Housing Amendment Bill, Housing Corporation (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (No 2), Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (NO 2)

I move, That the Housing Amendment Bill, the Housing Corporation (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (No 2), and the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time. I would like to thank the Social Services Committee and the many officials who worked on these bills. I also want to thank ACT, United Future, and the Māori Party for supporting them.

These bills, of course, achieve three things. We have heard a whole lot of rhetoric over the last few days, most of which, actually, is not factual for the bills themselves. They authorise designated Ministers to enter into social housing transactions in the name of the Housing New Zealand Corporation and its subsidiaries. This will allow us to transfer homes, beginning with some in Tauranga and Invercargill, to community housing providers and to undertake the redevelopment in the Tāmaki community. The bills enable designated Ministers to enter into contracts to require that Housing New Zealand provides transitional services to those community housing providers to ensure that tenants’ needs are looked after during any transfer process, which is really important. We want to ensure that transaction processes work smoothly for the tenants, foremost.

The transactions process is new, both for the Government and for the community housing providers. The process is proceeding in a measured way so that potential participants have the opportunity to prepare and the rights of tenants are protected. Officials have received expressions of interest about both the Invercargill and Tauranga social housing transactions and in mid-March will announce a shortlist of bidders, who will be asked to submit a detailed response to a request for proposals issued by the Government. We are very pleased with the level of interest shown in these transactions.

There are safeguards in the process. Following exercise of the transaction mandate, Ministers are required to publicly notify the general nature and purpose of the use in the Gazette and present it to Parliament. This provides transparency and allows Parliament and citizens to assess whether the exercise is consistent with the purpose outlined in the legislation. The bills also clarify that the Public Works Act offer-back provisions do not apply to land held by Housing New Zealand and preserves this treatment for designated Ministers. It is important to provide certainty on this point to avoid delay for the social housing process. This amendment actually does not alter any existing rights; it merely confirms the current legal position. Importantly, the legislation does not remove any right of first refusal that iwi may have in relation to Housing New Zealand properties under Treaty settlements. We have been engaging with affected iwi since last year to ensure such a right is appropriately recognised.

The final aspect of this legislation is an amendment to the Housing Act 1955 to clear up a longstanding issue not directly related to the Social Housing Reform Programme. This legislation is an important but small part of our overall work to improve social housing. We are also opening up Crown land in Auckland for social and affordable housing developments; providing more emergency housing, with a $2.5 million funding boost to the sector; contracting with community housing providers to provide more social houses in Auckland; and freeing up social houses by reviewing the tenancies of those who can afford private rentals, or can even purchase their own home, and we have spent nearly $400 million on upgrading and maintaining Housing New Zealand homes just in the last year. This Government remains committed to improving the lives of tenants in social housing, and this legislation supports that objective. I commend these bills to the House.

This legislation is a charter for corruption. Paula Bennett stood here in the House today defending legislation that will give her and Bill English, the Deputy Prime Minister, absolute carte blanche—unfettered powers—to do any deal they like, with whomsoever they like, on any terms and conditions. It gives those Ministers the power to sell billions of dollars’ worth of land and public housing in this country to their mates, to overseas corporations, to public-private partnership companies, to merchant bankers, to property speculators—whoever—because they have defined “community housing provider” in the most open way possible.

Anybody can rock up to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and say “I want to register as a community housing provider.”, and then they are eligible to buy houses. There is nothing in the legislation to stop a public-private partnership company from the United Kingdom to rock up and register as a community housing provider. There is no requirement for it to be non-profit. There is no requirement for it to have any track record in delivering social services or community housing. Anybody can rock up and say: “I’m a community housing provider. I want to buy these State houses.” The Minister should be ashamed of herself.

This legislation clears away all of the normal legislative policy and constitutional safeguards that normally govern the process of privatisation or divestment. Paula Bennett and Bill English, on the basis of this legislation, will be able to sit down with merchant bankers from the other side of the globe and do any kind of deal they want. That is seriously a worry, given this Government’s members’ track record in negotiating. Oh, yes, they are masters of the universe! When they sit down with Warner Bros, with Rio Tinto, with Skycity—oh, what a proud, proud track record this Government has got of selling out this country. Oh, and I forgot the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. I forgot the TPP agreement, when they somehow overlooked the fact that 80 percent of citizens in this country wanted to protect the right of future Governments in this country to stop non-resident foreigners from buying our houses. But, no, they did not think that was material, and they failed to safeguard the interests of this country and this country’s citizens. They failed to prevent our land and our housing from being bought and sold by non-resident foreigners. They have got a splendid track record in selling out the interests of this country.

It was even more of a concern when Transparency International recently dropped New Zealand down its perceptions of corruption index, in light of the Oravida affair and in light of the Saudi sheep scandal. This will be the next thing. This will be the next thing that will damage that perception of New Zealand as a country that is free of corruption and that has integrity and probity in the way that we conduct Government and public affairs.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: So back to the legislation.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The second reason that the Labour Party opposes this legislation is that it represents the dismantling by John Key, as the Prime Minister, and Paula Bennett as the Minister for Social Housing of the social system of support that has given New Zealanders, young New Zealanders, a decent start in life and a roof over their heads, no matter how struggling mum and dad might be. It is a quintessential part of the Kiwi Dream that no matter who you are, no matter what side of town you come from, and no matter where you go to school or what mum and dad do for a living, you get a decent start in life. For decades, going back to the first Labour Government and, in fact, going back to the first public housing under Prime Minister Dick Seddon, public housing has been the way that we ensure that every kid in this country gets a decent start in life.

It is not perfect—no one will stand in this House and argue that it is—but it was good enough in the 1960s for John Key and his mother to get the support of the taxpayer. He got a decent start in life, and one of the ways that happened was that the taxpayer supported him through giving him and his mother a State house. But apparently now, under National Government rule in the 21st century, State house tenants, according to the Hon Paula Bennett, are bludgers and they game the system. They are fair game for that Minister to vilify them and demonise them at every opportunity she gets. Well, we do not stand for that. We stand for the principle that every New Zealander gets a fair go, and it is the job of Government to collectively do the things that we do together better rather than just allowing the market to reign.

What we object to about this legislation is that it is enabling the dismantling of a critical element of social support in this country, and Bill English, who is the architect of that policy—Paula Bennett is just the mouthpiece. She is actually just a not very effective human face of this policy. Bill English is the architect, and he wants this to be his legacy—this policy to dismantle social housing—because he does not see that there is any need for the Government to either own housing or provide decent social housing for our most vulnerable citizens. He wants the private sector to do it. Only this week, he was talking up the idea that international funds, the big private equity funds—companies like the retirement village companies, and he used Ryman Healthcare and Summerset as his examples—should get into running State housing and make a profit from it. He thinks they could make a really good profit from it. My question for the people of New Zealand is: how can big private companies make a buck off the back of the poorest 5 percent of the New Zealand community? The only way that they can do that is that the National Government is willing to pour unlimited quantities of taxpayer subsidies into their pockets. That is the only way it can work, and that is exactly what Bill English has in mind.

This policy that the National Government has of privatising billions of dollars of land and housing that has been built up and paid for by generations of taxpayers and State house tenants is the most sordid element of the National Government’s housing crisis, which is one of the things that has emerged under this Government that, when people look back on John Key’s time in office, will come to be seen as one of the hallmarks. It is the Government’s failure to do anything about an out-of-control housing bubble in Auckland that has driven house prices up by 25 percent last year. The average house price is now $930,000. That incredible price pressure on housing in Auckland has driven up rents. The average rent went up by $2,000 in Auckland last year. How can low-income working families find another $2,000? It is also the reason why we have seen a huge surge in families with children living in campgrounds, kids living their lives in cars and garages—this is life under the National Government in the 21st century. This is what it means.

The Government’s total refusal to do anything meaningful to rein in that housing crisis sits alongside its dismantling of State housing in this country as an act of criminal negligence. Housing is one of the most fundamental human needs. If there is one thing that the Government should do, it is to make damned sure that people have access to secure, decent, and affordable housing. But this Government has been negligent in its omissions and also negligent in its policies, some of which have actually made the housing crisis worse. We have seen in recent days in the media, on TV, radio, and newspapers the heart-rending examples of families who are homeless and living in overcrowded and substandard conditions.

This Government is very good at rolling out press releases and photo stunts and meaningless, cosmetic policies, but it will not do the obvious thing—it will not build more houses. It is the simple thing. We have a housing shortage, but this Government refuses to build more houses. Instead, what does it do? It embarks on a massive privatisation programme, selling the inadequate number of houses that it already owns instead of building new ones.

This policy is the wrong policy at the wrong time. It will make matters worse for this country’s poor and vulnerable families, and we oppose it.

It is a great privilege to stand and support the third readings of legislation arising from the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill, and particularly to follow the abject and ideological nonsense that we have heard from Phil Twyford over the last 10 minutes.

There are 62,000—62,000—income-related rent subsidies. That is 62,000 commitments that this Government gives to those who are the most vulnerable, and we have made a commitment to lift it to 65,000 over the next 2 years. That is a commitment to those who are the most vulnerable. The question that this legislation debates and enables is not: “Who owns the roof?”; it is that the subsidy is there to enable more people to be able to live under a roof, and we are moving from 62,000 to 65,000—

💬 Phil Twyford: Yeah, you want PPP companies, overseas companies, making a buck off State house tenants.

Mr Twyford is again on the wrong side of this. I agree that this will be, and is, a defining line between this side of the House and your side of the House over there, Mr Twyford. What this legislation enables, and what this legislation speaks to, is an innovative approach around delivering social services.

Are you caught in a paradigm that says “Only the State can own a house; only the State can provide it.”, when we have community housing providers that are already in existence? In Tauranga, where I come from, they are successful. They are providing care, and they are making a difference today, right now, in the community of Tauranga for people who need houses. But, oh no. For the Labour Party, if it is not Housing New Zealand, it is not good enough. Well, Mr Twyford, you go to Tauranga and you talk to those people. You talk to those people and say: “I’m sorry, but your innovation, your approach to the future, we don’t believe in.” Well, on this side we do. We back them, and this legislation enables it.

That is why I am so proud to be able to stand here and support an innovation and an approach that will deliver social housing. It will deliver it in partnership, Mr Twyford. Partnership—have you ever heard of that word? Partnership with people who care. Partnership with people who understand the real needs of people and can relate to and wrap around a whole lot of services that are going to make a whole lot of difference. I actually think that this is going to be a defining policy that we will look back on in time and say it has enabled huge change and huge, better, improved outcomes for the people of New Zealand.

I am very, very comfortable in supporting this. I have taken this policy to the people of Tauranga. I will continue to do it because I believe in it, it is good thinking, and it will result in better outcomes for my community. Thank you very much.

That National Party MP, Todd Muller, just asked whether Labour is caught in a paradigm where only the State can own homes. Labour believes that the Government has a major role to play with regard to housing and that we should not be hocking off $20 billion worth of assets that have been built up since that very first State house was built in 1937 at 12 Fife Lane in Miramar. This is not just about Labour; this is about generations of New Zealanders who felt that this was the right place for their Government to invest their money.

This legislation is further evidence that the National Government has lost its way. Its members are arrogant, they are out of touch, and they are ignoring the big issues facing everyday New Zealanders: jobs, wages, and, of course, relevant to this legislation, the housing crisis. It is a Government of broken promises. Under the National Government the Kiwi Dream is slipping away.

We have an economy stacked in favour of a privileged few while everyday Kiwis find it harder to get ahead. Our health care system is stretched to breaking point, with services slashed to the tune of $1.7 billion over 6 years, denying Kiwis the care they need. We have got an education system drowning our young people in debt. We have got rates of child poverty that are a national disgrace, with too many kids going without food, living in cold, damp houses, and relying on charity for basics like a raincoat or a decent pair of shoes. Last, but not least, we have got a housing market that has become a plaything for speculators, locking a generation out of the dream of homeownership.

This legislation is only supporting that to happen. It is supporting that lockout of New Zealanders from that Kiwi Dream, not only to own their own home but to get into a home, and we know there are so many families who are currently not even in a home—living in garages, living in cars, and couch surfing because they do not even have access to a house.

I, like many other people in this Parliament, have talked about the fact that my family, like many New Zealand families, started off in a State house. That was the stepping stone to being able to then go on to buy a home. That was the stepping stone for my parents. That was the stepping stone for the parents of many people in this House, including the National Party leader, the New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key.

The point of difference is that this side of the House never pulls the ladder up. We do not pull the ladder up on other New Zealanders who need the same opportunity, unlike members on that side of the House—and we have seen it done so many times. Time and time again they use their background, they use the challenges that their families were faced with, as a platform for trying to appeal to New Zealanders, and then they turn round and they remove that very same opportunity from the New Zealanders who require the same opportunities.

This legislation is an absolute disgrace and one that sums up the Government’s blind obsession with selling off State housing with absolutely no foresight. Government members act like they are the economic gurus of this country, like National is the only political party that knows how to manage the finances of this country, yet it goes ahead and makes the decision to sell the biggest asset that we own as a country—the $20 billion asset that we own as a country. It made the decision that that is worth hocking off.

But of course what we have to keep in mind is that privatisation is just business as usual for the Nats, regardless of the consequences, regardless of the fact that they are seeing every day—and I am sure they are, across the country—increasing levels of homelessness. They are seeing a number of New Zealanders coming through their offices—I am sure they are, like we are—who are getting sick because of the damp, mould, and unhealthy conditions of their homes.

They know that there is a shortage of housing. We all see there is a shortage of housing. Not only do we have a massive queue of people on that social housing register but we have thousands of New Zealanders who cannot even get on that social housing register because there is a shortage of housing. Those Government members try to say that selling off these houses is their way of addressing the housing crisis. It does not make sense. They are not increasing the stock of housing available; they are shifting the stock. They are shifting what belongs to New Zealanders and passing it into private hands. We will not support that on this side of the House.

I personally—and I know a lot of other people in this House feel the same way—am absolutely shocked that the Māori Party has made the decision to support this legislation. I do not know whether its members have been asleep during this whole process. I do not know whether they have seen the way in which the housing crisis has been affecting their community, but it is shocking that the Māori Party has made the decision to support this legislation. The National Government is selling out with regard to this legislation, and every political party in this House, including the Māori Party, has sold out on New Zealanders as well. What is the point of the so-called benefit of being at the table if it does absolutely nothing to stand up to the Government when it matters? This is an issue that the Māori Party should have stood up against the Government on. This is an issue that its members should have stood up for, for their people, but they did not. They have supported this legislation. That is on record now, and it will not be forgotten.

This legislation gives Ministers English and Bennett extraordinary and unprecedented powers to take direct personal control of selling State houses, exempting Ministers from normal legal requirements, and leaving the sale process wide open for corruption. Actually, I heard my colleague Stuart Nash last night in the House speaking about the fact that our brand as a country—which is so far removed from corruption because of the fact that people perceive us as not being corrupt—is worth around $20 billion. Well, is it not a coincidence that that brand being worth $20 billion is the same amount of money that our State housing stock is worth, because I tell this House that that side of the House’s selling out our $20 billion - State housing asset is basically selling out our brand. Those members are selling out New Zealanders, they are selling out the country, and they are selling out our brand.

The National Government wants the power to do dirty deals—flogging off billions of dollars’ worth of land and housing—and it does not want to be bothered with pesky public servants or the rule of law. National members are having secret meetings—and we know this—with merchant bankers, with public-private partnership investors, and with property developers who want to get their hands on these assets, and they refuse to release the names of these organisations. There is no transparency with what this Government is doing.

The Government is not accountable for the decision that it is making, and, actually, the legislation reinforces the fact that there is no accountability because of the fact that, despite the fact that the Ministers—so, Paula Bennett and Bill English—are going to have all decision-making power in respect of these transactions, none of the accountability or liability will fall on them if anything goes wrong in the transaction. All of the accountability and liability will fall with Housing New Zealand, despite the fact that Housing New Zealand has just had a National Government take all power for decision making off it.

How can that be right? How can that be fair? Anyone looking at that legislation when we were going through the Committee stage could see that. This is wrong. This is incredibly wrong and the National Government members should be ashamed of themselves. This legislation is the latest move by a Government desperate to offload State houses and keep its troubled policy afloat.

The National Government’s State house sell-off is deeply unpopular, and, as I said before, generations of New Zealanders believed in this investment. They believed that having their taxpayer money go towards State housing was the right thing to do. In the latest poll, 75 percent of New Zealanders and 60 percent of National voters opposed the Government’s plan to sell off State houses to overseas companies like Gold Coast - based Horizon.

In light of the housing crisis, we should be trying to solidify the availability of the number of homes available to low-income persons, not take them away. We on this side of the House have been accused of being ideological, but I will say we are not ideological. We are responsible, actually—we are responsible on behalf of New Zealanders, and we are responsible with regard to the asset that has been built up by New Zealanders. There is only one side of this House that has been ideological in this debate in respect of this legislation, and that is the National Government. It does not believe that the State should have any role in housing, and it has been so quick to make the decision to hock that housing off.

We will not be supporting this legislation in the House. I want to make it clear, as well, that the National Government knows that this is a deeply unpopular policy with the New Zealand public.

I think, over the last 3 days, as we have been through the second reading and the Committee stage and are now into the final reading, that this subject has been well debated. As I have been listening through the debates that we have had, I am little bit disappointed that the Opposition parties just want to talk about the way things have always been. They are not interested in being innovative. They are not interested in actually providing a better service for people. They just want to do what we have always done and hope that it somehow does the right thing.

Government MPs have had a number of accusations levelled at them over the last few days. The first one—and we have just heard it again from Ms Sepuloni—is that we are being ideological. Well, actually, the ideology has come from the other side of the room. There has been an accusation that we say the Government has no role to play in social housing. No one has said that the Government should not have a role in social housing. In fact, with what we hear from the other side, you would think that the Government members would be the only people who should be involved in social housing.

There is some simple maths that could be done, and if the Opposition members are prepared to engage in that, I will just simplify it for them a little bit. At the moment there is a certain number of social houses in New Zealand. If the Government was to sell some of those houses to other people who use them for social housing, the amount of housing stock that we would have for the use of people who need it would remain exactly the same. If, however, the Government then uses the capital that it has received from the sale of some of those houses to buy some more and improve its housing stock, guess what—guess what? New Zealand ends up with more social housing.

The policy of this Government is to increase the number from 62,000 to 65,000. We think that we can have better wraparound services. This Government is committed to good practice. Good practice does not put ideology or sticking to old ways at the forefront.

This puts the people who need social housing the most at the centre of what we are proposing. This is good legislation. It will make social housing in New Zealand more flexible and more responsible so that it will better serve the needs of those people in New Zealand who need it.

Tēnā koutou katoa, Mr Assistant Speaker and the House. I stand to take the third reading speech for the Green Party today for this legislation arising from the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill, which is most definitely legislation to privatise State housing. It is legislation that is shamefully exploiting the current housing crisis to do so, under a guise and under an excuse of the provision of social housing. This legislation is an absolute travesty of good governance, and I am proud, as the spokesperson for social housing in the Green Party, to strongly oppose this legislation. We have already seen—as many members have pointed out—exactly how this Government treats our lower-income people, and we have already seen how this Government favours the upper 1 percent. We do know, and we do have good cause to understand, that this legislation will again favour public and private companies and private developers.

I want to raise one of the things that one of the previous Government members talked about, which was partnership. Partnership with whom? This legislation will strengthen partnership with offshore corporations and with private corporations. Where is the partnership with communities? Where is the real partnership with the people of New Zealand? For example, in Glen Innes, the lower-income people have been displaced from their communities, under this Government, to free up land—nice land, next to water—that now has houses costing upwards of $600,000, with most being much more expensive. That is what has happened to Glen Innes, and those people absolutely do not feel that this Government has worked in partnership with them at all. I also want to acknowledge many of the elderly and sick from the Glen Innes community, who have been at the forefront—who have been at the forefront—of their community’s campaign to have a voice, and their community’s voice says they have not been part of any partnership process under this Government. So why do we need any other reason to understand that this legislation is absolutely a flog-off of State housing in favour of private ownership and in favour of the upper 1 percent? This is not at all a solution to the current housing crisis, and because the Green Party proudly upholds our core values, including social responsibility and appropriate decision-making, it makes me even more proud to say that we strongly oppose this legislation, which goes directly against those founding kaupapa of the Green Party.

I do want to turn, also, as the spokesperson for Māori affairs, to concentrate in terms of the impact on Māori. Māori have never collectively benefited from privatisation of State assets. We operate—traditionally and proudly, and to this day—as a collective, and Māori have never collectively benefited from privatisation of public and State assets.

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: Kia ora.

Yes, I will say it again. So I too ask why the Māori Party is supporting this unprecedented transfer of public ownership assets into private ownership. I would have liked to see those members take a call. I do understand that some of their excuses for supporting this legislation include the very tiny possibility that some State housing land and assets may be taken by iwi. That is the tiniest possibility. That is not enough of a justification to support this legislation in terms of the trade-off of giving so much unprecedented power to Ministers for privatisation.

In my role as Māori affairs spokesperson, I will say that that is not enough—not enough by far—justification for the Māori Party to support this legislation, because we know that privatisation has never collectively benefited Māori. We also know that the houses are in such a terrible state that iwi might not want them, but they are not getting them returned to them for free. They will have to buy them, and they do not have first right of refusal to buy them under this legislation. Also, they will be up against competing, offshore, larger megacorporations that have resources beyond what we can imagine. So I highlight that there is such minimal justification for anybody who thinks they are supporting Māori aspirations to be supporting this legislation. The trade-off is far too huge for Māori people collectively, and collectively Māori have always traditionally been held strong because of the way we operate together. So I want to be very clear and I ask whether that is what the Māori think this legislation will enable iwi to do. Have those members actually read this legislation?

I did want to come here and make those very clear statements on behalf of the Green Party. We absolutely oppose this unprecedented, extraordinary transfer of power to two Ministers to be able to do what they wish with our public legacy, with our public State homes. That absolutely—as I mentioned yesterday—does open this Government up to allegations of corruption. So not only are we flogging off a legacy—a proud, generations’ worth, foundation legacy—of ensuring that families have a good, safe home to live in but we are also flogging off a legacy of good governance. We are also flogging off a legacy of New Zealand doing the right thing for our people. So, absolutely, we are opposed to this legislation. Then I did want to highlight again and be very clear, as the spokesperson for Māori affairs in the Green Party, that I say that this legislation absolutely does not support collective Māori aspirations. So I ask the Māori Party why it is supporting this legislation. Thank you.

If there was ever legislation that truly defined the character of this Government, it would be this legislation. Despite the protestations from the members on the other side, it is National Party ideology to the core. It is that Government’s intention to privatise everything it can get its hands on, and now State houses and land held for those purposes are up for sale as soon as possible to anyone it can find who will buy it.

If there was ever legislation that evidenced the failure of this National Government’s housing policy and programme, it is this legislation. It demonstrates a failure to regulate the housing market and to moderate the housing market, producing a deep and now intractable housing crisis—especially in Auckland—and that, of course, places massive pressure on social housing facilities. Yet the Government’s priority, strangely, is to sell off State houses, instead of investing in more State houses and upgrading them.

This Government says it wants to involve the private sector, who is anyone who will cooperate to do the Government’s job for it, and it will transfer housing assets to them, but all the legislation is actually doing, in fact, is changing the name of the owner of those assets. That is all it does. It does not actually increase the housing stock. It does not actually improve the quality of that housing stock. It makes no contribution whatsoever to stopping or reversing the housing crisis that we have here in New Zealand today.

The legislation empowers the Minister to direct the sale and transfer of Housing New Zealand Corporation homes for stated housing objectives, but the real objective—the real objective—is just privatisation, which is business as usual for the National Government. The means for that is a direct executive power for the Minister—in fact, far too much direct executive power—sidelining and usurping the role of Housing New Zealand and creating far too much scope for what could amount to corruption, with no checks and balances and no accountability. This Parliament needs to be vigilant about just that kind of legislation because, clearly, this Government will not be. There are at least 2,000 houses to be fast-track sold by this method—potentially billions of dollars—so we do need to be careful about where the money goes, who gets those proceeds, and what they are going to be used for.

The Housing Amendment Bill says that the proceeds “must be paid to a Crown bank account”—a Crown bank account—and that is actually all it says about that, and I have heard nothing from the other side about this, either. There is no information about what the Government’s mandate for that money will be, and no information about what it is going to do with that money or how it could be used. Nick Smith made an attempt in his speech yesterday to explain it. He said that Housing New Zealand has a house-building programme for which the money could be used. But that is not what this legislation says. We actually have no idea from the legislation or from what members opposite have said about what this money is going to be used for at all.

We do know that if Housing New Zealand was the recipient—and if it was, by the way, to be the recipient, why is that not in the legislation specifically? But if that was to be the case, then how do we know that it will still be used for new social housing, or any social housing purpose whatsoever? Even if Housing New Zealand did get the money—and we are talking potentially about billions of dollars here—will that money, or even part of it, actually go back to the Government as a dividend from Housing New Zealand, or even as a special dividend of a very large amount? How do we know that would not take place? There is nothing in this legislation about that. Members opposite have said nothing about that. So what we could find is that these properties will be sold off and the money just goes back into the Government’s funds to be used for other purposes, or just to create an artificial surplus in this year’s Budget. I would not put it past the Government, in fact, to do exactly that. If that happened it would be a disgrace, because Housing New Zealand and the Government should be spending all of that money and more—a lot more—on the provision of new and better State-owned social housing in New Zealand. The sector is crying out for just that investment.

So the Government should be spending much more—much more than even the sale proceeds from these properties—on housing in New Zealand, and yet some members opposite have pretended that they are doing a great job. Well, I am sorry; they are not doing any job at all, nor can they expect the private sector to do so, because it simply does not have the resources or the capacity to do it in this country, when you look at the size of the crisis that we have now. We can be sure that this Government’s real intention is simply to sell as many State assets, including State houses, as possible. The result will be to deepen the housing crisis, because no new State houses will be built as a result of this legislation.

Lastly, I want to refer to the parts of the legislation that refer to the objectives, because that is the crux of this legislation—those objectives. It simply says, in new section 50E(1) in Part 5A, inserted by the Housing Corporation (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (No 2): “The Minister may enter into a contract, … if the Minister considers that the entry into the contract is for the purpose of any 1 or more of the social housing reform objectives:”. And then in the following subsection: “(2) A transfer contract may be on any terms and conditions (including as to consideration) that the Minister may agree with the transferee.”

These are very, very wide powers. The Minister can sell to anybody, on any terms, and, in reality, for any reason whatsoever. All the Minister has to do is relate it to the specified social housing reform objectives. They are pretty wishy-washy. They are pretty general. They refer to, for example, social housing being of the right size and configuration, social housing tenants being helped to independence, and the fact that there is more diverse ownership or provision of social housing. How could any of those objectives justify the sell-off of State houses or land held for those purposes? Another objective says that there is to be more innovation and more responsiveness to housing tenants and communities. Another one refers to the supply of affordable housing. It does not even say “social housing”, just “affordable housing”, and yet this legislation is supposed to be about social housing.

What we will see is properties like the Redcliffs School, which the Government wants to sell, being gazetted as State housing land and then being gazetted under this legislation as being for sale—referred to, in terms of the objectives, as affordable housing—and then sold off to anyone, as the Government thinks fit because nobody really knows what affordable housing is.

I say this, finally. This is just privatisation. You can see it from the objectives. You can see it from the Government’s record. And it is wrong. This Government should be investing more, not selling.

I am taking a short call to support the legislation arising out of the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill at its third reading. Just like the previous contributor, what I have seen is that the members from the Opposition are accusing this Government of selling State houses. What they have done is they have just picked one component of this legislation, the component that suits their politics.

But New Zealanders can see through that. New Zealanders have already worked that out. They are not going to be drawn into their argument about State house ownership. This is going to backfire on them—it is definitely going to backfire on them. This legislation is about housing people in a timely manner.

I have come across many cases where people are really desperate to get into social housing. Actually, very quickly I would like to describe a case. This couple—a wife and husband team—are both in advancing years. The husband is suffering from Huntington’s disease. The disease has advanced to the stage where the symptoms are quite visible. He is not able to look after himself properly; his communication is already affected. There is a wide spectrum of signs and symptoms already visible. The wife works full-time. They are renting a house. The wife knows that she will not be able to continue in her job because she will be required at home to look after her husband full-time. This wife and husband team desperately need to get into a social house. They do not care whether their social house is owned by Housing New Zealand or by a community housing provider. All they need is a proper house, a proper social house.

There are people with ongoing needs, and we should be able to support them. By providing a proper house in a timely manner we are providing them with the opportunity to live with dignity. We all agree that we need more social housing. We need quality houses. We need houses of the right configuration, and we need houses in the right places. That is why this legislation is important. I support this legislation, and commend it to the House. Thank you.

The next call is a split call. Metiria Turei—5 minutes.

The suburbs of this country were built by the State at a time when housing in New Zealand was at an all-time low—this was in the 1930s—and when people were living in slums. The Government of the time—the first Labour Government, if I remember rightly—committed to ensuring that all New Zealanders, every New Zealand family, would have access to a decent home because having a decent home is critical to a family being able to stay well and be well, to them having stable work, and to having a well-functioning, orderly society where we know that everybody is doing well. That is what housing provides—that security and stability for everyone.

Over the last 10 years in particular, we have seen a radical revision and erosion of that principle—an erosion of the principle that housing is a right and that the Government has an explicit and very important role in helping to provide stable, secure housing for New Zealanders. What we have seen is that the Government has allowed the private market to take control and, as a result of the private market having total control over housing provision, we have seen not only increasing amounts of homelessness but also a massive increase in the cost of housing. This is to the point where there are thousands of older people who have children who are in their early 20s—a bit like my situation, actually. I will put myself in this category. I do have a child in her early 20s who is looking to have a family and to settle down, who has absolutely no opportunity—her or her partner—to buy a decent home in which they can start their life. No opportunity at all, because they have been locked out of housing.

These are the families. They are perfectly ordinary families, like yours and mine. They are not just those at the very bottom but perfectly ordinary, middle-class families who are locked out of housing because this Government has not ensured that the housing supply has continued at a rate that means that everybody has the same opportunity for security and stability in housing that we and our parents had. Do not forget that our parents built the security of their lives—often through Māori Affairs home loans; through the cheap borrowing that was possible—through the State housing system, which was designed to provide for the middle and working class, just as it was for those at the very bottom.

We have lost the value of housing as a human right, as critical infrastructure, and as the right of our children to a secure life. This legislation erodes that even more by making two Ministers of the Crown the private landlords, effectively, for 60,000 tenants in this country. There are 60,000 families now renting, essentially, from two Ministers. This legislation allows the Ministers to sell those homes, those State houses built by our parents and grandparents for our children, to anyone they choose—anyone at all. There is no obligation that those State houses stay for State housing purposes, for the people who need it most—no obligation. These Ministers can sell to any corporate entity anywhere in the world—to any major international corporation—which may not have any involvement in New Zealand, may not understand the New Zealand community, and has no commitment to making sure that housing remains for the security of our families for the time to come. This is what this legislation does. It is the absolute end of the process of the erosion of housing for New Zealanders.

We hear a lot of rhetoric, so let us be really clear here: middle-class working New Zealanders have been locked out of the housing market by this Government. Those at the very bottom end, who need help the most, have no security in their homes now, and we will see the privatisation—the selling off—of one of the major assets that our grandparents and parents built for us and for our children. This legislation should not proceed. Thank you.

I call Marama Fox—5 minutes.

Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. Nei taku hōhā te whakarongo nei ki ngā tangata e whakaparahako i te ingoa o Te Pāti Māori i runga i tō rātou whakahē i tō mātou tautoko i te Kāwanatanga nei. He aha te take e pēnei ai? Nei taku kōrero atu ki a koutou.

[Greetings, Mr Assistant Speaker. Here is my exasperation after listening to people vilifying the name of the Māori Party because they oppose our support for this Government. Why are they like this? Here is what I have got to say to you.]

I come with some frustration at those who want to deride the name of the Māori Party because we dare to have an independent voice that allows us (1) to vote against the Government but also (2) to vote with it, when we feel that we must. And this is the reason why everyone is asking “Why is the Māori Party voting with the Government over this?”—I am here to tell you. This is not a vote for the wholesale sell-off of the State housing stock; for us this is a vote of rangatiratanga because we have been asked by iwi around this country to support this legislation to ensure that they can get into the social housing market. And why? Because Housing New Zealand has done an appalling job of looking after our people and they believe that they can do it better. Actually, we believe they can as well. This is about ensuring that they have the right to treat their tenants in the way that they feel is respectable and where they can be nurtured in a state of manaakitanga.

People say: “Well, who are you talking about, Marama?”. Well, here is what I am talking about: Kahungunu Executive Ki Te Wairoa Charitable Trust, Mangatawa Papamoa Blocks Inc., Te Rūnanganui o Ngāti Porou Trustee Ltd, Ngā Pōtiki-a-Tamapahore Trust, Ngā Rau Tatangi, Te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga Trust, Whai Maia Charitable Trust, and Waiohiki Community Charitable Trust. These Māori organisations have come to us and asked us to support this legislation so that they can better cater for their people.

I will give you an example of why that is so. I have been called up and down this country by tenants of Housing New Zealand to intervene on their behalf when they have been treated less than respectfully. I have been called into other people’s electorates because they cannot get an MP on the end of the phone who will respond to them. So when I travel to Auckland to speak with the family of Tame Nēpia, who is a paraplegic who has been evicted from his home and has been given no alternative place to go to, I go to advocate on his behalf. I get him into a new house, and it does not have a secondary ramp on the fire exit for him. So we ask: “Can that be fixed, please?”, and the answer is “No. Actually, we’ll give you a fire extinguisher and fire blanket.”, and that needs to be OK for this man in his wheelchair. That is not OK, and that is absolutely the reason that we support the devolution of 10 percent of State houses.

So let us get this clear: this is not a wholesale sell-off of all State housing. We have agreed, actually, before we start jumping up and down over here, to sell only a small percentage of these houses so that we can have options for our people, because we do not want our people to be stuck under the thumb of the Government for the rest of their lives. If they can have a provider that understands their complex needs, that might put a Whānau Ora navigator alongside them to assist them out of that situation into homeownership, then that is exactly what we want. That is what the Māori Party has done.

So let me tell you the things that we have advocated for. We have advocated for the warrant of fitness trial on housing. Five percent of the housing stock—which, extrapolated out across the whole of the Housing New Zealand stock, is about 60,000-odd homes—failed miserably the trial Housing Warrant of Fitness test. It is going to cost about $34 million for this Government to ensure that those urgent repairs are carried out on those homes. I have had calls from people who tell me that their home is infested with rats. They cannot get Housing New Zealand to come and respond to them. I get calls from people who tell me that Housing New Zealand has just painted straight over the black mould, and that their child has been hospitalised.

I have no problem at all—no problem at all—in supporting this legislation, which provides other people such as these iwi organisations the opportunity to show that, actually, we can do it better than that.

We heard one of the previous speakers saying that this legislation defines what the National Party and the National Government stand for, and I totally agree. It does. It is right in the name of the original bill—“Reform”. It is about social housing reform, and the speaker whom I have just followed, Marama Fox, also said it is about choice. I totally agree that it is about choice. But it is making change.

When you reform you make change, and there are some people, particularly the more conservative, who do not like change. It is difficult for them to accept. I understand that, and although I have empathy with that view, we cannot stay where we are, doing the same old things all the time, or we will get the same results.

We have heard lots of speakers say today that Housing New Zealand houses are not up to scratch. Well, that is right—in some cases, they are not. That is what this is about: dealing with it. This is about getting out there and getting other choices, and what will come with other choices will be innovation. What this legislation is about is putting what is important at the centre, and what is that? The people who need social housing. It is not about the people who own the houses; it is about the people who need the houses. On that note, it is with great pleasure that I commend this legislation to the House. Thank you.

The next call is a split call. Meka Whaitiri—5 minutes.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa. I rise to go on record and say this is a sad day for this country when we are passing this legislation. This National Government has failed the people of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. It has failed to build affordable homes. It has failed to keep social housing supply up with social housing demand, but instead it has brought this legislation to the House, which, effectively, gives two Ministers the authorisation to sell off $20 billion of our State housing estate.

This is a classic unnecessary piece of legislation. It is poorly written and it undermines the role of every public servant who works in the Housing New Zealand Corporation. Last night we debated this legislation for some 5 hours. It was an opportunity to go part by part, clause by clause. I am thankful that the co-leader of the Māori Party, Marama Fox, came up and took a call, but when the detail hits the road, that is the time when I would have wanted to hear from the Māori Party—to hear why it is backing what is a thin veil of privatisation of social housing.

Let us call it what it is: it is a sell-off. It is a sell-off of our heritage that my parents and my grandparents have fought for and worked for and contributed to. On that side of the House they are saying: “Look, you Opposition people, we are building ’em. We’re going to build them.” Well, why have you not built them? Why have you not built them already? You have been in power for 8 years.

I want to make it really clear that Labour is going to work with iwi, hapū, and whānau that want to be in the social housing game. We are. I also know that when that member mentions some housing, providing social housing is a very complex undertaking, and I want to make really clear that any iwi, whānau, and hapū are well supported in providing the services that they believe that they want to get involved in. The State has a role in supporting them.

In my electorate I have several of the groups that she mentioned, and I know every single one of them. I also know the downside of providing social housing for some of my iwi in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, and it is the fact that many of their tenants do not pay the rent. So they are in tension around whether they kick them out because they are actually whānau. This just goes to the heart of the complexity of managing social housing, but Labour is committed to doing that with iwi. But for us to hear in this House that the Māori Party is supporting the absolute sell-off of our $20 billion social housing estate, that is a crime—that is a crime.

💬 Jono Naylor: That’s not what she said.

No, and I am saying it. I am standing up and I am voicing it on behalf of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, which has a social housing shortage. I have over 140 people in Hastings waiting. I have 150 in Gisborne waiting. These people are real and I deal with them on a daily basis.

I want to express that I am rather excited and heated about this, but I deal with social housing needs almost 90 percent of the time, throughout my electorate. There are not the houses there—there are not the houses there. I implore the Government that the solution it brings to this House is not going to build social housing. We are privatising this—we are privatising it. If the Salvation Army says no go, if Presbyterian Support New Zealand says it is no go, and if some iwi are saying no go, then that to me says we are going to get the private sector to deliver social housing.

That is why I stand. I stand to be counted. This is a sad day in the history of this House. The very estate that many of our forebears have worked and saved for is going to go at the stroke of a pen, and we are left to trust that the private sector is going to deliver social housing. That is why I cannot support this legislation, and that is why this side of the House has got heated, as I can show. This is not legislation we should be backing. Kia ora tātou.

I call Jenny Salesa—5 minutes.

Thank you for this call, Mr Assistant Speaker, on the third reading of the legislation arising from the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill. The Labour Party strongly opposes this legislation for very good reasons. Labour supports the Kiwi Dream. The Kiwi Dream includes growing up in a country where our children have a roof over their heads, a country where all our children can hope to one day own their own home. It is pretty simple really. Our people do not ask for very much: a job to do, somewhere to live, someone to love, and something to hope for. That is the Kiwi Dream, in the words of Norman Kirk. But under this National Government the Kiwi Dream is slipping away. We have an economy that is stacked in favour of the rich and the privileged few, while everyday New Zealanders are finding it harder and harder just to get by each day.

Under this National Government we have an entire generation who have been locked out of the dream of owning their own homes. Around 1937, mainly as a result of the Depression, the Prime Minister at the time—a Labour Prime Minister, Michael Joseph Savage—began to build State houses on a large scale for the very first time in the history of New Zealand. Why? Because he cared—because the people of New Zealand at the time needed to be housed. There was a huge need for housing at that time, and the Government of the day stepped in. It stepped in because it cared enough. If this Government cared enough it could do something about this. If this Government had the political will to address one of the biggest issues of today—housing—it could step in and do something to solve this problem.

Fast forward 80 years to today—2016—and you see that the No. 1 issue of today is still housing. The No. 1 issue that I see is housing. Families who do not have a house are coming to my office in Ōtara, South Auckland, asking for my help with housing. My colleague Meka Whaitiri has just spoken about that fact that 90 percent of the people who come to her office do so because of housing.

Last Friday I spoke with a Māori family with nine children. They are just about to be evicted. They are just about to be made homeless. They came seeking my help. Last Friday, on the same day, I saw another Māori family: a mum with four kids. They have been homeless for 2 years. They have been on the waiting list—on that waiting list, off the waiting list, on the waiting list again, and off the waiting list—and this time they have been on that waiting list for 3 months. Still they are homeless, moving from garage to garage. We have also been helping a baby who is less than 12 months old. This baby has spent half of her life—6 months—in hospital, mainly in the neonatal intensive care unit.

So you see, we collectively as a society still pay. When people are homeless we pay, one way or another. Whether it is the hospital bill of this baby who has been 6 months in a hospital, whether it is for educational facilities when families move from school to school, or whether it is for justice, we still pay. Why do we not just do the decent thing, which is to provide housing?

I hear my colleagues on the other side of the House saying: “Yes, we need more houses.” I heard the Minister Nick Smith yesterday saying that, yes, we need more houses and, yes, we need more quality houses. Well, will this legislation actually end up giving us more State houses? No, of course not. Will it actually give us more good quality houses for the State? No, of course not. Housing will end up in the private sector. What this legislation does is it allows the Minister of Finance, Bill English, and the Minister for Social Housing, Paula Bennett, to have unfettered powers. It enables them to bypass the normal way—bypass the Public Service. This legislation allows them the personal power to conduct any negotiations, strike any deal, sell the State houses to whomever they wish.

I leave the House on this note. The departmental disclosure statement—

I am sorry. The member’s time has expired.

I stand to be the last speaker on this absolutely wonderful legislation. I just want to say—what Marama Fox talked about was opportunities for Māori. I also heard that in Christchurch East. I was asked to go and visit the rūnunga there, Te Rūnanga o ngā Mātā Waka. They saw opportunities for their whanau to be able to participate in social housing in the Christchurch East electorate.

This is great legislation. I have been sitting here listening to some of the twaddle from the Opposition benches and, to be honest, I am really quite surprised about the whole kōrero that comes across from those benches. It has nothing—absolutely nothing—to do with the great work that we have been doing in reforming social housing in this country, because it needed to be done. It needed to be done. Housing New Zealand Corporation, with all the work it was not doing, was something that needed to be addressed, and so we have come in and we are addressing that system. The people within the families who will be accessing social housing in the various cities are getting better homes—homes that are designed so that they can actually have two bedrooms, three bedrooms, or whatever is necessary for their families and the growth of their families.

Of course we are going to need more houses. This is a country where the population is growing. Have we not stood here in this Chamber many times and heard about how many people are actually coming into New Zealand? With the new people who are coming in from Syria—the people whom we are taking in—they are going to need housing as well. Of course we are going to need housing. It is going to be one of those things that is going to be ongoing for this country, and this National-led Government is addressing every area that it can in the Budget, within the constraints of our economic growth.

This is great legislation—this is great legislation. It is led by a great Minister, Minister Paula Bennett, and also Minister Nick Smith as well, who is in there behind it. I am proud to stand here and commend this legislation to the House. Thank you.