Third Readings

on behalf of the Minister for Social Housing: I move, That the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill, the Taxation (Social Housing Reform) Bill, the Housing Corporation (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill, and the KiwiSaver (HomeStart) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. I want to use this opportunity to reiterate how these four bills improve the lives of vulnerable New Zealanders by providing them with social housing that meets their needs. The Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill is all about increasing the supply and quality of social housing and growing the community housing sector. There are currently 30 registered community housing providers, which have 213 houses where tenants are receiving the income-related rent subsidy. They deliver niche services that meet the diverse needs of social housing tenants, and we want them to grow. This legislation will help them do that.

This bill gives the Ministry of Social Development flexibility in the way that it enters into agreements with social housing providers. It creates a ministerial direction power to allow the Minister for Social Housing, in consultation with other housing Ministers, to authorise the Ministry of Social Development to enter into tailored agreements to purchase social housing. These new tailored agreements will enable the Ministry of Social Development to look at contracts with tenants in mind, and to look for ways to get better housing services and better provision of social housing. The current income-related rent subsidy will remain, but the new tailored agreements will now provide greater flexibility. We have been talking to the community housing sector and it has told us loud and clear that the income-related rent subsidy alone is not sufficient to encourage community housing providers to supply properties in all circumstances. Community housing providers want to be able to enter into different types of agreements, including into long-term fixed-price contracts, with the Government. Long-term contracts will give them a guaranteed income they can use to borrow against to build or buy houses.

The practice for far too many decades was that a tenant would be put in a State house, left there, and forgotten. We recognise that some social housing tenants need extra help. We want to make sure that tenants’ needs are met and, as they change over time, we want to provide the right housing and the right services to respond to those needs. I firmly believe that local providers understand their people’s needs best, and I think that these tailored agreements will give them a greater role in determining what is best for tenants. To be clear, nothing in this bill will change tenants’ eligibility for the income-related rent subsidy or how much they will have to pay in rent.

It is crucial that we pass this legislation today so that we can work more effectively with the sector towards an additional 3,000 places in the next 3 years and support an Auckland initiative that will see another 300 social housing places delivered by community housing providers. This will help vulnerable New Zealanders into quality accommodation. In the future, as we work with the sector, we will establish different types of agreements worth exploring, which will be beneficial to both tenants and providers. These changes are going to make the Ministry of Social Development a smarter and more sophisticated purchaser of social housing. It will also enable the ministry to more effectively manage the social housing spend and purchase quality social housing for vulnerable people.

The three other bills—the Housing Corporation (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill, the KiwiSaver (HomeStart) Amendment Bill, and the Taxation (Social Housing Reform) Bill—all make minor but important changes. The first ensures that payments for residential social housing provision under these agreements are GST-exempt, consistent with the current treatment for residential rental payments. The second clarifies that Housing New Zealand is no longer required to provide policy advice to Ministers. That has been the role of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment for some time. The final one ensures that any prior period of membership in a complying superannuation fund should count towards the 3-year eligibility period when the member transfers to KiwiSaver. This means that more KiwiSaver members have access to their savings to assist with the purchase of a first home. I commend these bills to the House.

I will give this to the Government: this Budget is an example of clever politics. There has been a lot of giving with one hand and taking away with the other. But for all those New Zealanders who are looking for more than sleight of hand, who want a plan for New Zealand—some kind of idea about how we can create a better future for our children—this Budget has been a big disappointment. It has offered nothing for the regions, nothing to diversify our economy and grow our prosperity, and nothing to fix the housing crisis. It is a Budget of squandered opportunities, and that theme applies pretty much to the Government’s entire housing policy.

Let me say for the record that pushing through this legislation under Budget urgency is a cynical abuse of this Parliament and its processes. There is no reason that we have heard last night or today from the Ministers in the chair, from Jo Goodhew who just spoke, or any of the Government members as to why this legislation has to be rammed through the House under urgency. There is nothing in the bill or in anything that any Government members have said that explains why this legislation should be denied the proper scrutiny of a select committee process and the chance for members of the public to come along and make submissions.

This legislation and the Government’s social housing policy show how absolutely bankrupt of ideas the National Government is when it comes to fixing the housing crisis. It will not build the vast numbers of affordable houses that are desperately needed to relieve the housing shortage in Auckland. Instead, we get these silly little special housing areas, which are basically lines on a map creating little zones for fast-tracked consenting, and what have they achieved? In 1½ years they have seen the building of 170 houses in Auckland when the city needs 13,000 every year just to stand still. Every day the shortage of houses in Auckland is getting bigger. It is currently 20,000 and it is getting bigger all the time.

The Government refuses to crack down on speculators—speculators, both local and foreign, who are driving house prices higher and higher and beyond the reach of ordinary people. Instead, what do we get? We get some half-hearted, rushed, panicked measure to tighten up the taxation rules. The result of that is that Treasury’s own analysis indicates that that policy will not catch more than 1,000 speculators a year.

Social housing and the intent of this legislation should be designed to help the most vulnerable people in our society: the people who, under their own steam in the current economy, will never be able to own a home of their own. That is the point of social housing in modern New Zealand. It is there to be part of the modern safety net.

The intent of this bill is to make it easier for the Minister—in fact, it gives the Minister extraordinary wide-ranging powers—to do sweetheart deals with the property developers that this Government is pinning all its hopes on to buy the houses that no one else wants. The Government has tried for the last 6 months to convince New Zealand that the thousands and billions of dollars’ worth of State houses it wants to sell were going to go to charities and to NGOs in the community sector. That was a front. It was a fig leaf designed to give a veneer of respectability to a policy that is deeply unpopular with New Zealanders—that is, the hocking off of billions of dollars of publicly owned State houses to the National Party’s property developer mates.

This Government refuses to change the planning rules to allow us to build more and better houses and it has been talking about it since 2006, blaming the Resource Management Act. Bill English still gets up in this House and blames the Resource Management Act, but National has done nothing. In 7 years in Government it has not yet brought a proposal to this House to reform the Resource Management Act to make housing more affordable. It has no credibility in that area. It is not doing the very thing that is the most logical, simple, obvious thing to do in the middle of a housing crisis when there is a shortage of houses. The obvious thing to do is to build more houses—to build houses for young Kiwi families, good, decent, hard-working New Zealanders who only want to own a home of their own. They need a Government that will stand up on their side and build more houses. National refuses to do that.

The people in New Zealand who are most vulnerable, who are struggling on household incomes that barely allow them to survive, who struggle to get a decent roof over their heads, they need more and better State housing. What is this Government’s answer? To sell off the houses that it already owns, as if by changing the ownership it is going to make the slightest difference to the shortage of housing. It is, as Annette King memorably described it, an ideological burp, a bit of ideological reflux from the 1990s by Bill English, who back then introduced market rents for State housing and sold off 13,000 houses that ended up in the hands of private landlords and property speculators. This is simply a continuation of that policy. The difference is that this National Government has tried to dress it up by saying the Salvation Army was going to buy the houses, in order to try to reassure New Zealanders about this deeply unpopular policy.

This legislation gives the Minister the flexibility and the wide-ranging powers to do sweetheart deals with property developers to get rid of the houses. Bill English, who is the architect of this policy, simply wants to get State houses off the Government books. He does not care whom they go to. He will give them away. This is a fire sale of State houses on a massive scale. Billions of dollars of public assets that were paid for by State house tenants and taxpayers over generations are being flicked off by this National Government because Bill English has an ideological agenda. He does not want the State owning these houses. He does not want the State to have an active role in the delivery of decent housing for the most vulnerable New Zealanders. He would much rather replace that system with a taxpayer subsidy that goes direct into the pockets of landlords. That is what Bill English wants to do. At least he is being candid about it. Forget the mealy-mouthed platitudes that we hear from the mouth of Paula Bennett.

Let us look at how the Government has tried to justify this con job it calls social housing reform. The first thing it says is that one-third of the houses are in the wrong place and are the wrong size. Well, in spite of the fact that that was flatly contradicted by Housing New Zealand in its recent annual report, it begs the question of how selling the houses to someone else will magically ensure that those houses are the right size and in the right place. It is a fallacy.

Paula Bennett repeatedly makes the claim that community organisations can do a better job than Housing New Zealand. As Phil Goff pointed out, the Government has no evidential basis for making that claim. We asked Paula Bennett under the Official Information Act to provide the evidence, to provide the data. She said that no such document exists.

Simon Bridges got up from the chair during the Committee stage of this debate and said: “We want to build more warm, dry homes and build lovely modern homes for people. That’s why we’re passing this bill.” Well, to be honest, that is brainless. There is no need to sell billions of dollars of State houses to your property developer mates. Just insulate the houses. Just redevelop them. Build more houses. That is what New Zealanders want.

This is an ideological agenda by the National Party. It is withdrawing the Government from the provision of decent housing for New Zealanders. It wants a market-based approach. It simply wants the houses off the Government’s books, and Labour will not support that.

We are not against building up a stronger community housing sector. In fact, as members will know, I have given some very good speeches in the House and elsewhere, making the case for that. But we will not stand by and allow the community housing sector and many fine organisations to have their good reputations cynically used and manipulated by this Government in order to lend a veneer of respectability to its policy. The answer to the housing crisis is simple. We have a shortage of houses; just build more houses.

I am rising to support the Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill in its third reading. Can I start off by acknowledging Housing New Zealand in the Canterbury region since the devastating earthquakes. It is well on track to repairing 5,000 Housing New Zealand houses and rebuilding 700 Housing New Zealand houses. In my electorate alone, in Waimakariri, it is on track to rebuilding and repairing every house. In fact, we will end up with more Housing New Zealand houses than before the earthquakes. Can I acknowledge and congratulate the very creative community organisations in my electorate that are out buying affordable housing for their customers.

Could I say to those New Zealanders, those 3,000 extra New Zealanders who under this legislation will get housing support, that the Labour Party said no, the New Zealand First Party said no, and the Green Party said no, and tell them that this National Government said yes. And can I tell all those extra tenants who will get extra help under this legislation by wraparound services that the Labour Party said no, the New Zealand First Party said no, the Green Party said no, and this National Government said yes. We are the workers’ party. We are working hard for the working people of New Zealand. I commend this legislation to the House.

National members are very proud of this social housing reform legislation. We have heard this repeatedly in their 1 minute and 27 second speeches, we heard it again in the second reading in their 1 minute and 40 second speeches, we heard it again with their “I move that the question be now put.” speeches during the Committee stage, and now we have had another 1 minute speech in support of this legislation from the backbench of the National Party.

Unfortunately for this House, it started off with the Minister for Social Housing, who has bailed out of the debate before it has finished. She started off this debate by saying that the Government had started a vicious programme of reforms. I said, yes, she is right on one thing; she has started a vicious programme of reforms. We now know what they are. There has been a series of major changes to housing policy under this Government. Every one of them takes State house tenants backwards. Every one of them leaves State house tenants unsure as to whether tomorrow they will still have a roof over their head.

I said at the beginning of this debate that I believe this was a series of ideological burps by this Government—in other words, a lot of hot air and gas wrapped up in its biased and unbalanced philosophy that the National Party holds dear. I believe we have gone from Nick Smith, who has been a great exponent of this sort of philosophy, to Paula Bennett, and Paula Bennett in her wake has left a trail of destruction in Government departments. Go out and see what you find in the Work and Income offices around New Zealand now. See what the morale is like after 3 years of her stewardship. She has now moved on to Housing New Zealand. What we find out in this legislation, hidden in this legislation, in the remedial matters part of it, is that she is removing any advice from Housing New Zealand on policy. Did the members opposite know that? Were they aware that she was removing any advice that would come from Housing New Zealand?

💬 Brett Hudson: Since 2011, Mrs King.

The member at the back, the list member from the back Brett Hudson, who has not bothered to contribute to the debate except from his seat, sitting down, ought to go and have a real look at this legislation instead of being just a parrot for the notes they are given.

In fact, we have got a whole backbench of parrots who have not taken the time to read what this legislation does. They did not take the time to ask questions of their Minister. They just said: “We are so proud, Minister, of your bill.” I actually think they are not earning their salaries today, because they are not working and questioning and debating this legislation, which they ought to be doing.

You know, we, the people of New Zealand, were given a solemn promise by the Prime Minister of this country that there would be no more asset sales, and what we know from this legislation and from the other actions that this Government has taken is that the biggest asset sale you could have is taking place now. There would not be a member opposite or on this side of the House who would not think that a house is the biggest asset any of us could ever have. Our house, whether we own it or whether we rent it, and live in it and cherish it, is the best and biggest asset we have. And to say that selling off thousands of State houses is not an asset sale is to be very economical with the truth.

That is what this Government has been with this legislation. You see, it has been set up. It was set up over 3 years ago when National became the Government and the first wave of changes came to State houses. It followed a pattern, and I set that pattern out in the first reading of this legislation. I think it is worth repeating, because every constituency member on this side of the House knows the pattern.

First of all, the people are taken out of the State houses. Is that not what happened out in your electorate, our chief whip? Is that not what happened in other parts, whether it is in Te Atatū or whether it is in Rongotai? People are removed from the houses. That is the first thing that happens. There are all sorts of reasons why they need to be removed. Secondly, the Government then says: “No one wants to live in these houses. Look, they’re empty. Nobody wants these houses.” And all the while the waiting list for State houses was growing and growing and growing. These houses were empty, the Government said that nobody wanted to live in them, and the waiting lists in those areas were growing.

So then the next excuse is: “Well, these houses must be in the wrong place and the wrong size, so if they are in the wrong place and are the wrong size, we should sell them to the community sector. It will be able to put people in the houses that are in the wrong place and are the wrong size.” You see, it is nonsensical. It does not make sense. Then the Government just flogs them off to whomever, whoever will buy them, because they are going to be used for community housing. If they cannot be used for community housing by the Government agency, why does the Government think a community organisation is going to turn them into the right house in the right place and of the right size?

You then get to the next part of this process. When you leave houses empty—just go around and look at empty State houses—what you will find is that suddenly the windows start to be broken. Then you have vandalism and graffiti written on the walls and written on the houses. You see the boards go up as Housing New Zealand tries to cover up the broken windows. Then you get the complaints about what it is doing to the neighbourhood, and questions as to why these houses are looking so unsightly in a neighbourhood. Then it gets to the final stage of all. The Government says: “Well, we’ve got to sell them off. We’ve got to get rid of them.”

That has been the process that we have watched take place since this National Party became the Government—cynical, manipulative movement in State houses to get rid of houses, whether they are all the best houses or not. We would not have objected if they were being replaced by other houses. That is not the history of the National Party. It sold off 13,000 houses when it was last in Government, and it is now on the big State house sell-off again.

So then we thought that if this party cannot look carefully at the legislation, and the backbenchers are too lazy to get out of their seats—other than to make 27-second speeches—that we ought to look closely at it. Many of us go straight to the regulatory impact statement. You see, it is provided for a reason. It is provided to tell us, the members of Parliament in this House, what other eyes have seen when they have looked at the legislation. It is always worthwhile, I say to new backbenchers. Go and read any regulatory impact statement.

We have seen some very good regulatory impact statements over the years. I can think of the one that was put out on the legislation for the care of adults who are disabled—remember that one? When we got that regulatory impact statement, Tony Ryall had it all redacted. On the day we were debating the bill you could not even read what they were saying. Well, we have got a regulatory impact statement on this bill, and what we found out was there has been no review, no evaluation, and no reports on this legislation.

The first issue: what does it say? Has there been any? The big answer is one big, fat no. There have been no reviews or evaluation of this policy. The second one, which I think is important, is that Treasury did not provide any independent opinion on the quality of this legislation. Those are two fundamental things that happened. Is it evaluated? Have they got advice? Is there a report? What has Treasury said about it? On both those counts, the National Party did not get advice. It knows best! It knows exactly what people need in New Zealand; it is what the National Party wants! It is not what people necessarily want; it is what the National Party wants!

I say to the members opposite, after you have passed this bill—because you have not taken the time to read these statements now and have not taken the time to question whether there is anything in these bills that ought to have closer scrutiny—I suggest you come to the Table, pick up the documents, and at least learn a lesson from this bill. Learn a lesson that you do not just become the rubber stamp for your Ministers. You are not going to go far in a political career when you just become a rubber stamp for a Minister.

And I say to the C-team—except Mr Bishop—that you have become rubber stamps for the Minister, who has hoodwinked you into thinking that a bill that does not have to be passed with urgency, parts of which they have been undertaking for the last 4 years, you are going to need to pass and you just need to rubber-stamp it. Well, I say to the members opposite that you are not doing the job that you are elected to do if you are not scrutinising the legislation that is put before this House.

I say to the members opposite: shame on them. This legislation should have gone to a select committee. It should have had submissions. It should have had input from the people of New Zealand so they could have a say. State houses are their assets, not the Government’s.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the third reading of the Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill. The current law assumes that all social housing tenants’ needs are the same. There is no provision for a tailored response. As we have heard since this morning, there are waiting lists and there are some houses sitting there vacant. This bill is designed to fix that situation—exactly to fix that situation. There is a mismatch between the needs of the families and the kinds of houses that are available. Urgency is required because there are people on waiting lists, and we do care for those people who are on waiting lists. That is why we need this urgency.

The aim of social housing reform is to house more families. We do care about the size of the house that we provide to these people. We do care about the location they will be put into. We cannot put a five-member family in a one-bedroom house. On the other hand, another family with just two members may not want a five-bedroom house. Location does matter because people want to be close to their family members, their relatives, or the communities they want to be in. We need to address these needs. This Government is working hard to get the best outcomes for people in social housing, and for that we need flexibility. We need this bill. I support the bill. Thank you.

I rise to take a call on this, the third reading of the legislation arising from the Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill. When my colleague Kevin Hague spoke in the first reading of this bill he said this bill was an emblem of the Government’s wider housing agenda and evoked the Government’s own consultation process for the flag referendum distraction. Members will know that New Zealanders in that campaign are being asked “What do you stand for?” and then pose for photos holding a sign saying what they stand for. Well, with this bill one can all too easily imagine, I think, the Prime Minister holding his sign, no doubt with a relaxed smile on his face. The sign might read: “I stand for abdication of Government responsibility.” Or it might say: “I stand for not giving a damn.” Or it might say “I stand for the ideology of pink and grey, of the 1980s and 1990s.”, even though that failed miserably the first time around. Or it might even say: “I stand for contempt for the normal democratic process that should surround a bill like this.”

There is a housing crisis in this country. People from Invercargill to Kaitāia are sleeping in cars, in overcrowded housing, and on other people’s couches because they cannot get into State houses and cannot afford private rentals. All but the most privileged young people are now facing a lifetime of renting and of never being able to buy their own home—something that was once considered a birthright for those in this country. This represents growing intergenerational inequality and the abandoned generation.

It also represents a demise of community. One of the National members said last night that this National Government represents big community. Well, I can tell that member and members on that side of the House that in my community, a low-income community, there is amazing heart and amazing kindness but it is hard for that to bed in in communities because, sadly, all too often people are having to move because they are in rental accommodation and they cannot afford the costs. So my community is constantly in flux because of the policies of this Government, which undermine our entire social fabric. This Government’s approach undermines community.

I was at the Child Poverty Action Group post-Budget breakfast this morning and was really moved by a presentation from a young emergency department doctor, talking about the personal shock he had experienced when seeing the emergency department in Wellington turn into what seemed like a paediatric clinic during the cold snap just last month in April. While he was studying, he had learnt in his studies about the social determinants of health. He knew that poverty and poor housing are causing illness. There are about 40,000 preventable hospital admissions a year in this country. He had learnt through his study that more than one child a week dies from poverty-related illnesses in this country, many connected to the quality and over-crowding of our housing. He knew all of this theoretically, but he told us that none of that learning prepared him for the reality of facing that onslaught of children coming in in the middle of the night in waves of sickness with bronchial diseases and even pneumonia. He said that this Budget and this legislation will do nothing to stem the flow of children into the emergency departments of this country and it will do nothing to stop the deaths.

It grieves me that when this Government had the opportunity to present us with legislation that could have turned that round, what we have instead is legislation that is making it easier for the Government to transfer State housing stock into the hands of private developers and possibly some community organisations. Last night, when Government members bothered to take their maybe maximum 2-minute calls on this bill, they mentioned a commitment to home insulation from this Government. I would like to remind this House that that was a Green Party initiative—an initiative that this Government stopped before the job was done. Again, how familiar is that?

💬 Chris Bishop: That’s not true. That’s a bit harsh. That’s unfair.

The member says that is not true. I would like to ask the member whether every house in this country is insulated. Would every house in this country pass a warrant of fitness? Are our houses still killing our children? The reality is that they are still killing our children. You have not finished the job.

This legislation is passing under urgency without the possibility for the public to contribute to it, except through one media release from the community housing providers, which are telling us they believe it is timid and will not solve the problems that we are seeing in the communities. This legislation is passing without analysis from Treasury and without any substantive input and analysis of the implications, particularly the fiscal implications. It is passing without, I would say, even one coherent, substantive speech from the Government members to provide detail on this legislation so that those of us on this side of the House and the public of New Zealand can properly engage with what the Government is doing.

It seems to me that at the heart of this legislation it is helping the Government to transfer State housing stock to property developers. Although the Green Party absolutely supports the role of community housing providers, we believe it needs to be in addition to a strong State housing sector. We absolutely oppose the transferring of State housing resources—our collective public resources—into the hands of the private sector to make a profit off the vulnerability of New Zealanders.

This Government is failing in housing at every turn. The public expects that New Zealanders will not be sleeping on the streets or in cars or garages, but this Government has done nothing to address homelessness or provide emergency housing. The public expects that it should be possible for someone to rent a house and feel secure, but this Government has presided over skyrocketing rents and making rental tenure less secure. Landlords seem to be in some kind of race to the bottom these days and, in fact, the worst standards have become entrenched. Right now landlords—including, tragically, Housing New Zealand—that lose their cases in the Tenancy Tribunal are now using 90-day notices to evict tenants.

The public expects that everyone will have a home that is at least healthy, dry, and warm. Yet, despite the Green Party policy for home insulation, many New Zealanders are still living in houses that are broken, in disrepair, and are making them ill. The public expects that that traditional dream of homeownership should still be available to all, yet the Government seems relaxed about the situation in Auckland, where the median house price is now around $800,000 while the median household income for people under 35 is $50,000. Younger people in Auckland are being permanently excluded from homeownership, with devastating economic consequences for them personally and for our wider economy into the future.

Finally, I do want to remind National that it was actually the first party to build State houses in this country.

💬 Chris Bishop: That’s right.

Yes. In 1905 Richard Seddon passed the Workers’ Dwelling Act to build the first State houses for inner-city workers to rent. He thought New Zealanders could enjoy higher standards of living if the State took over from “greedy city landlords”. I still believe that is true.

There are three questions that I believe the people of New Zealand should be asking this Government about this legislation. First, how will this legislation create more homes for people? Second, how will this legislation reduce the cost of housing, stop the massive increase in rents, and stop the ludicrous rises in house prices in Auckland without causing the bubble to burst? Third, how will the privatisation of State housing improve the quality and security of housing for the most vulnerable people in our communities? I want to try to give some answers to these questions.

To the first question, about meeting the demand for rental homes, this legislation is not actually designed to increase rental housing stock. It is, in fact, designed, firstly, to minimise the role of the State by emasculating Housing New Zealand; effectively, requiring it to sell houses and to build only in some areas, in the nature of a residential property developer rather than a social housing provider. What is needed, of course, is an agency with a comprehensive role, in order to provide a housing service for the lowest-income people in the country, to insulate them from the worst effects of the worst landlords. Also, the legislation eliminates Housing New Zealand’s research and advice functions to the Government, which seems very stupid to me because all of its expertise will be lost in the process.

The second part of the answer is that the legislation means that the Government is, actually, abdicating its responsibility for social housing by contracting that function to others—to organisations that are not always capable of carrying out that function and to people without responsibility for the welfare of the tenants. The Minister said in her speech that flexibility will allow for tailored agreements, to give certainty to providers so that they are able to borrow and build more homes. But the truth is that Housing New Zealand could actually do that faster. It could build more homes, and it could build them better if it were properly resourced by the Government to do so. Why go to housing providers outside Government that do not have the capacity to do the job? It just does not make sense.

The third part of the answer is that the Government, by providing far too little money to Housing New Zealand for new rental housing, shows that it is not, really, interested in solving the problem at all. If that were not bad enough, the principal Act amended by this legislation means that people are being pushed out of State houses—actually bullied out of them—through this policy of reviewable tenancies. This is based on a bureaucratic assessment of the ability of tenants to move into private accommodation, for no apparent reason and without regard to their health or well-being, their community connections, or their need for secure accommodation.

The legislation is also designed to avoid accountability. The Government wants to be able to point the finger at somebody else when it is shown that not enough rental houses are being provided. This Government’s way of dealing with the social housing crisis is to transfer it to others—avoiding the heat by leaving the kitchen. The answer to the first question, about increasing rental housing stock, is that the legislation will not cause one new rental home to be built, and Housing New Zealand will not be resourced to do it either. It will be another tool to speed the sell-off of rental homes, and it will be used to justify less and less investment in new State rentals. It will make the crisis worse, not better. Ultimately, that means more housing deprivation, and it will make State houses even harder to get than they are now.

I want to move on to the second question, about affordability. The average rental is now $379 per week. Under National, that is an increase of $65 per week since 2008—a 20.9 percent increase. That is an increase above the Consumers Price Index of 11.7 percent. What does this mean? It actually means that in the main centres, rents have become unaffordable for people, despite the rent subsidies offered by the Government. Even that is not the full story, because those figures that I gave are for all of New Zealand. The crisis is much greater in Auckland and Christchurch. In Auckland, people typically spend half or more of their income on rent, and that is unacceptable. In Christchurch, where I live, I hear stories all the time. People tell me that they are spending $1,000 a week for an ordinary three-bedroom home because they cannot find anything of reasonable quality for anything less.

Those are facts. They are not just my opinions; they are what people are telling me. It is the truth, and this Government is not addressing it in those main cities. People are still forced to live in cars—forced to live in cars—in caravans, in tents, under bridges, and in hovels not fit for human habitation. That is the record of this Government, and it is not addressed at all by this legislation. So the answer to the question is this: this legislation is simply not capable of curbing even the rate of increase of rents, let alone reducing them at the present time. In fact, the legislation is more likely to cause increases in rents because the interest of private providers is in returns, not in the welfare of tenants.

Moving on to the third question, on rental housing quality: social housing will now be at a very great arm’s length from the Government agencies that actually understand housing. Oversight will be seriously compromised as a result. More power is given to Ministers to give directions on the terms and conditions of contracts, but they are clearly going to take a very political, very dogmatic, ideology-driven approach to it. This means, under this Government, that the approach will be aimed at saving money, with much less focus on looking at the best interests of the most vulnerable people in our communities. Non-government providers will impose their own policies and practices. What that means, actually, is that there will be no satisfactory minimum housing standards for rental properties in New Zealand, and we know where that will lead. It will lead in entirely the wrong direction. It will mean poor-quality housing. Most of all, this legislation will result in a very uncertain outcome for low-income people who are dependent on the State for housing and, above all, who need security—not uncertainty—in their tenancies.

Lastly, the whole thrust of this Government’s housing programme, as expressed in this amendment legislation and in the principal Act, is that it wishes to suppress demand rather than meet demand. The results of that will be very expensive in social terms. It will result in reduced health and well-being and increases in poverty, putting more families at risk and compromising social cohesion. This legislation is a retrograde step. It emasculates Housing New Zealand. It seeks to reduce Government accountability. It does not increase housing supply. It does not control rocketing rents. It does not improve housing rental quality. It simply does not address the New Zealand housing crisis at all. What a shame. This Government should be hanging its head in shame, not telling us that it is proud of this useless legislation, because that is what it is.

I see somebody over there on the Government side laughing at this, but the truth is that if he was one of the people affected, the smile would be on the other side of his face. This is poor legislation. It should not be passed.

Well, it has been an interesting few hours since yesterday, hearing the members opposite just being fixated with one part of this legislation and going on and on and on. I want to draw members back to the legislation itself and to the explanatory note, which states: “Among other things, ministerial directions could allow the agency to purchase social housing places into the future … to pay more or less than the income-related rent subsidy, and generally to enable arrangements that respond effectively to social housing need.” Over the last few months, I have spoken to a number of agencies and they have expressed to me a desire to get further involved in social housing. They want to play a bigger part in social housing because the clients that they are working with are interfacing with Housing New Zealand and other social agencies as well, but the current legislation that we have is not flexible enough for them to play the kind of role that they would like to play. So I am really looking forward in a little while’s time, when we vote on this bill, to be able to go back to them and say: “Boy, have I got a deal for you. Boy, we are going to move forward. You are now going to be able to do what you want to do.” I am going to say to them that they will be able to engage with Housing New Zealand, and they are going to be able to engage with the Government, to be able to provide an even better service for their clients. That is why I will be supporting this bill.

The next call is a split call—Jenny Salesa, 5 minutes.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak on the social housing reform legislation. Today is a sad day to be debating this legislation in this House. Michael Joseph Savage, a former Labour Prime Minister, in the 1930s, left the legacy of building State houses to house vulnerable families. He stated that the Government has a collective responsibility to care for each other—all of us here in the House of Representatives have a collective responsibility to care for each other and for our constituents—although the social housing reform legislation is the total opposite of a caring piece of legislation.

I have heard a few members, particularly from the other side of the House, stating that this legislation is about serving families—that it is about serving families better. How in the world is it possible that we would serve families better by selling the houses that they live in from under them and by evicting them from the houses that they live in right now?

We have a housing crisis in Auckland already. Almost every day I see this with my own eyes. Families who come into my office are families who come in minivans, and that is the home that they live in. There are families who live in garages. There are two and sometimes three families sharing a house because that is the only way that they can make ends meet. There are families who cannot afford to put a roof over their own heads by themselves.

I would like to state that, unfortunately, there is not much in Budget 2015, including this social housing reform legislation, to relieve the 7 long—very long—hard, and painful years that have been suffered by the people in my electorate of Manukau East in South Auckland. These are people in Ōtara, Ōtāhuhu, and Papatoetoe, alongside thousands of other ordinary Kiwis across New Zealand.

Housing and decent jobs are major issues for my constituents in Manukau East. Housing and employment are the basic building blocks for a decent life. Having the ability to work, being able to afford a roof over your family’s head, and being able to afford to buy food for your children and your family—nothing fancy; just the basic necessities of life. These basic necessities continue to be increasingly difficult for working families to maintain. This, in spite of many years of tantalising promises that we are on the cusp of something special and that we should just wait a little while longer and there will be more jobs, there will be increased incomes, and there was also the promise of affordable housing by this Budget. Somehow, affordable housing we will hope to see in the very unknown future—who knows?

There is undeniably a major housing crisis in Aotearoa New Zealand. This Government has failed to confront the housing crisis head on. It has been content with tiptoeing around the edges. In last year’s Budget National promised that housing would be made more affordable, but it is plain for all to see that housing is not more affordable today; housing is in actual fact much more expensive each and every day. Housing in Auckland—$809,000 for an average house. That is most definitely not affordable.

The very first piece of legislation this Government is ramming through the House is to hold a fire sale of State houses for its developer mates. This social housing reform legislation is not compassionate conservatism, as we heard yesterday; it is Cabinet club conservatism—flicking off the State houses to developer mates at knock-down prices.

💬 Brett Hudson: Tired old lines—didn’t work last year.

It is not lies. In this Government’s special housing areas in Auckland, which are touted to actually relieve the situation in Auckland, 170 houses have been built in a year and a half—170 houses. Under National the shortfall has not been addressed. This Government has failed to ensure that housing is affordable, as it promised. This Government has failed to provide housing, which is a basic human right for people. I and the Labour Party strongly oppose this bill.

I call Meka Whaitiri—5 minutes.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa. State housing has a proud history in New Zealand. It is how we make sure that every child gets at least a decent roof over their head. No matter how hard mum and dad are struggling financially, it is how we make sure every child gets a decent start in life.

It is my privilege to stand and take a call on the third reading of this important legislation. I came to this House at 9 a.m. and sat in the Committee for 4½ hours to try to get a call on this particular legislation, so I am pleased to finally get 5 minutes to talk and share my experience of the impact that it is going to have on the people and constituents whom I represent in this House—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. There have been some communities that have been identified in terms of how this legislation will not address their needs. Can I make it really clear for the House that there are real social and emergency housing needs throughout Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. There are real housing needs. A couple of suburbs were mentioned by colleagues on this side of the House—Flaxmere—but one suburb that I particularly want to mention is Maraenui. Since coming into this House I have the privilege of visiting Maraenui often when I am back in the Hawke’s Bay—Napier. I can say without a word of a lie that 80 to 90 percent of the cases that I deal with on a daily basis when I am in the electorate are to do with housing issues. That is why I am saying that legislation like this is not going to address the real social and emergency housing needs of the constituents I represent.

One of the issues raised in the passing of this legislation under urgency is why we are doing this urgently, because that was not answered by the Minister for Social Housing when she was in the chair. What is the urgency that is prevalent in this bill that requires us to have that time and why were the people who are going to be affected by the legislation not given the opportunity to present? They are not here. Their voices cannot be heard, but this side of the House is bringing the very real issues that we confront as electoral MPs to the House. This legislation falls short in terms of supplying, or being able to give, the number of social housing homes that are going to replace those that have been sold off.

As I mentioned, Maraenui is a place of many, many social and State houses that have recently been sold or are currently vacant. We have just under a hundred on the waiting list in Hawke’s Bay, yet we have these homes that are either vacant or have been turned down. So much has the Government dropped the ball in Maraenui that recently I met with the Maraenui revitalisation committee, and who is heading that committee? The Napier City Council. Napier City Council along with all the Government agencies, property developers, and Te Puni Kōkiri have got round the table. When my colleague Stuart Nash and I visited them 2 weeks ago, we asked the question: “Why are you doing what you’re doing? There must be a Government plan to deal with housing issues in Maraenui.” Do you know what they told us both? There is no plan. They—the people around the table—said to both of us that there was no housing plan for Maraenui. There is clearly a gap in that part of my electorate. There is no housing plan, so the people of Napier have taken the ball to address the real issues.

But for the time I have got left on my feet in bringing forward those issues of the people of Maraenui, I also want to mention what this legislation is actually doing. As a former public servant, I understand what important and really robust policy looks like, and I also know what robust and good policy does not look like. In this particular legislation it talks about removing from Housing New Zealand Corporation, the deliverer of housing in this country, the role of giving advice to the Minister. I read that and I fear for all the public servants that we are talking about here in Housing New Zealand. That means who is next on the block. Which other departments and officials that work tirelessly on behalf of our community are also going to get the chop? This is one of the failings of this legislation. It is not just about not delivering; it is also downplaying the Public Service, which has a proud record in this country, and therefore I cannot support this legislation. Kia ora tātou.

Legislation arising from the Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill is important legislation. I think the main plank of this legislation is that it moves the focus from one social housing provider in Housing New Zealand to the people who require social housing. That flexibility is essential because other providers in conjunction with Housing New Zealand will actually be able to meet people’s needs in the way that they are needed—in the right places, with the right houses of the right size. It is a great pleasure to be a part of a Government that actually hits to the heart of the matter rather than sticking to tired old ideology. So it is with great pleasure that I commend the legislation to the House. Thank you.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te W’are, otirā, tēnā tātau katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker of the House, and indeed to us all.]

It gives me great pleasure—in a way—to have the opportunity to speak to this. I think it is really important that I again acknowledge all of those families who are sitting in their State homes today wondering about the future of their occupancy of the houses that they live in—their homes. I also want to acknowledge those families who have applied for a State house and have been declined. They have been declined because the rules around who qualifies for a State house, and who does not, have changed. That has not lowered the number of people wanting social housing; it means that the Government has just written them off. So I want to acknowledge those families as well, because this legislation does nothing for them—nothing at all. This legislation has got nothing to do with what the Government benches say that it has, although we have not heard a lot from them, especially today. We have heard, as my colleague said, interjections that have lasted longer than their speeches, and in a democratic society that is actually not good enough. It is not good enough for the speeches from the Government benches that we have heard today—very few of them—that when they are given the opportunity to actually speak to those issues, you get a 1-minute speech in response. As my colleague the Hon Annette King pointed out, the Government benches are actually not doing their job properly.

I go to the bills that have come out of the Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill. Let us talk about the flexible purchasing or, as I mentioned during the Committee stage, the flexible sales, because that is what it really is. These bills provide the mechanism for the Government to sell State assets. That is what they do. No one can deny that. In fact, if that was not right, why have we not heard from the Government benches about that particular issue? The sale of these State assets also transfers the responsibility to provide social housing. That is actually not good enough. It is an obligation on the Government to provide those houses. If it is not, then the Government should say so. The Government should tell the country—come clean. Tell the community that the Government does not want to be in that business any more—that it does not want to provide social housing for New Zealand. That is what this legislation is, effectively, saying. It wants to transfer the responsibility to community organisations and others: property developers—we do not know, because new section 137A of the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Act inserted by this legislation gives the power to the Minister for Social Housing to make those decisions. The Minister can make the decisions around transferring those assets to, from my reading, anyone the Minister chooses. And without any rules around that we do not know how long those houses have to stay as social housing. Is it 1 year, 2 years, 10 years? Maybe after 2 years they can be transferred or sold on the open market, no doubt for a large profit, and then no longer will those homes be affordable, no longer will those homes be social houses.

The big question in debating this particular legislation is whether there will be one single social house more in New Zealand when this legislation takes effect, and the answer is no—not one single one; nothing. How, then, can members opposite claim that this legislation will provide more social housing? It does not. It does not. I think I am bound to say that the public should have had the opportunity to have input into this legislation. New Zealanders, ordinary Kiwis out there, have been denied the opportunity that our democratic system offers. They have not had the opportunity to give evidence. We have heard in the contribution from the Hon Annette King that one organisation was able to get out a press release in time to give its thoughts on it. Imagine what other organisations might have been able to contribute. There is nothing in this legislation, as I started to allude to in one of my earlier contributions, around the Government’s Treaty of Waitangi obligations. It talks a lot about providing Māori housing, and yet in this legislation there is no mention under the enabling clause of the Minister giving any recognition whatsoever to the Government’s Treaty partners—none whatsoever—so that may or may not happen, but there is no obligation on the Government to do that. I call on the members opposite, who have one more call. Maybe they can answer some of those concerns that more than just I have.

As I mentioned earlier, those families who are sitting at home, wondering about the future of the occupancy of their homes, will be very concerned that they have not had the opportunity too to make a contribution and give evidence on this legislation. Actually, we have not heard any compelling evidence or any compelling contribution from the members opposite about exactly why this legislation is so important that it has to go through under urgency. I have not seen or heard any contribution from them addressing that issue. There is no urgency in this. It is a matter of the Government deciding that it wants to get this legislation through under the urgency of the Budget so that the general public will miss the fact—or may miss the fact—that this is about the flexible sale of State assets. It is not flexible about the purchasing, because when you have purchasing you also have someone who is selling, and that is the Government on behalf of all New Zealanders selling its stake in social housing in New Zealand and transferring the responsibility that it has to organisations and others to carry out that function. That is just not good enough.

Ā, nō reira, ka tuku atu i taku kōrero ki aku iwi katoa. Kia kaha ki te āta titiro i ēnei pire. Kaua e pōturi ki te tuku atu i ō koutou kōrero ki a rātau mā te Kāwanatanga. Nō reira, Mr Assistant Speaker, tēnā koe.

[Therefore, my advice to all my Māori people: be robust and scrutinise these bills very carefully. Do not be slow in submitting your findings to that lot, the Government. So thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.]

It gives me great privilege to be able to stand here as the final speaker in support of the legislation divided from the Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill. It is time for the members to park their histrionics and park their ideological dead ends and actually come across and listen to what this legislation delivers. There will still be 60,000 properties in the ownership of Housing New Zealand in 2017. There will be 3,000 more social housing places by 2017—3,000 more. It is time for you to come across. You have still got an opportunity to represent the people whom you purport to support, like the iwi in Tauranga who want to participate as a community housing provider and like the accessible housing companies that are wanting to participate in Tauranga. These are people whom you purport to support. If you had integrity, you would see that this bill is designed to deliver more for the people whom you purport to represent. But this party does—we represent them. I commend this legislation to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question that the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill, the Taxation (Social Housing Reform) Bill, the Housing Corporation (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill, and the KiwiSaver (HomeStart) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to refer you to a couple of Speakers’ rulings. This is Speaker’s ruling 205/2, which reads: “It is central to the democratic idea that the purpose of elected public office is to serve the public, not to enrich the office-holder or his or her personal connections. It is important for members to ensure that they do not use their position to influence the legislative process for their own advantage or that of someone with whom they are connected.” I have spent a little bit of time going through the pecuniary interests register, and I have just had the Parliamentary Library return a document stating a number of members’ own property development companies in Auckland.

One moment. Look, we are in the middle of a vote here. I thought your point of order related to a vote. [Interruption] No, the member will sit down. Of course, you should have brought the point of order before we went to cast the vote. I have called for the votes and the Clerk is now assessing those votes. We will have the result of those votes and then the member may continue with his point of order.