city council has got a very good, high-level outcome for community housing here in Wellington. It wants to ensure that it has quality social housing. It wants to ensure that the residents’ health and well-being are well looked after. It is very keen to have sustainability in social housing, and it wants to provide social housing into the future.

The council also wants a strong partnership with central government. That was achieved under the previous Labour Government where, here in Wellington, it put in over $200 million alongside the Wellington City Council to upgrade council social housing here in Wellington. It has been the privilege of Ministers of Housing, under this National Government, to be able to come along and open these refurbished flats for the council’s social housing. In fact, this Saturday we have got the opening of yet another block of flats refurbished by the Wellington City Council, providing social housing to the most vulnerable in our society. Many of them are elderly. Many of them are people who suffer from mental illness. Many of them are people who have come from faraway lands as refugees, and we have given them a good start to their lives here in New Zealand.

So I believe that the councils, particularly Christchurch City Council and Wellington City Council, are putting up an incredibly strong case. I am sure that the Minister in the chair, the Minister for Building and Construction, would agree with me. They have a strong case for them to be included as part of the definition of “community housing providers” in New Zealand. Why would they not be? Why would they not be, when they are the major providers of social housing?

If the Government is serious about having income-related rents provided in social housing by other community providers, why would it not include Christchurch City Council housing? I am sure my colleague from Christchurch Denis O’Rourke understands this. He was on the council and he understands the importance of that social housing. Why would the Government not include councils as part of its income-related rents policy? It would make a huge difference to those councils. As it says in Wellington City Council’s own documents, it is committed to sustainable community housing—not just for now, not just for a few years, but for the long term it is committed to sustainable development.

Councils want to take responsibility for the most vulnerable, who need good, dry, warm, and safe housing in New Zealand. So I am strongly arguing that the Government consider my Supplementary Order Paper 397. What it does is make it clear that local government can be—can be—a community housing provider, under the bill. Not all of them might want to be, so we are not forcing them to do something they do not want to do. But, based on the submission—a very, very good submission—provided to the Social Services Committee by the Wellington City Council, I know of at least one council that wants to be a community housing provider.

So I would be interested in the Minister in the chair or the Minister of Housing, Nick Smith, when he returns to the chair, telling this Committee why they would not include local government in the definition of “community housing provider”. I cannot think of any reason. I just hope that, actually, the fact that they are not included is an oversight—it is an oversight—that they forgot about it and they did not actually make the change that they would have liked to make.

I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt—that they really wanted to do this, and it was just a mistake that it was not included. I hope I am right because I know that if I am not right, there will be many, many disappointed local governments around New Zealand that would be wonderful partners with central government. Certainly, I can say that under a Labour Government they will be strong partners with us. As we have shown many times in the past, we value local government. We know what they can do in working with their communities to ensure that the most vulnerable are housed well, with long-term tenancies. Councils provide long-term tenancies. They do not come along and say: “We are going to review your tenancy—goodbye, you are out of here.” They say: “This is your home. This is the home that you have made and we will look after your home for you, in conjunction with you as your landlord.”—and a very, very good landlord, indeed.

Thank you. I do hope that the Government will give serious consideration to this Supplementary Order Paper 397. It is a serious attempt to ensure that we include the biggest community housing providers in New Zealand.

The Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill is an utterly misconceived and completely inadequate response to the intensifying New Zealand housing crisis This is a crisis that the Government sat around watching develop for 5 long years. It is a crisis in which rents in the main centres, especially Auckland and Christchurch, have rocketed. Yet the Government’s priorities are saving money and reducing the size of State housing services, rather than ensuring that the needs of people, especially those at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum, are adequately met.

New Zealand First is committed to the provision of a genuine social housing service by the Government as a fundamental responsibility. This service would ensure that people who are unable to buy a home, or for whom homeownership is not appropriate, are able to get one to rent, that they have fair rental related to their income, and that they have stability in their lives. The social housing deficit in New Zealand is now huge. More and more Kiwis are unable to afford a home. Many will never be able to buy one. Their need is for more options for long-term rental housing, which in this country only the State—and, perhaps, local government—can reliably provide for low-income people on the scale needed.

The Government’s social housing policy reduces the scope of operation of Housing New Zealand. It will transfer large sums of money to community housing organisations through subsidies. But there are many unanswered questions—questions I have asked in this Parliament—about some of these providers. What about their competency in managing not just the housing but the people who need it? Can they be relied upon in the long term? Who will they really be in the long term? They will likely become a nightmare to monitor and require significant resources to do so.

The bill provides for annual reports, but there is very little detail about what those would contain. The bill also provides for intervention powers in the case of a range of possible specified failures, but they would, it is highly likely, also be difficult to administer. The bill also provides for the State agency to give instructions and to appoint an administrator, so why transfer the housing responsibility to such organisations in the first place? None of this gives any real confidence that so much public money should be used in this way.

The State is the best provider where taxpayers’ money is concerned. These community organisations will own the housing funded or gifted by the Government. How do we know the money will be well spent or the housing assets applied for the objectives of social housing? There will be no State asset in return—money out, nothing back. What happens, really, if a recipient organisation fails? Where do the assets go then? Will the agency be able to cope with such a failure? Will the Government be able to cope, for that matter? How transparent and accountable are the processes for allocating funds to community providers? What safeguards and what risk management have been put in place? I have not seen any evidence of that at all. Will they have enough competence in the housing market, when so many private providers have failed? These are just a few of the questions left unanswered by this bill.

Local government should be considered. I agree with Annette King on this. Local government is, in many cases, well able to do this. Local government has policies that are well matched to local needs. They should be included. But this Government hates local government. That is at the root of why it will not consider that. It is as simple as that, in my view. Although there are some good community providers for social housing, such as the Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity, there will be many to which the social housing need should not be sent. The risks of that are far too high. There is a risk to the Government’s financial outcomes, and there is a risk to the community’s social outcomes. There are risks for New Zealand’s most vulnerable people. There are risks to low-income families from these policies. The risks overall, versus the benefits, are far, far too high. This bill is fundamentally flawed.

It is my pleasure to speak to the provisions of the Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill, starting with new Part 9, that specifically set out how social housing providers are really being brought into the State housing landscape. I want to start with the beginning of new Part 9, which sets out the provisions around the social housing agency. It is interesting—when you read this section of the bill, it is very ambiguous. It kind of sets out the criteria of how the social housing agency will conduct its duties, what it will be governed by, and how it is able to be changed out through, essentially, Order in Council. What we are actually talking about, though, is the way that the Ministry of Social Development will operate as the social housing agency. That is what this section is specifically referring to, so it is interesting to me that these provisions are shaped in the way they are. I would be interested to hear from the Minister of Housing whether or not the Government has purposefully done that in order to allow it some flexibility in future for another agency to take back these powers of, essentially, overseeing all of the additional, frequent assessments that will now sit around this area.

I take, for example, new section 101, “Social housing agency”. It says: “The Governor-General may, from time to time, by Order in Council made on the recommendation of the joint Ministers, appoint a department, departmental agency, or a Crown entity, or any combination of 1 or more departments, departmental agencies, or Crown entities, to perform some or all of the functions and exercise some or all of the powers of the agency under this Act.” There really is a lot of wriggle room built in there. I just wondered whether the Minister could give some explanation as to why he felt that that was important, because the provisions for the functions of that agency are quite broad, but they are significant. The most powerful part of the bill is the handing over of the charge, as it were, to that agency, so why are the provisions so broad? Why not be specific? Why should we not come back to this House to debate the way that it should be governed in future if, indeed, the Minister decides to change that agency?

Then we come to the bits in new section 105 that relate specifically to social housing providers. In New Zealand social housing providers have played an incredibly important role in our communities. There are two specific functions I want to speak to that I think the Government has guarded heavily: the ability to provide housing to groups that are not specifically catered for, and tenants who often have particular difficulties being housed. We could place in those categories, for instance, prisoners on release; mental health patients, often on release, as well, from State institutions; those who have experienced severe drug and alcohol issues and have gone through particular programmes; and even those transitioning from night shelter environments into housing. There is a range of clients that community housing providers have specifically catered for in the past. So that has been something very, very special and important that they have done. The second thing that they have done is, of course, they have managed themselves. That has enabled them to often put wrap-around services around this client group. They also advocate on their behalf.

It is absolutely beneficial to allow those agencies to claim income-related rents for their purposes of housing provision. But that does then place some duties on them, as well. I guess I am trying to see whether or not that dilutes their ability to maintain those really important functions. For instance, “the agency”—presumably the Ministry of Social Development—is “to notify social housing providers of eligibility and housing needs”. So the Ministry of Social Development has to notify the provider each time the agency makes an assessment around “the eligibility or continued eligibility of the tenant for social housing;”. Does that mean that if the Ministry of Social Development does a re-assessment or an income-related rent assessment and finds that a tenant is no longer eligible, there is an expectation, then, that that community housing provider moves that individual on, given that it is catering for individuals with quite specific needs?

Part 2 of the Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill deals with the real heart of the Government’s social housing reforms. It does three important things. Firstly, it opens up the income-related rent subsidy on an equal basis to those people who live in community social housing. So if you are Habitat for Humanity, if you are Accessible Properties, a subsidiary of IHC, or if you are the Salvation Army, and you provide social housing for high-needs clients, you are going to be able to receive the same subsidy that the Government provides for Housing New Zealand.

The second very important reform—and it is substantial—is that when people require housing assistance, they will in future go to the Ministry of Social Development or Work and Income. That makes really good sense because right now, actually, our biggest social assistance for housing comes through the accommodation supplement. The Government spends nearly $2 billion a year on that. The Government also, through Work and Income, provides grants for people to be able to get a bond. It makes really good sense for our constituents to be able to go to one port of call for housing assistance. A person at the Ministry of Social Development may say: “Hey, look, we need to give you support to get a bond so you can get a house in the private sector. You may be eligible for an accommodation supplement, or you may be eligible for income-related rent and a social house.”

Constituents get really frustrated right now at getting pushed between pillar and post, and ask: “Am I eligible for an accommodation supplement, or am I allocated for an income-related rent?”. So reform of that makes really good sense, and equally in this bill we require the regulation of the social housing sector. If you are going to get those high subsidies, then it is fair for the Government to say: “We want to be sure that you run a really good outfit, that you’ve got good tenancy services, that you’re providing good-quality houses, and that you provide the sorts of services that will make for a good social housing provider.”

The part that I really want to challenge the Opposition on is this. You can have all the weasel words you like about whether you support the community housing sector or not. I have got a simple question: do you support the reform in this bill that will let social housing providers have access to the income-related rent—yes or no? I have been listening to the debate for 20 minutes, and I am none the wiser. I come away with a clear impression that the Opposition does not know.

💬 Jacinda Ardern: I just said that.

Well, the members need to be clear on it.

The second point on which I am none the wiser is whether members opposite support the Ministry of Social Development having the role of assessing that comprehensive assessment. It is a big part of the reform. It is actually one of the most important changes. Again, I am none the wiser. I do not get the idea that Labour has any idea what it stands for.

💬 Hon Annette King: Answer my question, then.

Well, no, I am simply saying that the substantive policy change in this bill makes those two substantive changes. Does Labour support them, or not? I challenge Labour members and say that if they cannot answer those substantive questions on such an important social issue for New Zealand, then they really are vacant. No wonder their popularity is so low, when they cannot sort out such a fundamental element of their own housing policy.

I am very pleased that I am able to continue my contribution. I thought that the Minister of Housing might actually rise to respond to the legitimate questions that I raised earlier in my contribution. Instead, he decided to simply insult the Labour Party and the legitimate questions that we have raised. If the Minister had been listening to my contribution, he would have heard me say that of course Labour has never been opposed to the social housing sector being able to take advantage of income-related rents. We have never been opposed to that.

💬 David Bennett: Yes, you have.

How could you be opposed to the idea of giving that sector an equal footing when it does the kind of role that it does? David Bennett, perhaps you would like to rise and give your contribution on the Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill, given that you have got something to say in the back corner there. We have never said we had any opposition to that, Minister. But we have raised legitimate concerns over whether the obligations giving that sector an extra, additional benefit—which we think they should have—are Draconian and too heavy-handed, and will remove its ability to provide the kind of service that it has been able to provide. That is a point that has been raised time and time again by Phil Twyford—the fact that if, for instance, it takes on some State assets for management, there is then the ability of the Government to come in and basically ride roughshod over its own board and its own governance. Of course, we raise concerns with that. Those are legitimate concerns.

This is why I am now raising concerns around, for instance, the fact that if the Ministry of Social Development has the ability to create an ongoing review of tenancy—the basic premise of our opposition to this bill is that fundamental principle—how is that also going to affect the social housing sector? If it is able to preside over income-related rents, Minister, does that mean, for instance, that the Ministry of Social Development can come in and use its all-encompassing powers to ask any question it wants, proceed with any investigation it chooses into the eligibility of a tenant, and then call into question the social housing provider’s role in providing that housing? What if, for instance, that social housing provider provides a social worker who deals with that individual on an ongoing basis? Could the Ministry of Social Development question them about their knowledge of income, of asset base, and of changed circumstances? Could that then put them in a conflicted situation? These are all relevant questions. As we have seen in Part 1, the area of questioning that the Ministry of Social Development is allowed to engage of a tenant and the information it is able to draw in to review tenancy are quite broad and quite sweeping.

I ask those questions very legitimately because we have seen a similar thing happen with Work and Income and the way it manages youth services. It is now the case for youth services that all of the administering of benefits has been contracted out to youth providers, in the same way that we are now pushing out some of this to the community housing sector. Those youth providers who previously had a really strong relationship with the young people they were working with, as our community housing providers do with their tenants, are having to play policemen, as well. They are having to look at whether or not someone should be eligible for an additional food grant, for instance. It fundamentally changes their role.

We need to make sure that community housing providers who in the past have advocated on behalf of their tenants in various forms are not now in a compromised position through some of these provisions. As I say, of course, we want those providers to have access to income-related rents on behalf of their tenants, but we want them to maintain their special role in the community housing sector at the same time. That is why I want to ask the Minister of Housing a question. New section 105(4), in clause 19, says: “A social housing provider is entitled to rely on a notification given under this section.” That new section also states that the agency must update notifications regularly around a tenant’s eligibility for social housing. And it also sets out that the agency can then review and appeal, etc., as part of those provisions. My question is: can a social housing provider directly appeal a decision that has been made by the agency or the Ministry of Social Development? That provider, of course, will be very close to the tenants and will know the circumstances of its tenants. Is it able to make use of the appeal provisions on behalf of its tenants if the Ministry of Social Development undertakes a review that deems a tenant to no longer, in its mind, be eligible for an income-related rent? I can anticipate those kinds of circumstances. In the past we have relied on community agencies to take those appeals. What role will those social agencies have in those kinds of disputes? It is a legitimate question for the Minister.

I rise to speak to the second part of the Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill. The Minister of Housing asked whether the Labour Party supports the handing over of income-related rental subsidies to the third sector—to community sector housing providers. If it were as simple as that, the choice would be easy. Of course they should access that money. Of course they should access, on an equal basis, the income-related rental subsidy, because they are helping the Government in its purpose of finding adequate housing for those who need it.

The trouble is that it is not as easy as that, and the Minister is being quite simply disingenuous by suggesting that this is a yes/no choice. Our issue is also about the quantum of money and the expectation that the third sector, the civil society housing sector, will be required to take over the Government’s responsibility for the provision of housing for those most in need. At $27 million over 4 years, Minister—$6.75 million a year—that is not going to do it. So, sure, give the third sector $27 million over 4 years to improve its capacity but do not abrogate the Government’s responsibility as the primary agent available to produce and build the greatest number of affordable houses. This is simply shifting the buck. This is simply privatising a responsibility of the Government and doing it inadequately.

So, yes, we are perfectly happy for the third sector to have access to income-related rental subsidies, but that is not all there is to it. We would prefer that the Government actually stepped up to its responsibilities instead of waiting 5 years and doing nothing about affordable housing until the noise around it became so great that it had to apply one of its noisiest members to it. The Government is now scrabbling for anything that might get this monkey off its back.

I want to speak further about Phil Twyford’s amendment—Supplementary Order Paper 396. Supplementary Order Paper 396 relates to the provisions in clause 19. What Phil Twyford’s Supplementary Order Paper seeks to do is to amend clause 19 so that the ability of any agency to review the housing needs of a tenant—this is the implementation of the reviewable tenancies part of the policy—does not apply to tenants with a disability, tenants aged 65 years or over, or tenants with school-age children.

I want to know from the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Housing, who is meant to be answering some of our questions, why he is not supporting Supplementary Order Paper 396, or whether in fact he is supporting it. I bet my bottom dollar he is not supporting it because it has come from Labour, but what could possibly be wrong with exempting tenants with a disability, tenants aged 65 years and over, or tenants with school-age children from reviewable tenancies?

I have already spoken—earlier, in the debate on Part 1—about the creation of secure communities—families that are secure; families that are not threatened by dislocation and the upheaval of moving into the private sector; families that do not have the threat of a reviewable tenancy held over them. This is especially important in places where there is inadequate private rental accommodation available, and that is as true in Nelson as it is in Auckland. The quality of rental accommodation is dire.

I want to refer to the submission to the Social Services Committee that was made by He Kāinga Oranga, the Housing and Health Research Programme based in the University of Otago. The submission of that research programme says that the bill makes several major changes to social housing, which we know, and it says that it does not support the introduction of reviewable tenancies for all State tenants, which is what is going to happen with this bill—not the people who were excluded previously but, as my colleague Phil Twyford said earlier, all State tenants. It said that it does not support it because of the lack of evidence.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Before I was interrupted by the dinner hour, I was talking about a submission to the Social Services Committee on this bill by He Kāinga Oranga, which is based in Otago University. It said that it did not support the introduction of reviewable tenancies for all State tenants because of a number of things, and those things included a lack of evidence provided for its efficacy, its cost, the health effects on the lack of security of tenure, the health effects of displacement, the health effects of moving people from State to private rental housing, and the effect on children’s education. These are not stupid people putting a submission together. These are people who are experienced in that whole matrix of health, housing, education, and children’s achievement and stability. For the Government to ignore this outright is a reflection on its own lack of ability—either its own lack of ability to perceive the implications of the policy it is pursuing, or its stubbornness in refusing to address the people for whom social housing ought to be provided.

I raise that because the next bit that this submitter says was that it recommended that families with school-age children be excluded from reviewable tenancies, along with the groups it thought were already excluded—older people, people with disabilities, and the chronically ill. Those people are excluded by policy only. When it comes to the black letter of this bill, they are not excluded. I want the Minister to explain why they are not excluded. If it was good enough for it to be policy promulgated by the Hon Phil Heatley in 2011, it is surely good enough to turn up in the legislation.

Having those exclusions from reviewable tenancies—that is, older people, people with disabilities, the chronically ill, and tenants with school-age children, as my colleague Phil Twyford suggests in Supplementary Order Paper 396—would go some way to alleviating some of our concerns. But it does not seem that there is any intention for the Minister to do that or even to address why he is not doing that. Quite frankly, Minister, if I might quote the title of Mark Prebble’s book, With Respect, this is not good enough. This does not protect the people who need protecting—the vast majority of those in our State housing stock who need assistance at this time. So my colleague has put forward a Supplementary Order Paper that asks that tenants with a disability, tenants aged 65 and over, or tenants with school-age children be exempt. Why will that not happen?

I too want to comment on Part 2 of this piece of legislation, the Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill, on the role of the community housing sector in the Government’s plans, and also on the reviewable tenancy policy if I get time. When the Housing Shareholders’ Advisory Group report was released—and that was a group of people who came with a wealth of backgrounds and experience in terms of understanding what really needed to significantly change if we were to address the pressures in social and affordable housing in New Zealand—it came with one very, very firm and stark message from that group, which was: “Please do not cherry-pick. Please do not just take a few bits of this report that you think you can implement and ignore the rest of it. It is a whole package. It is an entire strategy. If you are going to take this issue seriously, then it is not OK to just pick the bits that you like and ignore the bits that you do not like.” But, unfortunately, what we have seen from this Government since that report was released was very much cherry-picking of some of the elements of the report that they agreed with, and ignoring the rest of it.

Although I think it is a very positive step forward to extend the income-related rent subsidy to community housing providers providing social housing, I will point out that it is only $27 million over 4 years. That is not going to cover even the current community housing providers that are providing social housing—those ones that exist there already. That is not even enough money to cover what has already been done, let alone what this policy was supposedly attempting to do, which was to build more of these third-sector social housing units. It is a kind of laudable policy aim, but the reality is that there is not enough money to even pay for what we have already got, let alone to build this sector up.

The second thing I would say about it is that I think it puts the community housing sector in a really invidious position, and it is actually really, really, very unfair. I come back to my cherry-picking comments. If you go and talk to any of the community housing sector organisations, particularly those involved in social housing, they will give you one very strong message: they are absolutely 100 percent committed to security of tenure. They are absolutely 100 percent committed to providing the kind of security that often we take for granted—when you own your own home and you know that you are going to have that tenancy for as long as you choose to have it, barring any great disaster happening. A lot of people take that security for granted, and the benefits that come from that security—the benefits for children growing up in those homes, where their parents can put down roots in their community and they can know that their children are not going to be moved from school to school as they struggle to find accommodation. What we know from endless research in the education area is that transience—moving from school to school and never being able to settle down—is one of the worst things that you can put on a child, and it will have one of the biggest negative impacts on their learning ability.

The awful thing about this reviewable tenancy policy, which the community housing sector is now going to have to apply if it wants to access those income-related rent subsidies and which runs up against everything it stands for, is that for most people it is never going to apply. You will get insecurity for 100 percent of tenants who are under this policy for something that addresses a small number of tenants, who in the past Housing New Zealand used to actually work with as human beings.

You know, remember when Housing New Zealand actually treated tenants like human beings and were allowed to develop relationships, and did not have a Government that removed that personal relationship between tenants and tenancy managers? Back then the tenancy managers would work with the families. When circumstances changed, they would work to move them on. As I said to the Minister of Housing before, the two biggest issues that were stopping people from moving on were not that they were so selfish that they refused to move because they did not want a more needy family to have the State house. It was, firstly, that they had nowhere to move to, and, secondly, that they could not afford the cost of moving—the bond, the rent in advance, the letting fee, and the actual cost of moving. Those were what were stopping tenants from moving on, and nothing in Part 2 of this bill around reviewable tenancies does anything to fix either of those two things.

So the problem will continue to go on. We will shuffle people out on to the streets, not knowing where they are going, not caring where they are going—seemingly—and the core problems will not be fixed by Part 2 of this piece of legislation.

It is a pleasure to speak on Part 2 of this bill, the Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill, and to join what is a chorus of dissent on this side of the Chamber, because this bill is a disgrace. People have made the argument from many different angles because it is to be made from many different angles.

I want to add to a couple of the comments I was making on Part 1, because I understand that the main provisions in Part 2, from my reading of the bill anyway, enact those same principle provisions that are in Part 1. The fact that the regulatory impact statement talks about the problems under four headings was something I began to canvass. The first problem is that “state housing is not well matched to need;”. These are the problems with the current social housing in New Zealand, according to officials. The second is that “there is a lack of alternatives to state housing that offer security of tenure and affordability;”. The third is that “government financial assistance for housing is inequitable;”, and the fourth is around the cost of the housing and the fiscal pressures.

Mr Smith got up to address some of those points—although I note he focused on the Salvation Army report in his response—but those four problems are what seem to be driving the current difficulties with the social housing market in New Zealand. As I pointed out in Part 1, the first three of those problems are not addressed at all by this bill—certainly not in any fashion that could be regarded as forward thinking or visionary for the people for whom State housing is designed to support.

The regulatory impact statement then goes on to point out the number of properties that are not currently being used—14 percent of the housing portfolio is either vacant, underutilised, or overcrowded—and then it goes on to say that part of the reason for this is that there is “uncertainty over the funding necessary to maintain social housing.” I think that is one of the key findings in this regulatory impact statement—the fact that there is not certainty of funding from this Government and that there is no consistent policy that seems to be applied. It is a very ad hoc approach to social housing the Government has taken. We can see that that means that the solutions are ad hoc, and when one is not certain where the money is coming from, one makes do in the short term.

That is exactly what these policies represent. They are the kinds of policies that may put band-aids here and there, may make some of these houses habitable, but certainly in the medium term they will be exposed for exactly what they are. Earlier, colleagues talked about musical chairs and the worst kind of musical chairs being where you take away one chair each time the music stops until there are none left. This is exactly what this housing policy seems to represent—a kind of un-fun game of musical chairs where New Zealand’s most vulnerable citizens are the ones without a place to put their head.

These are the kinds of policies that a Government that is out of touch will run—a Government that is unaware or disinterested in the widening inequalities that we are finding in New Zealand society. Under this Government, inequalities are the worst that they have been in documented history in this country, since records of inequality have been kept, and that is a shameful thing. This Government is arrogantly persisting with policies that are exacerbating that.

On this side of the Chamber we have a view that all people ought to be supported to make their best contribution. The Labour Government of the future wants to build a future for all. It wants an economy that works for all New Zealanders and makes sure that even those most disadvantaged in terms of their opportunities at birth are supported to make the most of their talents so that they can live in dignity like everybody else, can make their best contribution, can sleep well at night, can have the expectation that they will not have transience forced upon them, and can have opportunities in schooling to make the most of their natural talents. That will lead to a nation that we can all be proud of. That is what New Zealanders want.

Certainly, when I am in Dunedin I am hearing more and more stories of people who would like to be in secure accommodation but have been forced into private accommodation that is inadequate. I personally have been to visit a flat that I once lived in as a student that is now occupied by a large family with grandchildren in it, who are living in appalling conditions. The conditions of that flat were not flash when I was living there as a student approximately 20 years ago, and they have deteriorated since then. It has got to a state where no children ought to live there, where children ought not to be brought up there because the conditions of that house are cold and damp.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: You left it in that state.

That coldness and dampness—I mean, the Minister of Defence, Minister Coleman, over there may think it is a joke. He laughs about this, but these are children who are running around with runny noses in the middle of winter and living in a cold damp home who may develop preventable respiratory illnesses.

These are problems that we know how to fix, but they seem to be not a priority for this Government. It seems much more interested in doing those kinds of deals—the likes of Skycity, Chorus coming up probably, and some corporate welfare out to Rio Tinto—that are targeted at supporting a few. Are they transparent? No, they are not. Instead, they are deals that are supporting a few, when we see so many New Zealanders suffering.

I move, That the question be now put.

No, I think it is far too early for that. I am just looking to see who has not had a call, and I see that the honourable member Sue Moroney has not had a call, and she has been seeking one.

I do want to take the opportunity to speak to Part 2 and, in particular, to two excellent Supplementary Order Papers that have been put forward in the names of Phil Twyford and Annette King. I will start with Supplementary Order Paper 396, which has been put forward in the name of Phil Twyford, because this is an issue that is very close to my heart. It is the issue of ensuring in this Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill that reviewable tenancies cannot be covered and applied to those over 65, the disabled, and those with school-age children.

I will start by talking about the school-age children because, in my experience in visiting schools, one of the first things that teachers will tell you is the difficulty they have in actually educating children who are always on the move, those children who are from transient backgrounds and transient families. It does not matter how many times the teachers are chastised about national standards by that Government—it does not matter how many times the nanny State opposite tries to browbeat teachers about national standards—for children who are constantly on the move there is no way that any teacher is going to be able to get them to achieve a national standard. When children move from school to school their ability to actually be in a secure educational environment is severely compromised. And here is this Government adding to that by compromising the security of their housing, by compromising the security of that most fundamental social need: having a decent roof over their heads.

That is what I cannot understand with this Government, because it constantly tries to sound like it is concerned about vulnerable children. Here is its chance. Here is its chance to prove it. Prove with your vote, Dr Smith, that the most vulnerable of our children, those who are often in State housing tenancy situations, are actually the children who need security. They are the children who need your help, Minister. They do not need a further impediment put in their way to having a good secure lifestyle and, therefore, having the ability to know that they are going to be able to continue to go to their local neighbourhood school because the home they live in is the one that is going to continue to be the home they live in. That is what I find so objectionable about Part 2. There is no attempt by the Government to give those children that security.

I know that the Minister has tried to indicate that he will ensure that Housing New Zealand Corporation does not move on families with school-age children, but let us put the money where the mouth is, Minister, and vote in favour of Phil Twyford’s excellent Supplementary Order Paper, which would make sure that there was a legislative protection and security for these children. Anything else is just weasel words. Let us be clear about that. Anything less than voting for this Supplementary Order Paper is just paying lip-service to a commitment to vulnerable children. So here is where the Government can actually make its commitment clear.

But I also challenge the Government to make clear its commitment to those over the age of 65 and to the large number of people who will live with disabilities on a day-to-day basis, who also need some security of tenure. If you think about people with disabilities, often these homes have been renovated by the State, by the taxpayer, to cater for the particular disability in mind. If there has been that commitment from the taxpayer to renovate that house in order to suit the person with the disability, then, surely, the Minister could give a legislative commitment to those people that they will have some security of tenure in their own homes.

I think that this part of the bill is the part that has the most damage in it. It is the part that also has the most opportunity in it, and I want to speak briefly to that because that is the subject of Annette King’s Supplementary Order Paper. It is the idea that social housing providers, some of the non-governmental organisation operators in this field, should participate and that they should be taking over some of the Government’s responsibility. Let us be clear. That is what it is. This bill actually says they should be taking over the responsibility that has formerly been that of the State. So we should call it what it is. Certainly, on this side of the Chamber we know that these non-governmental organisations would be excellent social housing providers, because they are already. We would want them to be providing social housing in addition—

I move, That the question be now put.

I am looking—I am looking. I am just trying to be even—to see who has had some calls. Sue Moroney has had only one call, so I am going to call her.

Thank you, Mr Chair, because I was in the midst of a really important part when the Government tried to shut this debate down because those members do not want to talk about Part 2 of the Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill, which is around the idea that very, very good and well-meaning non-governmental organisations are being asked to take over the responsibility of the State. On this side of the Chamber we believe in those organisations having the ability to add to the State’s responsibility, but not to replace it. That is our concern with this part of the bill. We know that those organisations are very, very good at what they do. But here is what the problem is. I talked about this a little bit in my Part 1 debate. Actually, the main problem is that there is not enough housing—there is not enough housing stock. Until the Government comes face to face with that and admits what the actual problem is, and not what the pretend problem is, then it will not make headway in this area. It just will not make headway.

So here is my concern, and I am going to describe it in terms of a very similar situation that has rolled out in the past in the health area. We have seen it happen before. I am going to talk about rest homes in particular. Very, very well-meaning organisations, mostly religious and welfare organisations, took over the running of rest home services that were, at that time, the purview of the State. The State primarily operated those services for our most vulnerable elderly. Then very well-meaning non-governmental organisations—as I said before, mostly religious and welfare organisations—took over the running, and took over the job of the State in that role.

That worked out OK—actually, pretty well—for 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 years, but less than two decades later what we actually found was that now those rest homes have been almost all onsold to corporations in the private sector. It was not because those non-governmental organisations had decided that that is what they wanted to do from the outset—not at all. In fact, it was quite the reverse to that. They really wanted to offer the very best service in aged care. But what they found was that they were not able to do that in the way that they felt comfortable and good about. It was not the sort of service that they could feel was what they went into it for. So it was privatised.

That is what I see as being the slippery slope with housing. Well-intentioned, very experienced non-governmental organisations, I think, under the sort of Government we have in place at the moment, will find that they are completely under-resourced to do the job to their high standards, and may then find that they end up offloading those properties on to the private sector. That would be an absolute travesty, because what we would then find is that our most vulnerable citizens will be at the mercy of large corporations and private landlords, and is not that a situation that we already suffer from in this country? It is not the pathway forward. It is not the way to resolve housing problems for our most vulnerable.

Can I put it in the context of being one of the most fundamental social rights in this country, which is that every New Zealand citizen should have the right to have adequate housing, to have a good and adequate roof over their heads. We know that when that does not happen our whole country suffers. It is all very well for the Government to congratulate itself, week in and week out, as it tends to do, on putting more and more resources into preventing rheumatic fever and the outcomes of children having got rheumatic fever. But would it not be so much better if, instead of actually dealing with the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, this Government understood the importance of adequate and safe housing to actually preventing children from getting that dreadful Third World disease in the first place? Is not that the sort of country that we should be aiming for?

I know that on this side of the Chamber it is. The vision that Labour has is that we want to ensure that every family has adequate housing, so that we are not talking about—as the Government seems to pride itself on—dealing with the outcome of Third World - country diseases. How hopeless is that?

I move, That the question be now put.

No. I am going to call a spokesman for the area, and of course it is the honourable member Philip Twyford.

It is only you and my mother who call me that.

💬 Jacinda Ardern: What? Philip Stoner Twyford?

Philip, as opposed to Phil. I want to make some comments about the extension of the income-related rents subsidy to community housing organisations. We saw the Minister of Housing get up a little while ago and, in a great sort of gotcha moment, challenge Labour to say whether it supported these provisions, and so on. Well, it is true there is a lot of animosity on this issue. We are deeply opposed to the extension of insecurity of tenure to State housing tenants. There are other elements of this bill, the Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill, that we are utterly opposed to. It is no secret and it should be no mystery, Minister, that Labour wants to see a greater role for community housing organisations. I want to pay tribute to the Hon Maryan Street and the progress that she made as housing Minister in opening up that policy.

I am quite happy to acknowledge and salute the policy progress that the Hon Nick Smith has made so far in this portfolio in terms of opening up space for community housing NGOs to play a greater role in the provision of State housing. We agree with that. There is no controversy. There is no mystery there. We are very aware that the community housing NGOs do some fantastic work and have the potential to do a lot more. In west Auckland, the community that I represent, VisionWest Community Trust and Monte Cecilia Housing Trust both do fantastic work, amongst other areas, on the provision of emergency housing. That work is funded by the Government and it is vitally needed—in fact, we need more of it. There are a number of community housing organisations that do really great work with high-needs tenants, providing services that sit alongside the provision of housing.

I want to see housing associations and non-profit entities that deliver affordable rental housing become part of the scene in New Zealand, like they are in a number of other jurisdictions overseas. We support the extension of the income-related rent subsidy. We support the work of the Social Housing Unit. But the question that we have in this debate is whether, in fact, the rhetoric about growing the community housing sector is based on a genuine and deep commitment to the empowerment of that community sector. As Campbell Roberts from the Salvation Army has pointed out, the Government, in spite of all its rhetoric, has committed only $27 million over 4 years to the community housing sector. As Campbell Roberts said, that is simply not credible. That does rather undermine the Minister of Housing’s case that this is his great flagship proposal.

The suspicion that we have on this side of the Chamber is that in devolving both housing stock and the subsidy, National is simply seeking to carve back the role, the capability, of Housing New Zealand to be a strong Government-delivered provider of income-related social rental housing; that National has never believed in Housing New Zealand; and that it sees Housing New Zealand as some kind of millstone around its neck. The fact that National has squeezed Housing New Zealand as some kind of cash cow over the last few years is a disgrace when we are in the middle of a housing crisis. All of those things make us on the Labour benches deeply suspicious about whether the Government genuinely wants to empower the community housing sector.

There are provisions in this bill that I think underline that concern. New sections 175 to 177 inserted by clause 19 of the bill contain what have to be considered, I think, fairly Draconian powers of intervention. Changes have been made as a result of the Social Services Committee deliberations. If a housing NGO is in receipt of the income-related rent subsidy, there is a certain level of accountability provisions. If it receives housing stock from Housing New Zealand, then it gets the full monty. That basically gives the Minister the power to sack the boards of those organisations. That is a pretty significant power of intervention. For all the Minister’s rhetoric about wanting to support the community housing sector, I question whether or not his vision is for anything other than this so-called contestable market in which housing organisations are competing for tenants and subsidies.

I am going to call the honourable member Moana Mackey.

💬 Hon Annette King: Oh, Mr Chair!

No need to sound so disappointed, Mrs King. I am sure your chance will come.

I want to talk, under Part 2, to section 70, in new Part 7 of the bill, the Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill. New section 70 is the purpose of this part of the bill, which talks about better utilisation of the community housing sector. Under new subsection (2)(b), it says the role is to “align Housing New Zealand Corporation’s role to the provision of social housing in a multiple-provider environment:”, and new subsection (2)(c) says it is to “facilitate the growth of the community housing sector by enabling the extension, on terms and conditions set by the joint Ministers, of an income-related rent subsidy to registered community housing providers and an income-related rent to their tenants:”.

We have already had a number of people discussing the fact that the funding that goes with this bill will go nowhere near doing what the bill professes to be trying to achieve. I want to talk, really, about what is not in this bill, which is any kind of strategy or any kind of attempt to get the best use out of the community organisations that we already have, rather than doing what this bill does, which is simply asking them to step in and do the job that Housing New Zealand and the State are pulling away from.

When the Housing Shareholders’ Advisory Group report, from which much of this part of the bill came, was released, again another one of the strong messages from the community housing sector was: “We don’t want to do your job for you. Do not use this excuse to reduce the role of the State in social housing. Do what, in fact, the bill, new subsection 2(b) here, says”—which is aligning Housing New Zealand far better with the community housing sector, in terms of the provision of social housing. But the advisory group said very clearly: “We want to do that in partnership with you. We don’t want to end up doing your job for you because you no longer want to properly fund social housing in New Zealand.”

This is extremely apparent when you look at the community housing providers that the Minister himself has mentioned and some of the other big players in this area—the New Zealand Housing Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, and a number of housing trusts around the country. The specialist qualities and skills of these organisations is not the provision of social housing; it is the provision of first home owners’ affordable housing. Yet here we see a purpose in Part 2 of this bill that is essentially taking these community housing providers and saying that if you want to get any kind of Government money, you actually have to move into social housing. Your bread and butter stuff, the stuff that is desperately needed in our cities, particularly in Auckland—affordable first home ownership—is the stuff the New Zealand Housing Foundation has been doing.

That is the model upon which Labour’s KiwiBuild policy was based, because it works. It is working right now. You have these mixed communities of private home ownership, affordable first home ownership through a range of different mechanisms, and then social housing that is provided by the Salvation Army, Habitat for Humanity, the Mental Health Foundation, and a number of different organisations all coming together, with the New Zealand Housing Foundation coordinating it all, to build a community—not to build a suburb but to build a community.

It is a model that works particularly well, but, unfortunately, it is a model that is being seriously undermined by Part 2 of this bill, because those community housing organisations, if we were to use them, get the most value out of what they do, we would not be asking them to do social housing, apart from the few that are already in that space. Those that are working in that space do a very good job, but it is very small scale.

Where there is real potential is where you have these community housing trusts, which are actually relatively quite sizable for New Zealand, that are operating at such a scale already that if we were to work with them on affordable first home ownership and then trust them to do what the New Zealand Housing Foundation has done, which is to then partner with other community housing organisations to provide social housing, then you would get that spectrum of housing need exactly right. You would have the bulk of the community housing trusts providing affordable homeownership, dealing in that area. You then have those organisations that provide wraparound services or specialised services, such as the Salvation Army working with the elderly and the Mental Health Foundation working with mental health patients.

Then you come down to Housing New Zealand, which really does deal with poor families, families on low incomes, but then it is able to pass on to those providers that provide wraparound support the tenants to whom it really does not offer an adequate service. Housing New Zealand cannot provide specialist mental health services, specialist services for people who were formerly homeless, or specialist services for young people. In fact, Housing New Zealand cannot house people under a certain age. That is really where you would get the best out of all the different organisations.

I move, That the question be now put.

We come to an amendment in the name of the honourable member Philip Twyford. It is an amendment to clause 19 deleting new section 115A. That is set out on Supplementary Order Paper 398. However, it is identical to an amendment already agreed to. Therefore, the amendment to clause 19 deleting new section 127(2)(b), set out on Supplementary Order Paper 398, is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the Committee.

The question was put that the remaining amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 398 in the name of Phil Twyford to clause 19 be agreed to.