Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I am seeking your guidance on an issue that I think we will come up again during the course of this debate. The point of order is this: I understand that during your decision on the last part, you said that Opposition parties had had 21 calls on that part. That differs from the record that we have been taking of the calls. I wonder what the process is for addressing discrepancies in the record-taking.

The process is outlined in Speakers’ rulings 64/4-6. Speakers’ ruling 64/4 states: “The [chairperson] is the sole judge as to whether or not he ought to sanction the putting of the closure motion,”. In respect of the official record of who has spoken when and of how many calls have been taken, this is retained by the Clerk and is available for inspection. If the member wishes to, she can align them with her own records.

Part 2 of this bill, at clause 21, continues with this ridiculous notion that Housing New Zealand should not proffer advice to the Government. Clause 21 continues that. We live in a country that is wealthy. We are told every day by the National Party that we are living in a wealthy country, and yet increasingly people cannot get houses to live in. We have got more people living in parks. The number of homeless is increasing. We are seeing that in the newspapers, and in magazines like North and South. We have got people living in cars. We have got people living in garages. And we have got members of Parliament, like Paula Bennett, referring people in housing need to the camping ground, to live in caravans and huts.

We have got house prices that are the highest they have been for ever in New Zealand, and some of the least-affordable housing in the world. We have the lowest rate of homeownership in New Zealand since the 1950s, and yet the Government says it does not want decent advice about housing. In the social housing sector things have got so bad because of the ridiculous mismanagement by this Government. It does not let Housing New Zealand answer questions about need. It has stopped that already. It has got so bad in Labour Party constituency offices, in part because National Party members, sometimes quite frequently, will not even address the causes of concern of their constituents, which means that those people are coming to Labour Party offices, in addition to our own constituency voters. It has got so bad that our staff are pulling their hair out.

Not only that, people out there are so frustrated that they cannot get a roof over their heads for themselves and their people that they are abusing our staff and threatening them. That is never excusable, but the level of frustration in society has become so high that we have had cases in South Auckland where people are pulling knives on our staff. They are so frustrated that they cannot get an answer as to where they can get emergency housing, and yet we have got less advice coming from the ministries because they do not want to know.

I drove to Invercargill a couple of weeks ago. I went down through Ōwaka, and came through the southern parts of Invercargill as I came in. The private rental stock, the basic level of which will always be held up by the Government rental stock, is in an abysmal state. These are cold parts of New Zealand. There are rotten houses with holes in the walls. I was shocked at the number of houses that I went past in these cold areas that just had a sheet draped over the window of a single-glazed house, with rotten frames where the glass drops in the frame, and where there are holes in the sides of the walls. People have got no alternative, and the Government has not got any minimum standard for housing. All of those houses are legally let in this wealthy country, where poor people suffer because of the inadequacy of the Government’s housing policy.

Paula Bennett rates herself as the next leader of the National Party. This—

💬 Hon Paula Bennett: Rubbish!

Look—it is promoted on the websites of the National Party. Judith Collins has already thrown herself under a bus, and it is a competition between Steven Joyce and Paula Bennett. New Zealanders, Ms Bennett, hate hypocrisy. They hate hypocrisy, and they do not like to see people who get ahead in New Zealand, having had access to a State house, now ditching the system. This will be the Minister’s bête noire. This will be carried with her until the end of her political career.

Bill English, when last in Government, tried to get rid of income-related rents. He could not. That National Government sold 13,000 houses, but it lost the income-related rents, and it has not even been brave enough to go directly after that this time, because it knows that people think that poor people should not have to pay more than they can afford, particularly people with mental illness or disability.

I am shocked as I speak to Part 2 of this bill, because what happens in Part 2 is that it actually guts the Housing New Zealand Corporation, and it washes the Government’s hands of any responsibility for providing decent housing for New Zealanders. It is an absolute disgrace because in Subpart 2 of Part 2 the Housing Corporation Act changes so that the Housing New Zealand Corporation is not even responsible for giving policy advice to the Minister any longer. How disgraceful is that?

The Minister does not want to hear the policy advice from the Housing New Zealand, because if the Minister did hear what was actually going on out there, the Government would know that it is going to have blood on its hands. It is going to have blood on its hands from this disgraceful attempt to absolve itself from any responsibility for providing decent housing for New Zealanders.

I come from the Waikato, and in the Waikato region, here is what is happening in housing. Housing New Zealand is not going to give advice to the Minister to tell her this any longer, so listen up Minister, because this is what is happening. Aucklanders are marching down over the Bombay Hills in their droves to buy affordable housing in Hamilton because they cannot do that in their own city where they live and work, in Auckland. This is because the Government has failed to fix the housing crisis. It has buried its head in the sand and pretended that it is not happening. Well, it has been happening, and now that housing crisis is marching south into the Waikato.

In Hamilton, house prices are going through the roof and rents are going up on literally a daily basis as Aucklanders—and there is no problem with the Aucklanders, because it is not their fault; it is the fault of the Government for doing nothing—are having to move down to Hamilton to buy their first affordable homes, and they still work in Auckland. They have to travel backwards and forwards between those cities on a daily basis, and that is creating a housing crisis in Hamilton. So, what is that going to mean? Well, what it means—and we will not hear from the Government Waikato MPs on this issue; you will not hear them getting up and speaking on this—is that there are people living in cars, there are people living in garages, and there are two to three families living in one home, just to make ends meet.

Just the other day in Hamilton I was at a network meeting where the issue of housing came up. One of the community workers asked the Housing New Zealand person who was in that meeting whether houses are going to be sold in Hamilton. I felt really sorry for this man, but what he said was: “Oh, no, no. No houses will be sold in Hamilton. It’s great news. They are going to be sold in Waharoa and in Ngāruawāhia.”—Waharoa and Ngāruawāhia.

If anyone knows the Waikato, what two poorer communities could you find in the Waikato than Waharoa and Ngāruawāhia? That is where the Government is going to be flogging off these State houses. It says that there is no need there. There is no waiting list, apparently, in Waharoa and Ngāruawāhia. Well, when I heard that, I went straight back to the 1990s, because in the 1990s, when a National Government flogged off 13,000 State houses, I was one of the people who stood and formed a human ring round houses in Waharoa to stop those houses from being picked up in the middle of the night by that National Government and being shipped up to Auckland so that it could charge a higher market rent for them up in Auckland and leave the people in Waharoa without the housing that they desperately needed.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Come back to Part 2.

Mr Chair, why this is about Part 2 is—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): You are giving a Part 1 speech. Come back to Part 2.

—that the Minister is no longer going to hear from Housing New Zealand about these—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Order! The member will resume her seat, and I am sorry to interrupt her. She should have taken the indication I gave her without me having to stand on my feet. This is a Part 2 debate. She should have another look at it and not just continue with a Part 1 speech.

💬 Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Again, I will just make a couple of very brief points, the first of which is that traditionally—certainly, in the time that I have been in the House—when a bill goes through all stages under urgency, and particularly when a debate has been curtailed on one part, there is some scope given to members speaking on a subsequent part if they have not had the opportunity to make all of their points on the first part, to address the wider part of the debate. That has always been the—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Thank you for making that point of order. You may resume your seat. There is also a convention, which the member will know very well, that if she wants to do a little bit of straying, she makes at least some reference to whatever is in Part 2. She has been here a long time, for as long as I have. She knows the rules. Let us hear it.

In clause 21, where this bill will take away the ability for Housing New Zealand to give policy advice to the Minister, the Minister is not going to hear this information from anyone else. Housing New Zealand is not going to tell the Minister, because in this part of the bill it has been reduced to being just a badly run State-owned property developer. It is a property developer; that is what it has been reduced to because clause 21 in Part 2 says that it is no longer required to give any research or policy advice to the Minister.

It is a privilege to take a call on Part 2 of this bill. Ever since this Government took office, it has been shaving away the functions of Housing New Zealand, and clauses 20 and 21 of this bill continue that trend. Clauses 20 and 21 remove some of the objectives and the functions of the corporation that we colloquially know as Housing New Zealand. This continues, as I said, the trend that this Government has had for some time with Housing New Zealand. If we go back to the very start of the first shavings of the functions that are featured in clauses 20 and 21, I think that may have been the 0800 number that Housing New Zealand used to operate, but then when there were waiting times of 2 to 3 hours, or even 4 hours, for some of the customers waiting for an answer to some of their basic questions, there was a certain level of frustration. So that was the first change and the first shaving away of a function, because there were fewer front-line staff.

Speaking as a local MP in the electorate of Mana, I say that the next shaving of function was the removal of a front desk in the city. So we went from a city with a considerable number of State housing tenants, a high demand, and a high capacity through that office, to a situation where there was no front desk for the people of Porirua to go to and do their business. This was just not on in a city the size of Porirua and with the number of State house tenants. Clauses 20 and 21 of this bill just continue that trend of neglect for Housing New Zealand. The fact that this Government is taking away those objectives and those functions from Housing New Zealand in a way says that this Government does not want the story to be told of what is going to be the outcome of this piece of legislation.

I said at the beginning of my speech that it is a privilege to speak to Part 2. Sometimes people say that just to fill in a bit of time, but it is a privilege because no one else in New Zealand, apart from members of this Parliament, gets to scrutinise this piece of legislation. It is being rushed through under urgency, and some pretty basic questions about the functions and objectives should be asked of this Government by people from outside this House. I am thinking about the people who live on Warspite Avenue, on Commerce Crescent, on Arahura Crescent, on Driver Crescent, in my electorate who want to know what is changing in this piece of legislation and what will change in their lives.

These functions of Housing New Zealand are changing in clause 20 and 21, so who will be their landlord? It is a pretty basic question from someone sitting out in the community: who will be their landlord now? In the past it has been Housing New Zealand and now it is a mixture of the Ministry of Social Development and Housing New Zealand, but with the functions changing in Part 2, who is going to be their landlord? What kind of rent are they now going to pay? What kind of tenancy are they going to have now? What happens to their children? What happens to their schooling? Are they safe in their community? These are all the kinds of questions that needed to be asked in a select committee process, but this Government will not do that and has not even bothered to answer any of these questions in this Committee stage.

These are major changes in clauses 20 and 21 and, as I say, they continue the trend of this Government having to wash its hands of any responsibility of social housing in New Zealand. I grew up in a State house as well, but I do not want to be a political hypocrite—I do not want to be a political hypocrite. I want to come to this House and make sure we care for and build on some of the things that I had that were the very building bricks of the success that I have had today, to make sure that the generations that follow can have what we have had. But, no, this Government wants to take that away. Clauses 20 and 21 are just another chapter in this long history of this Government basically wanting to get rid of Housing New Zealand and to have nothing at all to do with making sure there are affordable homes for the most vulnerable Kiwis in this country. Because if the market will not supply it, who should? The answer from that side of the Chamber is “not us”. But on this side of the Chamber, we know there is a responsibility and that is why we will build on social housing when we are in Government next.

I rise to take a call on Part 2 of this piece of legislation. To try to keep it as relatively narrow as possible is probably not going to be the easiest because, let us be honest, the devil is normally in the detail, but there are a few details lacking here—there are only a few paragraphs. Basically, the essence of the Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill—I have to read that every time because it is so long-winded—in Part 2, is really about two things that I can see, and that is taking away the GST in the first part. Whether that GST to be removed from the housing is really to do with making it more affordable—I do not think so. There is nothing in this legislation that suggests in any way that if you take GST off the costs of housing, they are going to be transposed and put into the beneficial places for those people who are actually going to be paying those rents. If you really were interested in looking after the people paying those rents, then take GST off residential rates and take GST off food. Those are the sorts of things that will go far further than taking GST off the accommodation costs for those people in those houses.

This package that this Government is putting together and putting out there for the property developers will be its sum game. I cannot believe that the National Government members sit there silently. Not one person is standing up to speak on this legislation. In particular, I invite the Māori Party to say what this legislation is going to do for the Māori people of this country. This is eating at the core of their issues. The biggest issues that we have in social housing deprivation throughout this country are now going to be handed over to those large corporations, those property developers, and we are not hearing anything that says in any way that the Māori Party is going to oppose this bill. In fact, at the last count it is supporting it, which absolutely beggars belief. I cannot understand that.

Subpart 2 of Part 2, “Remedial and other matters” in the explanatory note to the bill, is “Housing Corporation Act 1974”. Let me read it out to you because it is quite short but, to be honest, those people back home, wherever you are watching—I am sure there are a good dozen of you out there—might want to know this: “Clause 20 repeals section 3B(b). The effect of the repeal is that [Housing New Zealand Corporation] no longer has an objective to provide advice and information on housing to the Minister of Housing. Clause 21 amends section 18(2) by making clear that [Housing New Zealand Corporation’s] research and monitoring function described in section 18(2)(j) does not include research and monitoring for the purpose of advising the Minister of Housing on those matters.” From now on the Minister for Building and Housing is going to be getting his advice from the people who are trying to get industry and employment for those people. This absolutely contradicts what this whole State housing is about. It is about looking after the people who need to be looked after the most. This is taking away their ability.

I would certainly love to hear how the Minister thinks this is going to benefit New Zealanders, but also the minority groups of New Zealanders and, specifically, the Māori people in this country who need a voice, and we are not hearing one. We need to get some idea of how this is actually going to be of benefit to them and the rest of the people who are living in poverty in this country. We in New Zealand First, like the other comrades on this side, absolutely strongly and vehemently oppose the bill, and we would just love to hear some words coming back from the National benches on how those members can justify supporting this absolutely abhorrent piece of legislation. Thank you.

It is a telling indictment on the current National Government that the only time its members are willing to get up on their pins and talk in this debate is when they are trying to shut it down. They are not willing to stand up and actually defend the clauses of this bill. I want to turn to some of the clauses that have not yet been mentioned in this debate and they are the clauses around KiwiSaver—clauses 22 and 23—that make changes to the KiwiSaver provisions in the legislation that allow someone to withdraw their contributions to KiwiSaver to purchase a first home. What this bill does is that it means that somebody who has been in another superannuation or retirement savings scheme and transferred to KiwiSaver will still be able to access those provisions, where previously they might not have been able to. So potentially it is quite a sensible provision in terms of ensuring that people can use their retirement savings to buy their first home.

But let us just think about that for a moment. That is how far we have come—when the main solution for people who cannot afford to buy their first home is that they can pull out all of their retirement savings to buy a house. That is what it has come down to. They have to make a choice between whether they are saving for their retirement or are able to buy a first home. That is the actual reality that many New Zealanders are facing. We are not talking necessarily about young people—well, they are young, relatively speaking, but we are talking about people, potentially, in their 30s who might be looking at buying a first home. If they do that, and they put all of their savings and all of their money into buying their first home and they then spend the next 10 to 15 years getting their head above water in terms of paying that off, how long are they going to have to save for their retirement? As Michael Cullen said, when he was the Minister of Finance, you cannot eat your house. People are going to need to have savings in their retirement if they are going to live comfortably. I support this particular provision in the bill. I do not necessarily support the other provisions, and I am going to talk about the other provisions in this part in a moment. I support this provision but I think we do need to take a step back and ask how on earth we have got to this point where it is a choice between owning a home or saving for retirement, because we need New Zealanders to be doing both. We need to make sure that New Zealanders are supported to do both so that they can own a home and they can be sure that they are going to have a comfortable and secure retirement. Unfortunately, the reality is that many are having to choose between that. There are other factors at play here when they are making those choices. Many of the people in their late 20s and early 30s who will be in this position—maybe even in their mid-30s—will also have student loans that they are repaying.

What we are doing more and more and more is loading cost on to a generation of New Zealanders who are not going to be guaranteed the same comfort in retirement that they are seeing for the generations who have gone before them. That is going to create intergenerational pressure. I say to all of those who are nearing the age of 65 that when that pressure really starts to come home, when the retirement boom starts to happen and the next generation of New Zealanders are faced with the choice of increasing taxes to pay for that—which they will pay—or making other changes, there will be a conflict. The future generations of New Zealanders will remember that they had to make a choice between saving for their own retirement and buying a home. I think that is going to be very unfortunate. I think we should be factoring that in now and we should be planning ahead for that so that that conflict does not happen, because that could be immensely damaging to intergenerational attitudes, and I do not think that that is going to be healthy. So I think although that provision is one that I support, I think we do need to look at that wider issue of housing affordability and those wider issues around that massive burden that is being placed on an emerging generation of New Zealanders and the pressure that that is going to lead to in the future.

Clauses 19, 20, and 21, which have been more widely debated in this bill, make changes to the remit of the Housing New Zealand Corporation, established under the Housing Corporation Act 1974. Previously, Housing New Zealand was the main adviser to the Government on social housing policy. That is now being transferred to another agency as part of a wider move, which has seen the policy function moving to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment—or whatever; I cannot remember the exact order of the words in its name—and the needs-assessments being transferred to Work and Income. So the mentality behind this is that Housing New Zealand is simply the owner of the houses. That is all its remit is; that is all it does. I want to say as strongly as I can to the Government that although I understand the distinction that it is trying to make with these changes, it is not working on the ground. There are major challenges that that change is creating.

Kia ora, Mr Chairperson. Thank you very much. I seek just a short call in Part 2 of the Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill. I am pleased to see the Minister in the chair there, the Hon Paula Bennett—hopefully the Minister can expand on and give some explanation around what is happening there, particularly in Subpart 2 and the changes to the Housing Corporation Act 1974. I refer specifically to clause 21(1): “In section 18(2)(j), after ‘related to housing’, insert ‘(but not for the purpose of advising the Minister of Housing on those matters)’.”

From a New Zealand First perspective, we are not 100 percent convinced by the reasoning given for the shifting of this advice to another organisation. My first question would be what Housing New Zealand did to the Minister that she no longer wants to put into legislation that it should be the one advising her or this Government about housing. The Housing New Zealand Corporation has an extensive institutional knowledge around the history of social housing in this country, about the needs of social housing in this country. Why would the Minister and this Government put into the legislation that this organisation is not to advise the Minister of Housing? It does not mean that she cannot seek advice from other people. There is nothing needed there. You do not need to put into legislation that the Minister must seek advice only from Housing New Zealand. It bemuses us as to why an organisation that is entrenched in New Zealand history and that has seen and has institutional knowledge about what used to be, what is currently there, and about the pressures out there—even though we would have to say that the measuring of the pressures out there is completely abysmal.

What is happening in our area is that there are institutions, organisations, and NGOs saying do not bother telling the Housing New Zealand Corporation that you need a house, because, actually, there is no way on this planet that you are going to get one under this Government. So the need is not being clearly reflected. Perhaps that may be a reason why the Minister has decided that that advice needs to come from somewhere else. But it is a little bit like other pieces of legislation we have seen in this House—it is the removal of the requirement to seek advice from; it is the removal of the role of somebody who actually has institutional knowledge to advise. We see Subpart 2 as being a really interesting place to go to. I certainly would welcome the opportunity for the Minister to rise and actually address that.

With regard to Subpart 3 and the amendments to the KiwiSaver Act 2006 we are seeing some other changes around the KiwiSaver Act, and none of them are actually to the benefit of the purpose that KiwiSaver was set up, to start with. The purpose of KiwiSaver was to incentivise and encourage New Zealanders to save towards their own retirement. I was the generation—I am slightly older than the Minister—

💬 Hon Phil Goff: No!

I am slightly older—slightly older than the Minister. She may look younger—a lot younger than me—but I am slightly older. We are of the generation that was told in the 1990s that there would be no retirement for us—that there would be none and we were on our own. Have at it. But KiwiSaver came along as one of those backstops to start to encourage generations such as my own and then future generations to make sure we were able to somehow support ourselves.

This clause gives the capacity to completely remove from KiwiSaver for a period of time any of your savings to put into housing, which is robbing Peter to pay Paul. From our perspective, Subpart 3 is not an answer to the housing crisis or the inability of young New Zealanders to actually afford to purchase housing. It is not a true answer. So we would again seek some clarity from the Minister as to why this Government believes that actually allowing people to dip into a “Peter bucket” to pay into a “Paul bucket” is logical at this time when we know, as Mr Hipkins said, we are going to have to make some adjustments—and New Zealand First has its own theories about the adjustments that need to be made—as our population ages and goes forward and more and more stress is placed upon that part of our taxation system.

Finally, in Subpart 1, “Goods and Services Tax Act 1985”, I think that personally I cannot find anything controversial in that particular area there. I guess what we are saying is that when the Government actually seeks a service from somebody else, it does not have to pay the tax. At the end of the day it is taxpayers’ money. I can appreciate that taxpayers do not want to be paying again. I guess it is taking it from one bucket and sticking it into another, and that creates an administrative cycle.

So on behalf of New Zealand First, just in closing, we would certainly seek some clarity around Subpart 2 from the Minister, if she is able to talk to us about why you would remove it.

Can I welcome the Minister for Social Housing to the chair. She is the Minister in charge of this bill, so we expect her to actually address questions that are asked genuinely to her, rather than being mute and dumb in the chair. I have some questions that I need to ask about Part 2 of this bill. I am looking particularly at clause 20, which provides that Housing New Zealand does not have the purpose of providing policy advice, and clause 21, which says that Housing New Zealand research and monitoring does not include research and monitoring to advise on the policy issues.

I would have thought that the Minister would find it really useful to have an independent source of policy research and advice, rather than listening solely to right-wing ideologues and property speculators and drawing on their advice and encouragement in order to set policy. For example, Minister, if you had listened to the advice of Housing New Zealand rather than not listening to it, and now taking away its ability to give that advice, you would realise that your statement yesterday that you are providing $500,000 for emergency housing is practically meaningless. I have got a picture here of a house on the edge of my electorate of Mt Roskill. It is just in Mount Albert. It is a two-bedroom home unit. Do you know what that was selling for last week? It was selling for $797,000—a two-bedroom unit. There it is—a very modest little home unit. Apparently, the Minister does not understand that house prices for incredibly modest homes are now so high that people cannot aspire to homeownership, and people who are renting are being asked to pay higher and higher rents that are unaffordable, because the person who invests in that as a property investor wants to get a return on their capital.

We know, Minister Bennett, that 40 percent of all homes purchased in Auckland are purchased by property speculators. I would have thought that you would know that, and had you listened to the advice of Housing New Zealand you would have been better informed about it. So you would not then, in your press statement, say: “Look, I am dealing with the big problem of homelessness—I am going to give emergency housing half a million dollars.” You know what that will do, Minister? It will purchase half of that two-bedroom home unit. How is that going to address the problems of the shortage of accommodation and homelessness?

If you had listened to Housing New Zealand, you would also have gotten some information from it, so that when you talked about supporting moves to housing independence, in your press statement—I do not know who drafted that; great spin—you would have known what those words actually meant. They meant that you were not moving 3,000 people to housing independence; you were evicting 3,000 people. Housing New Zealand, in its research and advice, would have told you that a lot of those people are people who are going to find it really hard to cope in the private housing sector. I was talking to a woman; she is on a reasonable income now, but she is crippled. The ministry spent, I think, $27,000 on the State house to adjust it for a person who needed wheelchair access and was not able to have mobility. Because of her income, she will now be put out in the private housing sector. The question I would like to ask the Minister, if she is listening to the advice of Housing New Zealand, is: what private landlord is going to spend $27,000 modifying a house to deal with the purposes of somebody who has not got mobility?

Then the Minister talks about increasing affordable housing supply. I know for a fact that Housing New Zealand would be able to tell the Minister that that simply is not happening; that instead of increasing affordable housing supply, its housing stock has been run down by 1,600 in the last 3 years. So here we are: we have got the worst housing crisis that Auckland has ever seen, and what is the Minister doing about it? She is depleting the stock of Housing New Zealand rental housing. A good policy-advice agency would have told her that, but clearly she is not getting that advice, and now, deliberately, she is saying—

Looking through the Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill, in particular Part 2, clauses 20 and 21, the theme that stands out—the intent of this—is that it is passing the buck. It is an absolute dereliction of duty by this Government to pass the buck, the responsibility of maintaining that safety net that I have mentioned previously in this House, and that the Government has a responsibility for maintaining and ensuring that it has integrity and that it catches those who fall. State housing is an integral part of that safety net. But what is happening now is, like I said, that dereliction of duty—passing it on to NGOs, to community organisations that are underfunded, under-resourced, and understaffed, and they have to take the brunt of the effects and consequences of legislation like this.

There is a question that I need to ask—and everybody should be asking, and the Government and the Minister for Social Housing, in particular, should answer—how did it get to this stage in the first place? They can stand up and give the situation, and the reasons why it needs to happen now, but how did it get to that situation in the first place? Like Kris Faafoi has already mentioned, this has been happening slice by slice over the past 7 years, to get to this stage where there is some feasible reasoning in dreamland—with all of the positive outcomes where the Government believes that it is all candyfloss and lollipops, that it can put this responsibility on to someone else and try to make it believable. But the question is: what are the real consequences for the people on the ground and the NGOs that have to take up all of these responsibilities?

I have got an example in Palmerston North, in my electorate where I am based, where we have got a trust, the Shepherd’s Rest Trust, which houses over 60 of the most needy people. The trust had Ministry of Social Development funding, which was taken away. It had to get funding from the Lotteries Commission, and it was not renewed this year. And there is a potential, now, that there will be over 20 people without beds, unless a private organisation or NGO steps in and takes over from that trust. But what are the consequences? You have got the real responsibility of the Government, which needs to look after those needy people, being put on to the NGOs, which have not got the funding, have not got the resources, and are balancing on a knife edge about the funding and keeping those people with beds.

The fact is that this legislation will make it even worse in the regions. What the concern is for New Zealand First is that this is going down the pathway a step closer to the voucher system in the social system, which Mr English was talking about. That spells doom for the regions, because what that means is that if it is not financially viable in the regions for branches to be open to look after the people, then they will close. And it is happening already. The Salvation Army has closed seven branches in the regions, and is bringing itself back to the main centres—and we are talking about the two-tier system again. In closing, I would like the Minister and the Government—any Government member, when they want to stand up—to answer a simple question: what is the priority? Is it profit, or is it people? Because all the way through this legislation, and especially through Part 2, it all looks like it is about the bank balances, it is about the surpluses, it is about the profit, and it is not about the people.

Part 2, Subpart 1—Goods and Services Tax Act 1985, clause 18, Section 5 amended (Meaning of term supply), new subsection (6F) reads: “For the purposes of this Act, the amount payable by the Crown or the agency under the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Act 1992 under a reimbursement agreement or a tailored agreement under that Act for the provision of accommodation in social housing is treated as consideration for the supply of accommodation in a dwelling by way of hire.” My issue with this particular amendment is that, first of all, it refers to something in Part 1 of the Act. I rose to take a point of order on that. It is actually incorrect. In New Zealand Statutes 1992, Volume 2, No. 76, Part 1—which also is part of this, in Part 2 of the bill. I am doing this because it is every member of Parliament’s obligation to make sure that even in legislation that you do not agree with, it is correct, because I do not want to see this—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Just one moment. Did you want a point of order, did you? Did you actually ask for a point of order?

In the first part of the debate I did, yes.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Oh, OK, sorry. This is not a point of order. OK.

In clause 4 of Part 1 of the bill, section 2 is amended. It refers to: “reimbursement agreement means an agreement referred to in section 85(1)”. In this statute book there is no section 85(1). It carries on to say “section 98(1)”—there is no subsection (1) of section 98. There is a difference between alphabetic and numeric—there is a section 85(a), but no section 85(1).

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Come back to Part 2.

I will come back to Part 2. Again, new section 5(6F), in clause 18, refers to those very matters—“a reimbursement agreement or a tailored agreement”. Those clauses in Part 1 give effect to this clause, and this clause now is redundant. In effect, what has been passed in Part 1 is also redundant. We will be seeing this come back, maybe as part of a Statutes Amendment Bill to correct it. This is wrong, and it is incumbent upon me to tell this Committee so. That is what we get when we rush legislation through this House. This is what we get when the members opposite sit in absolute silence and do not participate in the debate about this part here, Part 2. We need to hear from both the Minister and members opposite—the Government—about how they are going to correct this. This legislation is about to be passed in the next, maybe, 2½ hours. So somehow between now and then we have to make sure that we do not add additional cost to the taxpayer and that we correct this to make it as good as it can be, because to do nothing would mean cost to this nation and I do not think that is good enough. I do not think it is good enough.

I will refer to another part of Part 2, in particular Subpart 2—Housing Corporation Act 1974, which amends section 3B. That is about the Minister receiving advice from the Housing New Zealand Corporation. I am certain that if this had gone through a robust, considered process, then we would not be in here talking about—

💬 Meka Whaitiri: Errors.

—errors within this bill.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Tēnā nō tātou. I stand to talk to Part 2 of the Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill. Can I say from the outset, and we all know this—those of us in this Committee—that the obligation of any Government is to protect the most vulnerable of our fellow citizens. I do not believe that this bill, this Part 2, actually holds true in this case. Having said that, and I say it with a certain weight on my heart, when I consider the former leaders of that once-respected party—and I refer to Holland, Holyoake, Marshall, and Muldoon—I am sure that all of them would be turning in their graves to see this bill come before this Committee, promoted by a National-led Government.

This part of the bill, particularly clause 20, highlights and verifies what most of us on this side of the Committee believe: that this is the dismantling of our Public Service and, in this particular case, Housing New Zealand Corporation. This bill is not the beginning; it has already started.

💬 Chris Bishop: Do some research.

The member may say that it refers only to research, but what I am saying is that this is the seed for further things to come.

Reference was made by an earlier speaker that much of the work being done by constituent MPs is in addressing the accommodation and housing needs of the people in those electorates. Can I say that it is not only constituent MPs who have to deal with that but it is also list members like myself. This should not come as any surprise, because the constituent member in the particular electorate that I am responsible for happens to be a member of the National-led Government. So one needs to ask: who is going to undertake that research; who is going to do the monitoring; and what skills and experience will they have in order to ensure that the Minister does, in fact, receive the quality advice that he or she certainly deserves and certainly will need to ensure that this Government, and we in this House, fulfil our obligation to meet the housing needs of our fellow citizens?

I have heard reference to this bill as being one of flexibility and innovation. I do not think that there is anything new or innovative about removing the responsibilities for research and monitoring to another agency. I think the danger that we will see in all of this is that the long-term experience that the present agency has will be lost. I know that the Māori Party members have been very supportive of this bill. It behoves me to say that by giving their support to this bill, they are doing the people whom they represent a disservice, particularly in the regions that I come from. I do not believe that regions such as Whangarei will certainly be better serviced by this proposal and, in particular, by clause 20 of this bill. So I would ask that both the Māori Party and the National-led Government reconsider this. The fact that they are pushing this bill through by way of urgency suggests to me that they have already made up their minds and that they are not going to listen to any considered arguments.

I would like to address in this speech, largely, clauses 19 through to 21, but I would like to speak briefly to the other clauses in Part 2 of this legislation. I would like to reiterate the need for the Minister for Social Housing to answer the serious questions that my colleague Adrian Rurawhe addressed in his speech before. I think there are some very serious questions around the robustness of this legislation that need to be addressed by the Minister in the chair. We are passing this legislation under urgency. It is the function and, indeed, the responsibility of all members of this Committee to examine this legislation—to read it and to question it—and even, as my colleague Adrian Rurawhe said, if we do not agree with it, we must all work hard to ensure that it is good and robust legislation. That is our function as legislators, and, frankly, Government members on the benches opposite me are being absolutely negligent in their part in ensuring that this legislation is the best it can be under an urgency stage. They need to get on their pins, take a call, examine the legislation, and do the job that they were elected and paid to do.

I have some questions that I would like to hear the Minister answer, too. We still, throughout all these parts of this legislation, do not have any clarity around who is going to be taking over the function of providing monitoring and research around housing in New Zealand. These are, of course, the amendments to the Housing Corporation Act that are addressed under clauses 20 and 21 in this legislation. So I would like to hear the Minister take a call and give us some kind of indication. It is the kind of question that would have been asked at a select committee. It is the kind of question that we would have sought advice on from officials, around what the options were. I would like to hear the Minister put those options to it, because I have real concerns that we have all this talk from Government members around the flexibility around housing that is enshrined in this bill. A lot of it does come back to the advice that is offered under clauses 20 and 21 in Part 2 of this legislation.

We have heard throughout other stages of this bill Government members talking about the need to make sure that we have housing that is fit for purpose and in the right location. In March this year I asked one of the Ministers with responsibility for housing, the Hon Bill English, some very specific questions about Housing New Zealand houses in my electorate, by suburb. I asked about individual suburbs, and I am questioning the advice and where this is going to come from under clauses 20 and 21 in Part 2 of this legislation. When I asked about housing in Riccarton, when I asked about housing in Addington, and when I asked about housing in Hoon Hay I was told that Housing New Zealand does not collect information by suburb. This Government is saying that it is making decisions about where housing needs to be based on information that it does not collect. I was told by the Hon Bill English that that information was collected by only local authority territorial units. Well, this bill covers hundreds of thousands of people.

We are being told that this is the big society where communities are taking ownership, so I would like to hear from the Minister. I would like her to take a call and tell me who will be taking over this function. Who will be providing this granulated, localised, and community-driven information that will be required to deliver the outcomes that this bill purports to do? It is not being done at the moment, so where will that function lie? Frankly, I find it absurd that the Government is making decisions about localisation of housing when it does not even have the data, when it has not been collecting it, and when it has been collecting it only at a territorial local authority level. It simply does not stack up. So that is a question under this part that I would like the Minister to address.

I would also like to know about the kinds of research and monitoring that are going to be undertaken under these clauses in the bill. What are the things that are going to be examined? I want to know not only who is going to do the research and monitoring but what kind of research and monitoring it will be. Is it going to be about the livability of homes? Are we going to be collecting that not only at a local level but at a meta level? Will those questions being asked be the ones that are fit for purpose to actually genuinely—

I call Phil Goff. [Interruption] I am sorry; Phil Twyford. I got the “Phil” part right. Phil Twyford. [Interruption] My apologies.

It is the revenge of the Phils. Thank you, Mr Chairman. I was a bit worried, actually, because one thing I have learnt is that if you give Phil Goff half a sniff, he will grab the opportunity with both hands.

Speaking to Part 2 of the bill, I want to make a point that relates to the argument that many of us have been making this morning about this bill, and that is the fact that National has been pushing this bill through the House under the cloak of Budget urgency with no apparent justification for why this bill needs to be passed today. I have not heard anything from any Minister in the chair or any of the Government members in this debate about why this bill has to be pushed through under urgency. But the pitfalls of that approach are actually contained within the clauses in Part 2.

Clause 18, which basically ensures that these new flexible purchasing agreements are exempt from GST, is a tidy-up. It is a tidy-up of previous legislative mistakes. Clause 23 amends the KiwiSaver Act so that membership in complying superannuation funds counts for the 3-year eligibility period for a first home withdrawal if a person transfers to KiwiSaver. This clause is cleaning up the mess left by the KiwiSaver HomeStart package and by the legislation that enables KiwiSaver withdrawals. So two clauses in Part 2 are evidence of this Government’s previous botch-ups in passing laws in this House, but it does not seem to have learnt from its mistakes and it is pushing through this bill, under urgency, without any chance for scrutiny at the select committee, without any expert opinion, without the officials being able to take their time and look at the legislation, and without the public being able to come along and make submissions. You have to wonder whether clauses within this bill will end up back in the House in some kind of mopping up operation in the future, wasting taxpayers’ money to clean up the mistakes that this Government has made.

Clauses 20 and 21 are really symptomatic of this Government’s systematic gutting of Housing New Zealand, the latest and perhaps the last indignity before the organisation is sliced and diced and handed out to anybody who will take it. With the removal of any kind of policy and research function, this bill basically takes away Housing New Zealand’s mandate to do evaluations of its programmes. So it has now basically been reduced to a Government-owned version of Barfoot and Thompson instead of being a full-service social housing organisation devoted to meeting the needs of some of the most vulnerable New Zealanders. It is simply a letting agency. Its ability to manage the waiting lists, its ability to handle and assess eligibility has been hived off to the Ministry of Social Development. Its portfolio has been carved up and flogged off to anybody who will take it under other provisions in this bill. But these two clauses—20 and 21—basically take away Housing New Zealand’s ability to do research and, most important, to give advice on social housing to the Government of the day.

But this Government does not want advice on social housing. It does not want to hear from people. We know that there is no evidence base for the Government’s policy of flogging off State houses and devolving the job of providing social housing and State housing to the most vulnerable New Zealanders. There is no evidence for the assertion that the Government cannot do that job properly and that non-governmental organisations, charities, Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all, who might come along and register as a community housing provider, private landlords, property developers, and anyone who meets the perfunctory requirements of being a social housing provider can line up and get these houses at knock-down prices. There is no evidence base for it.

I move, That the question be now put.

Normally I would say I was pleased to be taking a call on a bill that talked about more flexibility in social housing, but unfortunately the title bears little relevance to anything in the bill, particularly in Part 2. Before I speak to the specifics—and I want to speak particularly about clauses 20 and 21 in Part 2, I just want to talk about why members of Parliament come to Parliament, and why we seek to spend our Fridays, and our Saturdays for that matter, debating in this House. It is because every single member of Parliament, regardless of their party, I think, comes to Parliament because they think they can make a positive difference. They think they can make a positive contribution to a better New Zealand. So regardless of what their party is, that, I think, is the driver behind the intentions of all members of Parliament.

One of the things that we have been particularly proud of in New Zealand is our commitment to social housing. That is because, as egalitarian New Zealanders, we think that it is just right—it is fair—that people should have a warm, dry, affordable home and be able to stay there and be part of their community. That has been an integral part of the fabric of our society for nearly a century since this Parliament first debated the introduction of social housing. It is something I am particularly proud of, especially when you go to other countries and see people living in appalling conditions. Of course we have State houses that are very run down in New Zealand. We have whole areas where we would like to see a lot of improvement done, but would it not be great if this Parliament could regain the sense of unity that we had 80 years ago when we introduced social housing and asked how we could do it better for the future?

But the National Party, instead, is saying: “We do not think it is the Government’s responsibility to operate State housing any more. We think we should sell it off.” Well, I do not agree with that. I do not agree that it is a valid role of housing providers to provide social housing, with the Government completely out of the picture. Social housing providers have always worked in partnership with central government, and long may that partnership continue, whether it is the Salvation Army, or Comcare Trust, or the Methodist Mission, or Presbyterian Support—any number of organisations that have done their bit alongside the Government to provide warm, dry, affordable houses, so that every member of our society can be safe and be part of a contributing community. That is not the aim of this bill at all.

Clauses 20 and 21 specifically outline the further withdrawal of Housing New Zealand from a very critical part of providing social housing, and that is in policy advice and in research and monitoring. How do we know what works and what does not, if Housing New Zealand—the very agency that was responsible for providing social housing—is no longer providing policy advice to the Government about social housing or doing any monitoring or research? How can we say our aim is to do things better in future if we are not getting any policy advice about how things are working at the moment?

I want to challenge the backbench of the National Party to explain why they are putting their personal names alongside a bill that privatises social housing—

💬 Chris Bishop: Oh, it does not.

—and that says that Housing New Zealand will no longer be responsible for policy advice or for research and monitoring. Mr Bishop, I recommend some reading for you—the bill would be a good starting place. The bill would be a really good starting place, because I am fed up with listening to interjections that are not truthful. They are not truthful, and your colleagues listen to them and think that when your untruths are repeated, they must be true. Well, actually, repeating something that is not true does not make it true. That is exactly what happens in respect of Part 2 of the bill, which we are debating now. I challenge Mr Bishop to stand on his hind legs and say that he has read the bill—that would be a challenge—and then to explain what it does. How can this bill possibly be accused of providing more social housing, more flexibility, warm and dry homes, or be accused of, as Simon Bridges, the Minister who was previously sitting in the chair, said, making time stand still? He said that under Labour—

I am very pleased to be able to speak to Part 2 of the Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill. The title of Part 2 is “Remedial and other matters”, which may suggest to people who are reading this bill at home that there are just a few little rats and mice bits and pieces in Part 2. But, actually, clauses 20 and 21, in particular, have some very important changes to the way housing policy is developed in New Zealand, and to the way the Government takes advice on housing policy. Clause 20 actually says that Housing New Zealand no longer has the purpose of providing policy advice. You know, this is Housing New Zealand—the clue is in the name about who is best positioned to provide housing advice to the Government. It might be, at a guess, the organisation called Housing New Zealand, but apparently that is not good enough for this Government. So I would like to know where the documentation is, since we are passing this bill under urgency, and since there has been no select committee process. Where is the evidence, where is the consultation process that the Government went through that led it to the conclusion that Housing New Zealand is not the best Government agency to provide advice on housing? Minister, please—or maybe Chris Bishop; he has got a lot to say. Maybe he could actually get up and tell us where the idea came from that Housing New Zealand is not the Government agency to provide housing advice. I want to know.

If this bill went through the normal processes where the public actually got to come and have their say, where this was properly consulted on and considered, and we got to see the evidence, we might not agree with the position that the Government got to but we would have an idea of how it got there. It is absolutely the most important thing that the Government members get up and explain to us where this idea comes from, because at the moment on this side of the House, in the absence of that explanation, it looks like a pretty hare-brained scheme to us—that Housing New Zealand is not the organisation that will provide housing. Maybe the Government has lost confidence in Housing New Zealand. I do not know—maybe that is the reason why.

I have absolute confidence in my local branch of Housing New Zealand. The people who work there are amazing. They would not say this, they would never say this, but my observation is that they suffer under absolutely appalling policy settings from this Government and they have to do things that they just do not believe in. They are committed public servants. They implement Government policy but they do it in a way that is as constructive as possible, and they know what the needs of their community are. They know the housing needs of their community, and maybe that is the exact reason why this Government does not want to get advice from them—because the advice that they would give this Government is not what it wants to hear. I think that is the reason, and in the absence of any better explanation from the Government, I think we have to all assume that is the reason.

I hope the next call from the National Party is not a closure motion. I hope that it is actually an explanation of clause 20—why it is necessary, and what led the Government to that decision. Clause 21 provides that research and monitoring by Housing New Zealand does not include research and monitoring to advise on policy issues. I am actually at a bit of a loss to know what research and monitoring function is actually going to remain required of Housing New Zealand, because it is no longer giving policy advice, it is no longer managing the waiting lists, and it is no longer interacting with the tenants. What research and monitoring does Housing New Zealand actually have to do, if it no longer has a policy function either? What will be done with that research and monitoring? Again, is this the kind of information that the Government does not want to listen to because it knows its policies are wrong, and it knows that if there is any consideration or sunlight applied to its policy at all, it will be found out for being full of holes? Is that why this Government wants to remove the monitoring function from Housing New Zealand?

I move, That the question be now put.

💬 Hon Annette King: She has taken a call, I’m sorry.

No, there are no restrictions.

Thank you very much, Mr Chairman—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I just want to clarify something. There is no restriction on the number of closures that a member can take.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. There used to be, did there not? So there must have been a change in the Standing Orders to allow a person to take more than one closure motion. But thank you, Mr Chairman, for telling us what we ought to know.

I want to address this part of the bill—Part 2, “Remedial and other matters”. I too want to go to the area around the functions of the Housing New Zealand Corporation and the role that it is going to play. You see, it is under “Remedial and other matters”, which I found very interesting, because anyone who knows the meaning of “remedial” knows that it means “supplying a remedy”. I cannot see what remedy is being supplied under this part of the bill. It is meant to correct or improve deficient skills, so I can only assume that the Minister for Social Housing thinks that there are deficient skills in Housing New Zealand, and I want to dispute that.

I want to start from the position that one of the features of a National Government—and it goes back many years; some of us experienced it when we came into Government—is this drive to stop policy making by Government departments and others, to drive out the policy-making part and contract it out to somebody else. That was the history in the health portfolio. The policy function of the Ministry of Health was driven out and put into other agencies. I am asking the Minister why she would not want to have policy advice from Housing New Zealand—the very agency that has for so long been working with tenants, that has been working in the community, and that has very, very competent staff, who are able to provide the sort of advice a good Minister would want. Why would the Minister remove this role from Housing New Zealand? Who will replace it in this role? Where will the advice, the on-the-ground advice that a Minister would want, come from, Minister? Would you be able to answer that shortly? Where will this policy advice come from?

One of the problems for a Government is when it thinks it has got all the answers itself—when it does not think it needs good strong policy advice from its own agencies. It seems to me that the Minister has decided that she does not like the advice she has got from the Housing New Zealand Corporation. I know that it has raised a few issues, actually, with the Minister in relation to some policy, and I think that this is a way of getting rid of that sort of advice. The Government does not want anybody that might contradict the direction and the path it is taking in housing. So, Minister, please tell us who will replace Housing New Zealand in providing advice on policy? When we look at this particular piece of legislation we see in the regulatory impact statement that no evaluation was done on it, and that Treasury did not even do an evaluation on this policy that is before the Committee today. So who is going to do the evaluation and provide the advice on future housing policy? I think that is a very serious question that needs to be answered.

Then we find out that the intent of this particular part of the bill is that “the Corporation will no longer be expected to undertake research and evaluation activities for the purpose of advising the Minister of Housing”. So who is going to undertake the research and evaluation? It is not Treasury. It is not Housing New Zealand. Who is it that is going to undertake this very serious function that must be undertaken when formulating very good policy? This is a huge gap in this Government’s approach to policy making. Get rid of the agency that would help with it, get rid of any advice that it is going to give and any evaluation—this seems to me to be a very short-sighted approach, Minister, when it comes to Housing New Zealand.

I agree with my colleague who just resumed his seat, Iain Lees-Galloway, that Housing New Zealand for decades has provided incredibly good advice. It has some excellent people working in it. You know, if you go to your own Housing New Zealand offices when the doors are open and you can get in—because, of course, the doors are closed now and you have got to ring up to get inside the door—and if you have a close relationship with your local branch of Housing New Zealand, you will find people very knowledgable about what is going on in your area. They can provide the quality advice to a Minister on the ground. They are good people. But, unfortunately, I think this Minister is going down the same track that she went down when she was Minister for Social Development, because if you go to Work and Income offices now you will find a very demoralised bunch of people—people who used to care a lot.

Following on from my colleague the Hon Annette King, there is the question of who will provide advice if this bill is passed and we remove the ability of Housing New Zealand to do so. The question of why that advice should be provided is also one that I will come back to. In my view the “whos”—that is, if we prevent Housing New Zealand providing that advice; that vacuum—will be filled by three parties: firstly, the real estate agents, because the Government likes them; secondly, the banks; or, thirdly, the investors in the whole housing market. The reality is that the Minister will require advice. Capable as she is I do not think she has the ability to go around and find out what is happening in each and every different market for housing up and down this country. So where will the advice to the Minister come from? Real estate agents—well, I guess they could provide advice; they are on the ground. The banks—they provide the money. And the investors obviously have an interest in this area.

Well, we must ask the question why they will provide the advice, because when Housing New Zealand provides advice it is for one purpose—and it has been set up—and that is to help New Zealanders into housing and into homes. It is not just social housing; actually, every bit of housing, be it in the public or private sector, has a social component to it. If we think we can have an economy without people having homes, we have got our head in the sand and we live in a false world. We need a strong social structure across our society, strength, confidence, and security to give us a good economy. The Government, on the other hand, is removing the ability of its own agency set up right back in the 1930s to provide houses and homes for New Zealanders and to provide security for our good people so they can get on and live their lives and contribute to our country and our economy. If you remove that ability for that agency to provide the advice, you then leave it open to the real estate agents, the banks, and the investors. Their reasons for providing advice are not the same reasons as those of Housing New Zealand and are not the same reasons as those of a Labour Government, but perhaps the National Government has a totally different objective.

In spite of its words around social housing responsibility, in my view, the Government has got to the reality and honesty of saying “We’ll just leave it to the markets. We don’t need any advice because the markets will provide the advice to the Minister and indicate what he or she should do.” That is the philosophy of the current National Government. The market delivers nirvana! The market delivers to each and every New Zealander—it thinks—and we will get our advice from the real estate agents, we will get our advice from the banks and the investors, and we will ensure that every New Zealander has a fair go. Listen to the ad played in Singapore, Minister. Listen to the ad that says: “Invest in New Zealand, because New Zealanders will pay more than 50 percent of their incomes to pay the return on your investment.” That is the advice that the Minister is going to open her mind and ears to, because the Minister and the Government are going to remove the ability of the one agency set up in the 1930s to provide homes and securities for New Zealanders, and remove the ability of that agency to provide the advice.

This is a huge backward step in Part 2. This is an outrage for a country that has depended upon the advice, the independent advice, and the sound objectives of Housing New Zealand since the 1930s. Subpart 2 of Part 2 of this bill will remove that and replace it with market advice—with the self-serving advice of real estate agents, the self-serving advice of banks that want to pour more money in so they can get more money back, and the self-serving advice of the investors who think it is better that more and more New Zealanders pay rent into the private sector than have the security of a home, be it in the private sector or be it under Housing New Zealand. This is a disgrace.

I just thought it was important to tie up a couple of things, as we have heard quite a few speakers. They are repeating themselves, and so, obviously, there are a couple of issues here. So let us be clear on something: housing policy changes—

💬 Hon Annette King: Your side doesn’t even speak.

Well, here it is. Here are the answers that you wanted. Housing policy changes were actually reported back from the Social Services Committee on 12 May 2011. They have been to select committee, and they have just been repackaged into this bill. Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment staff, to be quite clear, have been undertaking policy advice in lieu of Housing New Zealand since June 2011. Since June 2011—[Interruption] It is coming. This is an opportunity for us to tidy up what is in the bill, which says that Housing New Zealand does it. So we have changed it—

💬 Hon Annette King: So under urgency we need to tidy this up?

No, actually, it is mainly the first part, but I am not going to talk about Part 1; we are talking about Part 2. To be quite clear: the questions that have been asked have been around that. It made sense to tidy up that Housing New Zealand no longer provides the policy advice, which it has not been providing now for 4 years. Actually, that whole advice part of it—what needs to be done—is more than just Housing New Zealand. This is about providing advice to the community housing sector and about making sure that we are seeing the needs of the whole community and not just of one player. It may be a big player and a significant one—one that I, of course, meet with incredibly often and take its advice—but that advice goes through the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, which means that we are looking at the sector as a whole.

The other part of it, which I thought I should just quickly clear up, is that there were questions earlier about subsections and the existing sections. It is obvious for those who have been around longer, which is why I do not think we have had more on it. It is a drafting convention that when subsections are added, the existing sections become subsections. So if you have got section 98, when you put in a section 98(2), then section 98 becomes section 98(1). That is why you cannot find section 98(1). It is because, as a convention, it will become that once we have made the changes. Thank you.

I am very happy to take a call on this second part of the Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill and respond to the Minister for Social Housing’s comments where she said that Housing New Zealand has not been providing advice to the Government—

💬 Hon Annette King: For 4 years.

—for 4 years—since 2011. Does it not show? Does it not show? I think that is one of the major issues here. It is that the Government is divorcing the practical realities of the decisions it is making from the advice it is getting on those decisions, and it is not working. I will speak about the experience I have encountered in my own electorate.

Previously, Housing New Zealand had, if you like, three broad functions: the provision of the housing, advice on the housing, and identifying the people who were going into the housing. Identifying the people who were going into the housing was transferred to Work and Income, and as a result we now have a mismatch between the housing available and the people who qualify to get it, because Housing New Zealand no longer has—

💬 Brett Hudson: With National it’s about the people in need, not about who owns the house.

I am looking forward to Brett Hudson’s contribution because, like most of the people over there, he has had a National Party lobotomy and does not seem to have his own opinion any more and therefore has only the option of being rude to other people because he is not willing to stand up and share with the House his own opinion. As I was saying, the Government has divorced from Housing New Zealand decisions regarding who gets the houses, so Housing New Zealand no longer has the complete picture of the people who are likely to be in need. That has an impact, then, on its ability to deliver policy advice to the Government. One of the issues there is that the complete picture of who the people in need are is now actually quite difficult to ascertain. Housing New Zealand has cut off the lower two tranches of the waiting list so that we now no longer have any record of the people who are at that lower level. That is a policy issue that Housing New Zealand could be supplying advice to the Government on, and it is now no longer able to do so.

Here is the real reality of what these changes have actually meant. I think we can look at the policy and we can look at all of the theory behind it. Let us deal with the practical realities of what it has meant. What it has meant is that on a Friday afternoon I have got people sitting in my office saying: “I am living in a car. There are three-bedroom houses empty in this area, but because I qualify for a four-bedroom house, Housing New Zealand will not place my family.” That is a practical reality. That is an actual case that I have been dealing with for some months, where Housing New Zealand will not give that family a home because they qualify for a four-bedroom home. There are no four-bedroom houses available, there are empty three-bedroom houses available, but it will not place them in a three-bedroom house. That is the practical reality of the policies we are dealing with. And Housing New Zealand, of course, can no longer provide the Government practical advice on that, because the policy function it previously had is being removed from it.

There is good reason why the delivery agencies, the agencies responsible for delivering on the policy, should be able to provide policy advice to Ministers on the implications of the decisions Ministers make. The implications of the decisions Ministers have made in social housing policy are that they have actually made it more difficult for people to get into Housing New Zealand homes, more difficult to target assistance to those who most need it. I have got no problem with our looking at the ways we can better support those who are the most vulnerable and most need it. The practical realities are that that is not happening, and that there are very needy families out there who are living in cars. The family I mentioned before have got a number of kids. That is why they qualify for the four-bedroom home. The kids are staying with someone else; the parents are living in the car. That is just not acceptable. Then, of course, Housing New Zealand will offer them a place that is in another city. It will say: “Oh, we’ve found a four-bedroom place for you, but you’re going to have to move 100 kilometres away.” They have to uproot their kids from their schools and all those sorts of things. It is just not right. This family would be willing to accept a 3-bedroom house, but Housing New Zealand will not give it to them. I think that is wrong. That is the practical reality of the policy we are passing.

It is important that when Ministers make decisions about these issues, they are connected to the practical realities that those decisions result in, and that is not going to happen with this bill. The reforms simply are not working. If they were designed to ensure that the needs assessment process was more efficient and that the advice coming to Ministers was better, that is not happening. The needs assessment is not more efficient. What it is resulting in is further delays for the most needy people who really should be getting placed in housing. They get shoved from one agency to another and then back again. The policy advice process that should support the needs assessment process is not there and is not robust enough, because the agency now providing the policy advice, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, is completely removed from the actual provision of housing and the practical implications of that. It says everything about this Government—that it has handed over the responsibilities for advice on housing to the agency that is responsible for property speculation.

I move, That the question be now put.

This Budget has been labelled by the Government as the “compassionate, conservative Budget”. These clauses, clauses 20 and 21 of this bill, the Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill, show that it is a “Cabinet club conservative Budget”, because it is taking a Public Service housing provider, ripping the guts out of it, and, in Part 2 of this bill, removing from it even the ability to advise the Minister for Social Housing on policy issues. Here is how. Clause 20 says that Housing New Zealand Corporation will give no policy advice. Clause 21 says that when it does research, that research will not be on policy issues. In other words, no non-commercial function will be performed by Housing New Zealand Corporation. Housing New Zealand Corporation is going from being a provider of houses to vulnerable families who need help to, essentially, a commercial landlord.

Let us look at what would be some of the advantages of an agency like Housing New Zealand continuing to be empowered to give policy advice. First, as my colleague Annette King has mentioned, is that it has history. It has managed the portfolio for decades. It knows, literally, where the renovations and the skeletons are buried, and it knows what needs doing. There is nobody better placed than the organisation to advise on its portfolio and the needs therein. Secondly, up until recent times, the corporation had the most contact with its clients. If you had a problem of maintenance or a problem of prioritisation, you would go and see the corporation. Because it had the stock and the client contact, it was best placed to put the two together, come up with a reasonable set of priorities, and get the families who most needed the help into the properties that were most suitable for them. The Government has made that more difficult because, instead of going to Housing New Zealand Corporation, the poor families now have to go to the Ministry of Social Development or Work and Income. They are already overloaded. They are slapping and packing people through those waiting lists every 5 minutes, and those are the performance indicators that the poor old Work and Income staff are under. They have to move them through. They do not have the expertise or the time to deal with these critical issues of where a family are going to live.

The next thing, of course, is that Housing New Zealand Corporation has got a local footprint. It has got houses in each area of the country. It knows its stock and it knows the communities the houses are in. Why would you not want the corporation advising on policy issues? Of course, if you are not going to have that, what happens? Well, the first thing is that you do not have contestable policy advice. The Government makes itself more vulnerable to input from the vested commercial interests, the banks that are making a crazy killing off house mortgages, the property investors, and the organisations that represent them. Even the social service providers like the Salvation Army have said: “No, thanks, we don’t want to play this game, because you’re giving us the liability without the assets. We can’t cover it.” The Government cannot get decent advice from them.

Let us sum up. By taking away the policy functions from the corporation, Minister, you have made clients more vulnerable. You are not getting the advice you need to get from the people best placed to give it, who have the history in the organisation, who are close to the clients, who have the deep knowledge of the housing stock that is being managed, and who do not have vested interests that are in conflict with the public good. There is no basis in logic for the clauses we are debating in Part 2. Why are they there? And, more important, why are we here in urgency trying to pass this through all stages without even giving the public the opportunity to make a submission?

💬 Hon Annette King: They’ve been waiting for 4 years, she said.

It has been 4 years in the waiting. Why is this happening under urgency? The reason is because the Government knows that reasonable New Zealanders do not like this stuff. They do not like this stuff, so the sooner this is wrapped, packed, under the carpet, and out of the public gaze, the happier the Government spin doctors will be. The Government does not want to hear from New Zealanders. It does not want New Zealanders having a say because it knows that the average, decent Kiwi thinks it is a no-brainer that, of course, Housing New Zealand Corporation should be able to advise on housing issues. Why on earth would it not? Why are these clauses in the bill? Firstly, Minister, if you are really honest in your heart of hearts, it is because you do not want to hear the advice. It is not good advice because the news is all bad. The waiting list is getting longer and longer. The needs are getting greater and greater. Just like Chris Hipkins, Annette King, Ruth Dyson, and Damien O’Connor, I have my office overflowing with hard-up Kiwi families who need help.

I move, That the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I have not had an opportunity in this stage of the debate to make a contribution, and there are some specific clauses that I wish to speak to. What remedy is available to me?

The member may be seated. We had a substantial discussion at the time of the closure motion last time. I am not going to be going through that every time. The member will know that the next clauses we will be debating are very wide ranging and will cover this part and others. I am fully expecting, and looking forward to, members using the whole gambit of their colourful vocabularies, in a seemly matter, to have a lively discussion and debate on those clauses. The motion will be put and we will continue with the vote.