Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill

The question is that the—

💬 Tim Macindoe: Sorry, I beg your pardon, Mr Assistant Speaker. Is Carmel Sepuloni not taking her call?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Well, I think that if the member casts his eyes around he could probably work that out.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: Just speaking to that point—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Well, there is no point of order—

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I have already ruled that the question that has been raised by the senior Government whip is not a point of order.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Just to assist with the order of the House, usually the Speaker does ask whether the member who was on their feet wishes to complete their call, and that would be a signal to other members who are intending to take a call that it might be time for them to rise to their feet and take theirs.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Well, I thank the member for his assistance to the House in that particular area, but I also think it was unnecessary in that if members had been alert they would have already taken the call.

This Government is trying to get the State out of social housing in this country. It wants to fob it off to often ill-equipped non-profit organisations, and it is selling houses at the very time when more houses need to be built and when the State needs to be involved in that. The Government should be building more houses; it should be upgrading and improving existing State houses. Its concentration is simply, for ideological purposes, on the sale of State houses, and that is wrong.

This particular bill empowers Ministers to direct the sale of houses that are in the ownership of Housing New Zealand Corporation. The reason for that is, of course, the Government actually does not trust the corporation and wants to do the job itself. The Government wants to do it, ostensibly, for what it calls housing reform objectives, but, in fact, the objective is just ideological—the privatisation of social housing—and the real objective of this particular bill is simply to fast track that process by giving the two Ministers excessive executive powers.

The Government in its own disclosure statement was correct when it said: “The transaction mandate is an unusual legal mechanism. It provides Ministers with the ability to effect the transfer of HNZC assets in HNZC’s name, without a decision-making role for the HNZC board.” So, as I said, clearly the Government does not trust the board to do its job, and the Government wants to do it for it. In that respect, the Government wants to both pay the piper and call the tune. It is yet another example of this Government’s habit of extending executive powers.

I have complained many times in this House that this Government is taking on more and more powers to the executive in many of the bills that it brings before the House, thus sidelining Parliament, and in this case effectively sidelining one of the Government’s most important agencies, Housing New Zealand. That is wrong, and that sort of thing really does need to stop.

Another issue is this: the bill allows the land acquired by Housing New Zealand under the Public Works Act to be transferred without complying with the usual offer-back process. I think I know why that is particularly the case. It is because when Nick Smith was embarrassed a year or so ago over the Government land that was not, in fact, available in Auckland for housing as he claimed it was available, he then made reckless statements about how much land the Government had available and whether, in fact, it was suitable for housing or not. He got into deep trouble about all of that because he simply did not check first whether the land was actually available for housing or not, and, if so, how much was available.

So, this bill is really a face-saving device for Nick Smith. It allows the Public Works Act to be bypassed. What the Government is effectively doing is saying: “To hell with people who had rights under the offer-back provisions of that Act, because we want to get on with this quickly, and we want to save Nick Smith’s neck.” There are at least 2,000 houses up for sale by this process, so I ask this simple question: who gets the proceeds of them, and what are they going to be used for? I have not yet heard any Government member answer that question. I asked it in my first reading speech; I ask it again now.

I see that new section 2A(7), inserted by clause 4, says that the proceeds “must be paid to a Crown Bank Account.” That is all it says, and that is not answering my question. So what is the mandate for that money? Will it go to new social housing? How many new houses will be built? How many houses will be upgraded or replaced?

As I have said, fundamentally the Government wants to get the State out of the provision of social housing, and the result will be to deepen the housing crisis. As a result no new houses will be built. It does not matter whose ownership they are in. What does matter is how many of them there are. This bill does nothing to assist that problem. Ostensibly, the rationale of the bill is the objectives set out in new section 50D in new Part 5A, inserted by clause 8, which actually gives no cause for hope whatsoever in terms of more and better State housing.

Amongst the objectives is one listed in new section 50D(1) that says: “(c) social housing tenants are helped to independence, as appropriate:”. What does that mean? To me, it is pretty obvious. It means pushing people out of State houses. People who have been assessed for some reason as being capable of renting in the private market—they will be pushed out of State houses. That is what that means. Another objective says: “(d) there is more diverse ownership or provision of social housing:”. What does that mean? What that means, simply, is the privatisation of State houses for ideological purposes.

Another objective, at paragraph (f), states that “the supply of affordable housing is increased, especially in Auckland.” Well, how on earth is that going to happen, because all this bill is going to do is transfer ownership from the State to other providers. So how is that going to increase the number of houses, how is that going to improve the quality of houses, and how is that going to really help to solve the housing crisis—a crisis that this Government, by its gross inaction, has actually caused? This Government is doing nothing to solve that problem and, in the end, this bill is just another nail in the coffin of State housing in New Zealand.

The bill will, if anything, reduce and not increase the supply of more State housing in this country. The sale money will not go to the improvement of social housing, nor will it go into more social housing for those New Zealanders who need it.

Concerning the reporting requirements of this bill under the Housing Act, the committee’s main recommendation appears to be to insert a new section 2A(8), in clause 4. It says that it would not be appropriate for Housing New Zealand to provide such reports because it would no longer have control of the land, but instead it should be reported under the responsible ministry’s annual report. Well, how does that really help to inform the public about what is going on here—buried in some departmental report that next to nobody ever reads? Effectively, the public of this country are having this hidden from their view, and this is not really reporting at all. It is just the opposite. In fact, the majority of the Social Services Committee was just doing nothing more than toeing the Government line.

Finally, the Opposition parties, I see, are united in their opposition to the bill, and there are two main reasons for that. The first is that the bill enables the sale of a large proportion of the country’s State housing stock. Although the housing crisis demands a substantial increase in the number of houses for people on low incomes and demands the improvement of those houses, simply changing the ownership of those houses addresses that problem not at all.

The second objection to the bill is very simple. It confers on the Ministers, as I have said, extraordinary powers that they should not have. So for all of those reasons New Zealand First will definitely not be supporting this bill. It has not done so, and will not do so in the future. The Government needs to rethink it and not pass it as it is.

I am going to call Matt Doocey in a minute, but I just want to make it clear that although this is the sixth call, it will be regarded as the fifth call, to be followed by a full Green call, and then we will get ourselves back on to track again. The reason for this is, pretty obviously, that at the point at which I called Mr O’Rourke, he was the only person who actually called for the call. That got us slightly out of order.

It is a pleasure and honour to rise in support of the second reading of the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill. I would just like to comment on that last contributor, Denis O’Rourke, who spoke constantly about ideology, which I thought was slightly ironic from a member of a party that has no ideology other than what its party leader tells it.

This bill is not about ideology. It is about pragmatism, it is about listening to the sector involved, and it is about listening to vulnerable New Zealanders. That is what this Government does so well. We are only a few days into the sitting calendar and here we are supporting the increased provision of social housing. Just like the increased provision of GP care to under-13s, the raising of parental leave from 16 to 18 weeks, and the increasing of benefits by $25 a week on 1 April, it is because this Government cares about vulnerable New Zealanders. Opposition members will tell you they care, but they are the ones stuck in ideology. They are the ones who have a litany of failed social policies. We do not mind thinking, and thinking, and thinking, and then thinking: “What works?”. What we know is that the Government does not need to be the sole provider of State housing, and that is what this bill does. It allows the Minister of Finance and the housing Minister to have the mandate to transfer the assets to the social housing sector, and it was very clear from the number of submissions we got—

💬 Richard Prosser: Who else? Who but the State can provide State housing?

Mr O’Rourke can speak as much as he wants, and so can Mr Prosser. They were not at the Social Services Committee; we were. We had only 11 submissions. The sky did not fall in, and, actually, I agreed with all those submissions because they fundamentally said that we need more social housing. Where we disagree is that I believe we can develop a mixed economy of social housing: the Government—which will always be the primary provider—social housing, community housing, and it just goes on and on.

💬 Richard Prosser: Sounds like ideology.

You see, when you look at the statistics—and you might want to listen to this, Mr Prosser—that currently in Housing New Zealand the demand for one-bedroom units is 25 percent, whereas the supply is 9 percent. For Housing New Zealand three-bedroom units the demand is 24 percent, whereas the supply is 43 percent. It is very clear. What we need is the right house, of the right size, at the right time, and in the right location going to the right people. That is what this social housing reform will provide. We know that many in social housing have complex needs, and by bringing in community housing providers we are providing wraparound services to people to support them in becoming more productive and gaining the lives that we want. So I say well done to this Government for stepping up and supporting vulnerable New Zealanders.

This bill is not only about supporting vulnerable people. What we want to ensure is that anyone who wants to access social housing is able to. We know that there are thousands on the list waiting, and ones who want to transfer, as well, and that is why I support this bill and commend it to the House. Thank you.

E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe, huri rauna i Te Whare tēna koutou katoa.

[Greetings to you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and to you all throughout it.]

It is with some frustration that I rise to speak on behalf of the Green Party. We oppose this second reading of the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill. This bill is purely to enable a flog off of public housing assets, and at a time when we need more. Over the time of this Government the State housing stock has shrunk indeed. In New Zealand in 2016 we have a severe housing crisis, and this bill is not driving to fix it. It is not. It is important to call this Government out in not wanting to address the severe housing crisis. Although we often hear of the crisis of housing affordability in Auckland with prices blowing out every day, that is not the extent of our problems. There is also a crisis in the quality of housing, and, certainly, the Government has not been a responsible landlord.

As spokesperson for social housing I can say that my office receives far too many messages from whānau, and I literally mean whānau—my whānau—across the country, living in both Housing New Zealand and private rental housing, who are desperately trying to get action on warming up and fixing their homes so that their whānau can live safely.

We also know that there is a crisis in the levels of severe housing deprivation, also known as homelessness, and I do want to take the time to enforce that this bill is not driving to fix homelessness. I think now of women with children, particularly Māori women, who in just the past year or maybe 6 months are having to crowd into friends’ garages—also Māori women with children—because they are unable to find a home, most definitely in the rental market, both public or State provided, and private. I am thinking of them right now, as I am in this House, as a Māori woman, and understanding very clearly that this bill is not even wanting to pretend to want to help those very people.

I have learnt about homelessness that it is very difficult to get any information, any solid information, or any information at all, in fact, about what the Government is doing, and the Government refuses to measure and get data on it. However, we know from those working on this issue in the community that it is getting worse by the day. There is no national policy framework to address homelessness, no Government agency or ministry responsible and accountable for homelessness, no welfare response, and no housing response, let alone the whole-of-Government approach that is required. The mind boggles as to how the Government can simply ignore the disgraceful reality that increasing numbers of New Zealanders, including in my home community of South Auckland, are living in streets, in cars, in garages, and in charity shelters. It is a moral disgrace and a governance disgrace, and this bill certainly is not aiming to help that.

So when we know that there is a crisis in housing affordability, a crisis in the quality of rental homes, and a crisis in the levels of severe housing deprivation and homelessness, then we know that the scale of our housing issues is massive. They require the urgent attention and commitment of this House—and this bill is not it—but, instead, we have this bill. The lack of ambition and concrete solutions in it is striking, because it is not even trying to do that. More than that, this bill has the potential to substantially undermine the provision of public housing in this country. What this bill is about is the Government extending its pervasive privatisation agenda into the area of social housing and abdicating its responsibility to ensure New Zealanders have secure and healthy housing.

The bill also puts extraordinary powers in the hands of Ministers, cutting across the due process and accountabilities of the Housing New Zealand Corporation board. Extraordinarily, the Government sees its own Ministers, rather than Housing New Zealand, as being the most qualified to manage the ownership of our $18 billion State housing assets. There are no constraints on whom or what these assets are transferred to. They can, and probably will, be sold to overseas interests.

The Government claims it wants to transfer these homes to New Zealand community housing organisations, but we know that the Salvation Army and other organisations have made it clear that they are not in a position to buy these rundown homes, which have been badly, badly managed by Housing New Zealand, and renovating them is too big a cost for those community organisations. So we want to see more support for community housing organisations, yes, but not at the expense of State housing. The driver for community housing should not be that the Government simply wants to shirk off a core Government responsibility. So, yes, the Green Party understands that good community housing where organisations are able to step up is vital and that this must sit alongside State housing as a core and vital infrastructure.

I myself have longstanding experience in the real impacts of this privatisation agenda on our community. I have tried to stay connected to the residents’ campaign in the Glen Innes community, which resisted the sell-off of its State homes to the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company. Property developers are the group that will benefit from this bill. The residents of Glen Inness have indeed been vindicated in their fight and their arguments. Newly developed housing in Glen Innes is being sold for between $600,000 and $800,000. That is not affordable. Since this sell-off began, land values in Glen Innes have increased from $400,000 to over $800,000—$800,000. This is gentrification, pure and simple. I am proud that the Green Party opposes this bill. Kia ora.

I rise to take a short call to speak in favour of the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill. Perhaps we may actually have a contribution from somebody who was there and participated in the Social Services Committee, as opposed to reading pre-prepared statements of opposition that bear very little reality to what we are debating.

In respect of this bill, when it came through the select committee—as my colleague Matt Doocey, in a very considered contribution, has already noted—there were only 11 submitters. The core of some of their concerns, in my view, related to a fundamental misunderstanding around the policy objectives that we are seeking to promote here. This view that houses should not be sold because only Housing New Zealand has the capacity to provide social housing in this country—for a start, other organisations already do provide it and, secondly, it is looking at the debate through the wrong lens.

The issue is not who owns the house. The issue is that we have 62,000 income-related rents. Is that sufficient? This Government believes not. We are going to lift it to 65,000. That is 3,000 more people who are going to be supported to be able to be in a warm, dry home because of a demonstrated need for more than what is the case today. That is social housing provision and delivery. The debate around who owns the bricks and mortar and who should own the roof is completely the wrong one. Of those 3,000 extra over the next 3 years, I am very pleased to see that 70 are going to be in Tauranga because it is a community, because of its high growth, that a lot of people are moving into, and we do need to ensure that those social housing provisions, those income-related rents—which, actually, are the core of social housing provision—grow in my community.

The only other point I would like to make in my short call this afternoon is, again, this view that only community housing organisations and only community organisations are fit to participate in the provision. A strong sentiment came from a few submitters that if you have a profit motive—if you have shareholders in the provision of your service—then somehow you need to be disqualified because you do not have the capacity to care and you do not have the capacity to deliver outcomes. Well, that logic is flawed—it is a nonsense. What counts here is the delivery and the outcome of provision, not the nature of your commercial structure. It is the wrong debate and is typified by the response that we have had, particularly from the Opposition members through the select committee process.

I am very pleased to support this bill. It is good thinking, it is good policy, and it is going to deliver for Tauranga and New Zealand.

I rise to take a short call on this bill, which the Green Party—as has been previously stated by my colleague Marama Davidson—is proud to be opposing. I would just like to pick up on some of the points raised by the previous National speaker, Todd Muller, who was saying that there is no issue about who owns the stock—that that is not important, it is about making sure there are roofs over peoples’ heads, and too bad if there is a profit motive involved because people can still care. Well, actually, these are significant issues that are at the heart of this bill because on this side of the House there is an understanding that if there is a profit motive, then there is lost delivery that is going back to that company in terms of profit that could otherwise be put into resource and support for the people in those houses, that could otherwise be put into building more houses, and that could go towards our collective good as a country, which is being taken and channelled into the hands of a few. That is at the heart of what this debate is about.

We are all for business in its place, but when this country has an absolute crisis over housing affordability and enough housing, then, actually, we know there is a role for a larger State provision because the State does not need a profit motive. Obviously, Housing New Zealand has kind of been given a profit motive, but that should not be the case. Housing New Zealand is our collective property. It has been built up by taxpayers over generations in this country to ensure that every New Zealander has a warm, dry, stable home, not just some piece of shelter over their head that they could be kicked out of at any moment when policies change or profit motives dictate. It is about us as a country saying that we believe everyone deserves this.

The Green Party knows that our communities are stronger when people are around long enough to put down some roots and when they are not made sick by cold, damp houses. We have read the research that shows our economy is more productive when people have warm, dry, stable homes, and we know we could take pressure off our health budget if we ensured all New Zealanders the right to warm, dry housing. We also know that children are more likely to succeed at school and in life when they live in warm, dry houses long enough to be able to become part of a school community. We know we have a housing shortage and too many people are homeless in this country or are living in unstable housing for a number of reasons. This bill will not solve any of those things. Transferring the ownership to businesses or even, in some cases, when the community housing providers, as this Government has made them, are required to apply limited tenure into their housing—even transferring ownership to them is not going to provide that tenure that is so critically important.

So our view is that the housing crisis, more than anything, demands a substantial increase in the number of houses affordable for people on low incomes. We know that the Government has access to low-interest loans and has previously had experience in mass house-building enterprises—experience that no one else has. Property developers have told us they cannot deliver what is needed in terms of the number of houses. Community housing associations have also told us they do not have the capacity to meet the needs, and many of them are not entering into this process because they do not have the capacity to get the houses up to standard. The one player in this country that does have the experience, the access to the money, and the capacity is the State.

So here we are, bringing to the House a bill that limits and reduces the State’s role in addressing our housing crisis. It is absolute madness. It gives the Minister an unprecedented amount of power to override Housing New Zealand to, with very little scrutiny, negotiate these deals. It will leave whichever Minister is in charge of this open to accusations of corruption because the checks and balances are not in place in the legislation. That should be worrying everyone in this country. This is an appalling piece of legislation.

Only somebody who actually owns their own home could say what the previous National speaker said, which was that ownership does not matter. It sure as heck does if you are renting or, even worse, if you cannot get a place to rent.

I used to own a house. Now I rent a house. I dug the garden. I planted vegetables. I got it looking great. And then the owner said “Hey, it’s looking so good I think I’ll auction it.”, and I was packing up and down the road before I could say Jack Robinson. I have not got kids in the local school who were disrupted by that, but plenty of families have.

There is nothing more important to the Kiwi Dream than homeownership. There is nothing more important than the stability of families and the learning of children and having a safe, secure roof over your head. In all of New Zealand’s history, since Michael Joseph Savage in 1935, the State has had a role to provide public housing, until this ideologically wayward Government started dismantling, brick by brick, frame by frame, one of New Zealand’s most precious assets—its State housing stock.

Here we are today, to confer Draconian, sweeping powers on Ministers to do lightning deals with Gold Coast developers to flog off New Zealand’s State housing stock. What are Government members so scared of? Why do they not want the normal processes of accountability and transparency? Why do they not want to go through the full rigour of parliamentary scrutiny? What dirty little deals have that crooked lot got cooked up with those developers?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I think the tone of the member’s comments is now a breach of the convention of the House, and I would ask him to take more care.

I will take more care, and I apologise. I am a little bit het up about this because I am the MP for an area that this summer has witnessed homelessness in public parks. Only yesterday I was walking around an area that the so-called rough sleepers of New Lynn have recently vacated. It has recently been cleared. The community brought down blankets and food, and local community agencies and State services have belatedly got together and placed those vulnerable people in—temporary, at least—accommodation. There is no place in this beautiful country for homelessness. Bad luck, bad stuff, can happen to anybody, whether they are a distinguished member of Parliament or somebody who comes from a well-to-do business background. Bad luck, ill health, family breakdown—anything can happen, and members opposite would do well to remember that when bad luck strikes, the helping hand of the State to get people back on their feet and back into productive employment and secure living is absolutely crucial.

I abhor this bill. I abhor this bill, which destroys the Kiwi Dream of homeownership, working hard, playing by the rules, getting ahead, and providing for your family. It is impossible to do that if you do not have a secure, predictable roof over your head. We have some $20 billion of housing stock owned by the State in this country—or we did have before that lot started running it down. This bill confers on Ministers the power to sell off hundreds of millions, indeed billions, of dollars of assets that previous generations of Kiwi taxpayers paid for, and to do so with sleight of hand, beyond the normal parliamentary accountability. This bill is a travesty. It is a dog. It is a crock. It is just plain wrong.

I say to members opposite that the public of New Zealand will have their say in 2017. They have had just about enough of Government by spin and being told that everything is rosy, when patently the gaps are getting wider and wider, and it seems suddenly to be acceptable to have rough sleepers fending for themselves in the rain in the bush of a major urban centre. It is not OK and we need our emergency housing stock. We need our social housing stock preserved and built up to give the next generation of New Zealanders a safety net to bounce back off.

The Government says it has $2 million to spend on emergency housing, Auckland-wide. What is it planning to do—buy one bedsit in Ponsonby, or two garages? Or is it going to buy tents and distribute them around Auckland? That is how crazy this Government is, how bankrupt of ideas, how questionable of motive, and how ridiculous this bill.

I am taking a short call to support the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill on its second reading. The previous speaker, David Cunliffe, demonstrated how narrowly focused he is.

I want to acknowledge the Social Services Committee, which did the work on this bill, and I want to acknowledge and thank all submitters for their contribution. As we heard, the select committee received 11 submissions, of which eight were heard. Through those submissions there were two main points that came through. One was around the overall housing issue, especially social housing supply. That is a valid concern, and that is why we need a social housing reform programme. The second concern that came through was around transparency, and, again, that is a very valid concern. Accountability and transparency of all processes that will be put through by this bill is important to everyone.

This bill, in the long run, will mean that we are able to provide the right type of houses and that our housing stock is utilised effectively. So in the long run this bill will make the actual difference by ensuring that those who are in need are housed in the right type of house and are housed in a timely manner. Listening to previous contributions, I have to say, regretfully, that this issue of social housing has become a political football. Yes, I do understand that this bill will enable the transfer of properties from Housing New Zealand to community housing providers, but that is to support the development of community housing providers. The social housing reform programme is designed to see that we are able to house people in quality houses, and that could be through Housing New Zealand or through community housing providers.

As we also heard, this bill is based on evidence. One-third of Housing New Zealand’s portfolio is of the wrong type or is in the wrong place. Moreover, there are thousands of people on the waiting register. There are thousands who have applied for a transfer. The fact is that currently there are 62,000 households receiving an income-related rental subsidy. We have committed to increase that by 3,000 households by 2017-18. The aim of this bill is that through Housing New Zealand and community housing providers collectively we are able to provide more housing places.

It is a great bill. I support this bill and commend it to the House.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill. Labour opposes this bill. In one of the addresses from the other side of the House earlier, the statement was made that it does not matter whether you own your own house. Can I say that it matters a lot to people in South Auckland whether or not you own your own house. It matters because in terms of rental property it matters a lot whether you can actually afford to pay the rent on a house.

Every day in our office we see people come in, and the main issue they come seeking our help with is housing. Many of these people work, but even though they work full-time, and sometimes with the addition of a part-time job, they still cannot afford to pay the rent. For so many people in South Auckland it is a case of two families, or sometimes three, sharing the one house. Why? Because they cannot afford the rent. Many of the people who come to see us do not have even a State house. They qualify for a State house but they cannot yet get into a State house.

This bill is an indictment on this National Government and its attitude towards the duties it has for the people of Aotearoa New Zealand. On the general principles proposed in this bill alone, it should not be allowed to stand. What the Government is proposing here is that we should give Minister Bennett and Minister English unprecedented extraordinary powers to sell off New Zealand’s State houses. This legislation, once it gets enacted, will allow them to personally negotiate contracts on any terms whatsoever and on any conditions they like, and to take any actions necessary to ease the sale’s process. If this bill is passed, it will allow Ministers English and Bennett to sell off billions of dollars’ worth of our State houses without reference to even the chief executive officer or the board of Housing New Zealand. That would not allow transparency. We are currently debating and considering the wisdom of giving these two Government Ministers the right to sell off our State assets—in this case, our State houses—holus-bolus, without any regard whatsoever to the realities of thousands and thousands of New Zealanders today, those who qualify for a State house and those who are homeless.

Thousands—too many, actually; over 2,500 in Auckland, our largest city, alone—are on the waiting list for a Housing New Zealand State house. In addition to this, the Citizens Advice Bureau late last year released a report where it said there are over 3,000 families who go to it seeking advice. These families are homeless, and 50 percent of them have children. So we are talking about thousands and thousands of families with their kids who are currently homeless. Under this National Government the Kiwi Dream is slipping away for so many people, with a housing market that has become the plaything of speculators and a housing market where there are so many people who are locked out of the dream of homeownership.

Labour backs an economy that works well for everyone—for all of us, regardless of where we live—not an economy that works for just the privileged few. We back an economy and a country where our children—all of our children—can hope to one day own their own homes; a country where homes are affordable, either to buy or to rent; a country where we do not have thousands who are homeless; and a Government that can address the issue of homelessness. Instead of building more homes for people and instead of fixing the State houses so that they are warm, dry, and healthy, we are today in the House debating whether or not to give two Ministers the power to sell off our State assets, collectively owned by all of us as taxpayers.

What is really astonishing to me is the fact that this Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill would exempt Ministers Bennett and English from the normal legal requirements we would expect, putting them above the law and allowing them to sell billions of dollars’ worth of our assets on any terms they like, in a sale process ripe for backroom deals. The Government wants the power to do secret deals, the power to flog off billions of dollars’ worth of land and housing to its Cabinet mates, and it does not want to be bothered with pesky public servants or, indeed, with the rule of law. This proposed bill will exempt Bennett and English from all relevant enactments, including the objectives and function of Housing New Zealand, which includes social responsibility, environmental responsibility, and good financial oversight. The Ministers are not constrained by any rule of law relating to the capacity or validity of their acts.

There are very, very good reasons why our Government Ministers are supposed to be at arm’s length and why we have protective checks and balances built into our system. In fact, the proposed powers in this bill are so out of line with proper practice that the bill’s departmental disclosure statement attached to the bill states “there are no direct precedents for this approach in other statutes”—there are no direct precedents for this approach in other statutes. This is not the way our system of Government works, for very good reason. There are checks and balances throughout our system that, among other things, protect the people of this country from unfettered or unwise exercise of power by Ministers. They also protect Ministers from any perception of corruption.

Compounding these risks is this Government’s poor track record of deal making. It has come off very badly trying to negotiate deals with Rio Tinto, with Warner Bros, with Skycity, and, let us not forget, with Saudi businessman Al Khalaf for sheep, worth millions. Selling off State houses is not the choice a forward-thinking Government should be making. Giving Ministers the right to take over what is essentially an operational matter without the usual checks and balances is very unwise.

Going back to Auckland, we have a shortage of housing right now of about 40,000 houses, and the prediction is that we should be building somewhere along the lines of 13,000 houses per year just to keep up with the demand. Instead of doing that, instead of actually building houses and making sure that the State houses are fit, dry, and healthy for our families, what is this Government proposing with this bill? “Oh, no, give us the power to be able to flog off and sell off our State assets.” Two-thirds of my Ōtara constituents and one-third of our people in Ōtāhuhu rely on State housing to provide a base for their family. They live in areas of the highest levels of deprivation. They come from low-income families, and many are struggling just to provide the basics, let alone prepare their kids for school. Many of them are just not in a position to get into the private rental market, given the state that that rental market is in right now in Auckland.

We, as a society, pay in very many different ways. Just to give you an example, over the last few weeks our office has been dealing with one family in particular, a family who is homeless. They have a child—a baby, in fact. This baby has been in and out of hospital many, many times. She has respiratory issues, and for one of those hospital stays this baby stayed for nearly 2 months—nearly 2 months—and the hospital was basically very, very hesitant to discharge this baby out into the community. Why? Because (a) the house that they were living in was not a healthy house and it was not a warm, dry home, and (b) because some people in that house—remember, this is not their house—were smoking. Because this family was living in the lounge of this house, they did not feel they were in a position to tell other family members not to smoke. The reason why I made that point is that when families are homeless—and this child is one example of so many people who are homeless in this country—we pay, as taxpayers, in various different ways.

As a country, New Zealand is so much better than this. We are a country where we should look after each other, where we should take care of each other. Having a roof—shelter over your head—is a basic human right. We should be taking care of our own people in this country. Thank you so much.

It is a great pleasure to be the last speaker on the second reading of this bill, and to put the record straight a little bit, if I can. I think that what we have lost sight of in this debate—certainly, the members opposite have—is that this bill is about delivering better, more flexible, more responsive social housing for New Zealand, particularly for vulnerable New Zealanders. This is not about flogging off State assets. This is about developing better systems. It is about enabling other players to play a part in social housing within New Zealand.

I know that back in the 1930s Michael Joseph Savage came up with a very good idea, which was State housing in New Zealand. It served a very good purpose. But the members opposite, who seem to be bereft of any new ideas, want us to keep doing things the way they have always been done. They want to stick to the same ideas that were done back in the 1930s—that is all that could ever be done in New Zealand. But New Zealand is an innovative country. New Zealand has a kind of a culture here where we say we want to find better ways to do things.

We do not want to settle for what has always been; we want to do things better. We are going to do things better. We are going to be more responsive, and we are going to deliver a better outcome for people in New Zealand. That is the guts behind this bill. That is exactly what we are trying to do. We are going to ensure that we do not just stick to the same old ideas. This is a very good bill, and I commend it to the House.

The question was put that the amendments recommended by the Social Services Committee by majority be agreed to.