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

Last night, when we were at the midway stages of the debate, I was opposing the Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill on behalf of Labour, and I was proud to do so because we simply do not believe in making some of the most vulnerable people in our society even more vulnerable through this constant pressure and insecurity of reviewable tenancies.

During the Committee stage, Labour put forward very sensible amendments that were rejected by the Government. They were there to ensure that in legislation no one over the age of 65, no one with a disability, and no one with school-age children would be subject to these reviewable tenancies, and to the absolute lack of security over the most basic of fundamental needs, the right to have a decent roof over one’s head. Labour is not a party that wants to make more insecurity for schoolchildren, for those over the age of 65, and for people with disabilities. Those are the people who need protection from the ravages of that Government opposite. We know that the basic problem here is that there is not enough housing to go around.

I am also pleased to take a call on the Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill. That speech from Sue Moroney was a fairly good example, albeit a very short one, of the approach of the Labour Party, which seems to think that it is the only one that can be determinative of a person’s situation in life. For so long, in terms of the housing stock, we have seen people who have become beholden to the State and have not had the ability and have not had the framework and the legislative impetus to have aspiration and to have the freedoms that we want everyone to be able to have. No one in this House would argue that having a house that is fit for purpose and having people assessed on a needs basis is anything other than reasonable.

We are talking about a Labour Government that sat back there and did nothing about the housing stock for 9 years, whereas this Government is actually doing something about the housing stock. It is actually doing something about the challenges we are confronted with in some of the centres in terms of housing. We are bothering to insulate the houses and make them happy and warm environments.

The Labour Party members can wax lyrical and wring their hands over their chardonnays, but ultimately this is about a Minister of Housing who is actually committed to ensuring that the housing stock grows, that the flexibility—

💬 Dr David Clark: Slash and burn!

Well, that is the Labour Party approach, Mr Clark. That is the Labour Party approach: “What we will do is we will sit over here in Opposition and do nothing more than throw stones at the people—throw rocks within the glass house—because those other people over there are actually doing something.”, which is pretty reflective when one looks at the polls. It does not matter how many Labour leaders change it in and out; it is getting nowhere with that. And that member there, who seems to come up with the greatest one-liners in 50 years, and nothing more, should actually take a little bit of time to consider exactly what his party is doing, and what it aspires to—not much.

This bill is about providing the right mechanisms for the housing stock and ensuring that the community and relevant organisations can participate in providing the right sort of support for those who need it—simple as that.

I want to cover some of the things that may not actually have been covered in the debate on the Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill, but I will try to keep to a third reading speech. It is a bit galling to have johnny-come-latelys in the National Government protest that Labour did nothing in housing for 9 years. I would just like to go back a bit, because clearly the new members have swallowed hook, line, and sinker the spin that their seniors have fed them, without question. The fact is that Labour came in after 13,000 State houses were sold, and proceeded to build 8,600 State houses. We built or acquired 8,600 houses during those 9 years, because it does take longer to build and acquire them than it does to get rid of them or to sell them, as the previous National Government did. I will not even be bothered traversing all the other ranges of options that we put in place to address housing affordability, such as the Welcome Home Loan scheme, such as shared equity—all of those programmes that were designed to help people into their first homes. The newcomers in the National Government have been fed a line by their seniors that they have swallowed without question.

What we have here, as others have noted before me, is a Minister with a devastating combination, actually—a devastating combination in Dr Smith—of being extraordinarily effective as a Minister and almost always wrong. He is almost always wrong. He is really effective—he knows how to get things done—but he is almost always wrong, and this bill is another example.

The procedure that is operationalised in this bill will strip back Housing New Zealand. It transfers its needs assessment function over to the Ministry of Social Development. It transfers money to the third sector for housing purposes, which we do not oppose, but we wish it were sufficient and not simply an abrogation of the Government’s own responsibility to be the leader and the prime provider in affordable housing and social housing in this country. Instead of shovelling that off to an under-resourced third sector, the Government should be stepping up and making its own moves, taking its own actions, to address the needs of those who are unable to enter the private rental market, through no fault of their own, or to enter homeownership, which is an even more remote dream.

Labour opposes this bill, not because everything in it is wrong but because everything in it is either wrong or inadequate. It is simply not good enough—it is simply not good enough—for this Government to bring in a process of reviewable tenancies so that that shadow will hang over every tenant in a State house—“When are they going to review my tenancy? When am I going to be told that I can’t have this house any more?”. That is not how to build secure communities, and that is what social housing ought to be about—about not only providing housing for the poor but also using the State’s leverage and the State’s capacity to build secure, contributing communities, and not simply considering it an irritation or a monkey on the back of the Government that it would rather dispose of. This is not a good bill.

This is a piece of legislation that will be limited in its lifetime. It will be limited in its lifetime because when Labour takes office, we will be keen to address affordable housing in the multitude of ways that work, not simply the single actions that penalise people who currently use State housing because they need to for the security and the safety of their families. This is a punitive bill, and Labour will not support it. Thank you.

The Green Party also fundamentally opposes this Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill. We oppose it because we believe in homes, not just houses. We believe that homes are important to the foundations of our society. We oppose this bill because we know that if we have good, warm, dry, affordable homes for everyone, we will all benefit through reduced health costs, improved educational outcomes, and improved economic productivity. We believe that because the evidence tells us that.

We oppose this bill because we honestly value the tangata whenua and the community and voluntary sector. We recognise that they have a lot to contribute to community housing through their own value base, not through being turned into arms of the State, which is what this bill attempts to do. We oppose this bill because we do not believe that the Ministry of Social Development or Work and Income will improve services for people needing housing support—in fact, we fear the opposite. We oppose this bill because we think that the priority is building communities, not temporary shelters.

I have spoken already in relation to this bill about most of my adult life being in rental housing and the costs of that to me economically, as well as in terms of increased stress. But I was really lucky to spend my childhood in one house, in a place with a big garden, fruit trees, and three bedrooms. It was warm and dry. I got to go through the same schools—the primary school, the intermediate school, and the secondary school—with consistency. I did not have to move between my schools, and none of my friends had to move either.

In my childhood none of my friends moved house, and that is such a contrast to the reality of so many children now. We see in South Auckland the turnover in private rentals being, on average, four families a year. We hear about schools where there is 100 percent churn in the population of the school. Those children have lost the childhood that we had. They have been taken away from the stability of a continuous education and peer group. They do not have the childhood that we had. What this bill does is make that even more precarious. Even the lives of children in State housing are now being threatened.

I want to remind that side of the House that it was a liberal Government that first recognised the importance of State housing. It saw that the growing reports of extortionate rents and squalid living conditions required it to intervene to protect our society and to provide some basic, decent standards. That very vision is being eroded by this Government and by this bill. I think it is an absolute shame and a change of our national values. Shame on this Government.

I think that the Green Party, as an alternative, has a vision in terms of the State’s role. I know that housing is of such concern to our communities. I was speaking with a cleaner in Wellington Hospital recently, who was asking what can be done, because he wants to get out of extortionate rents in the private market. I told him that our answer is about more secure tenure—the opposite to what this Government is doing—and the idea of a rent-to-own property, where the Government’s ability to access low interest rates could be passed on to New Zealanders so that New Zealanders could be provided with secure tenure and the ability to own in the future. I hope New Zealand will vote in the future for that vision—a vision of community and of all of us having a decent standard of living—and not this dystopian vision.

The Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill has been canvassed a lot, and was for many, many hours last night. I simply want to say that when the Opposition accuses this Government of not recognising the importance of State housing, it is absolutely wrong. This bill is all about recognising the importance of State housing. That is why National is committed to ensuring that the State housing stock is fit for purpose, that the State housing stock is allocated to those most in need, and that there is flexibility around that, too.

I want to simply point out the huge investment that Housing New Zealand is making. We are making a record investment of $2.9 billion in Housing New Zealand over 3 years. That is National’s commitment to State housing. This bill will absolutely ensure that more services are provided to New Zealanders in this sector.

Bill read a third time.

Votes for the Noes ordered to be recorded in the Journals of the House of Representatives as follows: New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan 1.