Estimates Debate — Social Development and Housing Sector (continued)

Members, when we last interrupted the Estimates debate we were debating the votes in the Social Development and Housing Sector—B.5, Volume 10—and the question that Vote Building and Housing and Vote Social Development stand part of the schedules. Kris Faafoi had the call, and he has got 34 seconds remaining.

I have got only 30 seconds, so I am going to get straight to the action. A lot has happened since we were last here in this debate. During the adjournment the Government signed us up to “NATO” principles—not the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but “NATO” in terms of housing—the “no action, talk only” principles of this Government. We have got a “NATO” Government when it comes to housing.

On this side of the equation, though, we announced some policy during the adjournment that will make sure there is building of more affordable homes, cracking down on speculators, and support for those in need. I talked about the Porirua experience when I was last speaking in the Committee, and I think that is a good thing.

I want to talk about the issue of Steven Joyce’s $92 million tweet. It has gone down in history as probably the most expensive tweet that has ever been made. It has pioneered a whole new way of delivering the Budget for the Government, and I am sure the Minister of Finance would agree it is a much more efficient way of announcing Government finance policy than we have seen from this Government at all in the last 8 years.

It was an extraordinary backflip by the Government after 8 years of treating Housing New Zealand as some kind of cash cow. It has made a net withdrawal from our public housing organisation of more than $560 million, that is when you net out the capital contributions against the dividends—more than half a billion dollars in net taken out of our State housing organisation in the middle of a housing crisis. Day after day Bill English has stood up in this House and said “Well, the dividend’s very important because it’s how we impose, kind of, financial discipline on Housing New Zealand.”, but that discipline went out the window. In a fit of pique on a Sunday afternoon Steven Joyce decided to tweet that the Government would no longer be extracting dividends from Housing New Zealand. That was a $92 million announcement made by Steven Joyce in a tweet, and that speaks volumes about this Government’s housing policy. It is completely at sea. It is making it up as it goes along. You can see the panic in those members’ eyes.

Paula Bennett announces a policy on the eve of the Budget to offer people $5,000 to leave town, and Bill English does not even know about it; nor does the Prime Minister. It is the day before the Budget. This is what is going on with the Government’s housing policy. A few days later, Paula Bennett announces that Government officials have gone out with the Salvation Army to knock on the car doors of homeless people at Bruce Pulman Park in South Auckland—the so-called flying squads, which never existed. They have gone down in history with the unicorns and all manner of other mythical creatures—the Government’s homelessness flying squads. But this is what is happening with the housing crisis and this Government’s panicked response to it. It is desperate. It is making it up as it goes along. It is a comedy of errors. It would be funny if the consequences of this Government’s negligence were not so tragic in the effects that they are having on the people of this country.

I want to say something about what I thought was one of the most shocking stories that the media covered over the last 4 weeks: the way that the Government has been paying thousands of dollars a week to one of the worst slum landlords in South Auckland and referring desperate families to this slum landlord. The Government is shelling out in bond and advanced rent and weekly rent to this woman called Debbie Iskandar, who had at least 10 properties in the South Auckland suburb of Manurewa. She was putting people into unconsented garages. There were entire families living in unconsented garages. There were entire families crammed into single rooms in shared houses, and for that privilege people were paying up to $500 a week in rent. The Government was condoning this and actually referring these desperate people to go and live in unconsented garages and single rooms with no toilet facilities, no bathroom facilities, no kitchen facilities.

This illustrates how bad the housing crisis has got and how absolutely morally and politically bankrupt this Government’s response to the housing crisis is—that it is referring people to the worst slum landlords. It is a total abdication of the Government’s responsibility to treat people with decency and to put a decent roof over people’s heads. It shows the piecemeal tinkering that epitomises this Government’s housing policy.

A few weeks ago Paula Bennett announced $41 million over 4 years for emergency housing. Actually, you know, we did not criticise her for that. Good on her for making some contribution. But she was forced to come to this House within a few days and acknowledge that that financial commitment would not provide a single new bed; it would only fund the existing houses.

This Government has claimed that it has a comprehensive housing policy, but, quite clearly, the people of New Zealand have not bought into it. The recent polls that have been published only last night or yesterday show that there has been a significant slump in the support for the National Government, and the reason given—and I agree with it—is that the Government has not adequately dealt with New Zealand’s housing crisis.

If the Government has a comprehensive housing strategy, then most people in this country say that it is a failed—a comprehensively failed—housing strategy. It is a strategy that has, apparently, been aimed at accelerating house prices in Auckland to almost $1 million, and nobody in Auckland—apart from a few speculators—wants to see that. It is a policy that has, apparently, been designed to force skilled workers to leave Auckland, or to stop them moving there, simply because they cannot afford to own a house there. It appears to be a strategy that intends to have people on low incomes living in cars or in tents or under bridges or in anything other than a decent family home. That has been the result of this claimed comprehensive housing strategy. The Prime Minister said today: “A sound bite does not make a plan.” Well, the Government’s plan does not even make a decent sound bite, and that is the truth of it. It is a failed and minimalist strategy, if it is capable of being called a strategy at all.

This Budget actually shows that that is the case because it pays very, very little attention to the housing crisis and, in fact, the Government does not even admit that it is a housing crisis, but a housing crisis it certainly is. And it is particularly cruel when so many poor families are really struggling to find somewhere to live—especially in Auckland but also elsewhere—and large numbers of them have to move continually as massive rent increases force them out of one property after another. So it is a reverse ratcheting sort of an effect, where a person gets a property they can afford, the rents go up, they move downmarket to a worse property to chase lower rents, and this goes on and on and on, and, eventually, they end up living in cars. If that is a strategy, then it is not a strategy that this country needs.

There are clearly a number of significant causes behind this awful outcome and the first is, obviously, the Government’s awful housing management, which has caused house prices to increase to a level where very few people can afford to buy them anymore. It is caused by a Government policy that encourages uncontrolled immigration to the point where it causes New Zealand far more damage than it does good. It is a strategy that sees the selling off of State houses in the absence of an adequate State housing programme. Nobody would mind if State houses were sold and if more and better State houses were put in their place, but that is not the situation that is happening in New Zealand today. In fact, all the Government is trying to do is to cast off its responsibility for State houses to community organisations, and that is clearly not going to work.

When you look at the particular Estimates for the next 4 years you will see little or nothing that will solve the chronic New Zealand housing shortage. A total of $257 million over 4 years averages only $64 million a year, of which $200 million, or an average of $50 million a year—the lion’s share of it—is simply to top up the income-related rent subsidy. So there is really, actually, nothing much new in that. There is also a provision of $41 million for emergency housing over 4 years, but that is only about $10 million a year. That is a drop in the bucket when you consider the sheer magnitude of emergency housing in New Zealand at the present time.

I would like to take this opportunity to talk about Budget 2016 in part of the appropriations debate, because in social development we have made two significant changes that are reflected in this Budget. The first one, of course, is that this Government is committed to making a significant change to the way that we look after children and young people in care. And just to remind the Committee, we spent last year with an expert advisory panel (EAP) really lifting up every stone and having a look at the way the system works as we look after young people and children in care. I set up a group of young people who had actually been in care, some of whom were still in care, to advise that process, and, of course, myriad people throughout the country—practitioners, social workers, health workers, and a wide range of NGOs—were consulted. During that process we found that we have a system that is actually broken; a system that, despite the best efforts of some highly motivated, highly professional staff, is not delivering to the children in our communities who probably need help the most.

What we found was that—they took a particular cohort of young people who were born in the 12 months between June 1990 and 1991 to look at what had happened to them in their lives as they had gone through this State care system. At age 21 almost 90 percent of them were reliant on a benefit—90 percent of those young people were reliant on a benefit. About 25 percent of them ended up on a benefit with a child. Almost 80 percent of them did not have that minimum qualification of National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2, so they did not get a good educational start to give them the opportunities to live good lives. More than 30 percent of them had a youth justice referral by the time they were 18, almost 20 percent had had a custodial sentence, and almost 40 percent had had a community sentence.

These are the most vulnerable children, who, through no fault of their own, have ended up not in families that love, support, and care for them. They have relied on the State then to step in, keep them safe, and make their lives better. What the EAP report showed, and what those statistics show, is that the State failed those children. So this Government is determined to make a difference to that. Governments of different colours have to take responsibility, but this Government has stepped up.

The first thing we did in this Budget was to actually make sure that we were giving financial stability to the existing Child, Youth and Family (CYF). Over the past few years it has had some one-off funding. As we have been reviewing we have had the process around the green paper and the white paper, and there was one-off funding given to CYF whilst that process was happening. That could not continue because, actually, we had more children in care who were staying in care for longer and that costs more. So the first thing that we had to do was stabilise that funding for CYF, and we did that with $145 million going in to stabilise CYF over the next few years. The risk is, of course, while you are redesigning a system that the existing system flounders a little, gaps open up, and children fall through it. We were absolutely determined to make sure that that existing CYF was well supported financially whilst we designed that new system, and so $145 million has gone in to meet those cost pressures and that increased demand, and also the changes that came into force on 1 July this year as a result of the Vulnerable Children Act.

Then, because we are designing a new system and that has costs, and we need to make provision for the design of the system and we want the new operating system up and running from 1 April next year, there is almost $200 million in this Budget to make that happen and to support that new entity. I have to say that I am absolutely indebted to my Cabinet colleagues and caucus colleagues for their huge support for this change, because this Government is determined. I know that there is support right around the Committee for us to get this right. It is absolutely critical for these children and young people that we get this system right. We have had 14 different restructures over the years, but this time, if we all work together, we are determined to make that happen. This Budget set the scene. It is not the endgame—there will be more costs, and I will be back in Budget 2017; I have made that very clear—but this was a good start.

I think the second-most important part of this Budget for 2016 was the way that we have then focused in on supporting more and more New Zealanders into work. In the latest valuation—remember we have an actuarial valuation that is done every year. It is reported publicly and anyone can access it on the ministry website. Some of the Opposition members seem to not be able to find it, or they cannot be bothered digging into it to find out. It is all there, all the assumptions that are made and how it is all worked, so that people can understand what it is that this Government is doing, using the investment approach—that is, we use that information to determine where to best put the priority for our resources, who the group of people are who most need support to get into work, and how we go about doing that.

What we have seen as a result of that is a reduction in that long-term liability, which is not our liability; it is the liability of New Zealanders whose dreams and hopes and lives are crushed by living in endless poverty and relying on a benefit. We know that the best thing for them and their families, not only financially but emotionally and socially, is getting into work. So Budget 2016—we have seen in that a reduction of $12 billion of that liability over 4 years. As a consequence of that we saw the number of people reliant on a benefit fall below 280,000 for the first time since 2008—the global financial crisis.

I see my colleague Nicky Wagner sitting here in the Chamber, and I want to pay tribute to her because she led a project in Christchurch that was focused on helping those people with a disability who we know are reliant on a benefit. They are put on a supported living benefit because they have a disability that means that they are not expected to work, but we know that so many of them want to work. They want to work because they know that it is better for them and it is better for their families. So my colleague Nicky Wagner led that project, which saw 600 people—we set a goal of 300, and we thought that that was ambitious, but it was 600 people—who went into employment as a result of that. That was a result of working with employers and talking to them about how they could support people with a disability into work.

I think that is a glowing example for the rest of New Zealand, and I know that that project is now going out further. We are going to try it in the Bay of Plenty with a different group of employers. It is about showing employers that these are people who can actually be some of their best workers. The research is very clear: they take fewer sick days, they are much more loyal, and they can be much more productive. So it is really important.

We have got $61.2 million in Budget 2016 to extend Youth Service to include 18- and 19-year-olds and $26 million to maintain and increase that intensive case management that we know is so successful in helping people and supporting them into work and then keeping them in work. We are now starting to do quite a lot more work on how we can support them for longer in their jobs to make sure that they have got all the childcare support that is necessary, and that the employers are comfortable to ask for help with people who have a disability or who might have mental health issues before they are disengaged from work. So it is about how we keep people in work through those difficult times, some of those being the first 4 or 5 months of work.

Then we have two very small projects that are very exciting: one working with prisoners getting out of prison, and one working hand in hand with the health sector on addressing the issue of mental health, which is such a growing problem. It is a terrific Budget, I think, for changing the lives of thousands of New Zealanders.

Earlier today during question time I suspected that the general public who observed our question time would have noted the way that Andrew Little questioned the Prime Minister over the housing issue. They would have noticed the stark difference in style and manner towards this particular issue. Andrew was probing and showing that he cares and is taking this issue very seriously. On the other hand, when you looked at the Prime Minister, you would have seen that he did not take this issue seriously. He evaded, as he always does. He does not take this issue seriously. He shows he does not care. In fact, he continues the blame game, and today we heard him blame local government for the failure to erect more houses.

I would say that is a reflection of how he and his Government continue to behave and treat this issue—the crisis that we currently have. I would say it is also a reflection of the arrogance that he continues to display and the fact that he does not care about ordinary working New Zealanders, who are struggling to make ends meet and who are nervous about their future and nervous about how they house their families. We have seen lately how this Government’s arrogance and out-of-touch attitude is reflected by the polls.

My colleague Denis O’Rourke from New Zealand First said that this Government does not have a comprehensive plan. This Government uses those words, a “comprehensive plan” for housing, when in reality nobody in New Zealand believes it. If the Government did have a plan, I suspect that these are the elements of that particular plan: emergency housing grants that cover only 7 days when it takes the Government 155 days to house the homeless—that is one factor—or funding for new emergency housing places, which turn out to be largely existing places; or paying the homeless $5,000 to get out of Auckland; or special housing areas, which have built only 1,000 houses; or cutting building tariffs, which led to prices going up; or the surplus Crown land policy, which promised 500 hectares and delivered only 13.

Those are the elements of what the Government is calling its comprehensive plan, which has amounted to zilch for the general public, who are struggling with housing today. This is one of the reasons why community workers up and down this country are demanding results from this Government, voicing their opposition in the media, and organising and supporting community protests up and down the length of this country. It is because of their desire to impress upon this Government that its lack of action and its use of these sound bites about the comprehensive plan are not reflected at all in the quality—or lack of quality—of the standard of living that the general public are receiving.

Why would people who would not protest normally, protest during the cold winter at Park Up for Homes? Why would they protest in Māngere? Why would they protest in Ōtara? Why would they protest here in the capital, Wellington? Why would they be supported by very high-profile sportspeople like David Tua, who see with their own eyes just how hard things are for many ordinary families, and particularly families with children?

The most damning report issued by Statistics New Zealand—which reflects the lack of interest and the lack of care from this Government—is the report on net worth that we saw prior to the adjournment: net worth for Pākehā families, $144,000; net worth for Asian families, $33,000; net worth for Māori families, $23,000; and net worth for Pasifika families, $12,000. That is reflected in what we see on the streets, where we have 42,000 people who are classified by their own Government department as being in homeless situations. When a family with children is forced to live in a car, those children are not in a position to reach their full potential. A child who is living in a car does not have space to properly rest, does not have space to learn and to do their homework, and is not going to be able to reach their full potential in school. So the point is that this Government has got it wrong.

How dare that Minister, Anne Tolley, stand here and say that the State is going to do right by our children with the reforms to Child, Youth and Family alone? We all know that this is a Government that has tolerated low wages, that perpetuates low benefits, and that keeps families trapped in severe poverty in this country, and that poverty is the greatest risk to our children’s well-being in this country. It is the greatest risk, and we have a Government that keeps those families in poverty and drives more there. That is what the housing crisis is showing us. So when this Minister sits here and says the State needs to take responsibility for the well-being of New Zealand’s children, I wish it would.

The first thing that it could do is to make sure that families have got enough of what they need to live a decent—not flash—life in this country. How dare that Minister stand here and say that work is the solution to their poverty? It might have been under a different Government; it certainly is not under National. Under National, we have seen increasing numbers of working families driven into the streets, driven out of their homes and into their cars. How many times have we seen, night after night on the television, families whose kids are going to school and doing their best to succeed, whose parents are working full-time jobs but who do not have the income to afford a decent home in which they can take care of their children? That is what this Government has driven our country to. It is intolerable for that Minister to stand there and say that she will do better for New Zealand’s children and ignore the single greatest threat to their well-being.

Housing has become, in the last few years, the key point at which those issues of poverty, those issues of low wages and of family insecurity and instability, have made themselves real. We have a Government that is failing one of its core responsibilities as a Government, and that is to provide a stable housing market with warm, dry, and secure housing for every one of the families who live in this county. No society can operate effectively if its citizens are sleeping under bridges, are living in cars, and are in substandard housing that causes their kids to get sick. That is a symbol of a failing society, a society being failed by its Government. We have a Government that is in denial about one of the most fundamental roles that it is required to perform, which is to make sure its citizens are safely and securely housed.

So how did the National Government let this become its Achilles heel? How did housing become the Achilles heel of National? How did National bring itself to abandon New Zealand families to the vagaries of a market that is pushing house prices way beyond what an ordinary family can afford, because abandon families is what National has done. And it has not just allowed it, actually, but it has encouraged it over the last 8 years. The lowest homeownership rate in 65 years is under National. The biggest gap between incomes and house prices in decades is under National. The highest level of homelessness—[Interruption] Well, you can sigh, sir, but your Government—the Government you are part of—has overseen the highest level of homelessness, of some 40,000 New Zealanders, in a generation. Over 8 years the country has been driven to this under this National Government.

We heard quite a bit today about National’s supposedly comprehensive housing plan. It was a long list of things that have, clearly, not worked. We have Auckland house prices at 10 times the median household income, the highest rate of homelessness, and high rates of child poverty that continue to remain high. At even six times or 10 times the household income, we know that the economic risk of this housing bubble is likely to cause more problems for families in the future, so where is the plan to deal with that? We have economists from the banks, from councils, from consultancies, and from the media all saying there is a serious economic problem coming, with housing being priced so out of families’ reach, and where is the Government’s plan for managing that? Where is the Government’s plan for managing that?

National has overseen the biggest increase in house prices in decades. It has no concept of when those house price rises are going to end, and people are warning of a crash. A crash in the housing market is totally unacceptable. The harm that that would cause to families and to the economy is totally unacceptable, so where is the plan from the Government to protect New Zealanders, to protect our economy, and to make sure our families have access to a fundamental human right, which is warm, dry, and secure housing? How could this Government let this country get to this point?

The only way that we can protect New Zealand families is to make sure that there is a plan to both increase incomes and bring house prices down so that there is a soft landing in time. That is the hard truth. It is a hard truth. Nobody likes to say it, but it is the truth and, unfortunately, this Government will not even address the fact that there is a housing crisis, let alone the reality that in order to be a responsible Government you have to have a plan for managing that so that families do not get hurt. It is not a big ask, actually, for New Zealanders to ask the Government to manage the housing crisis in a way that will protect them. How has that gotten so complicated? How has that gotten so ideological by National that it cannot even make sure that New Zealand families are warmly, safely, and securely housed?

The plan does not have to be complicated. New Zealanders will accept that it will take some time—we are talking 10, 15 years. People know that these kinds of policies need time to come into play, but what they cannot see—and understandably so—is that this Government will take their family issues seriously. They are concerned about their kids not being able to buy a home. They are concerned that their grandkids will not have warm, secure, and stable housing for them to grow up in. These are the real concerns of New Zealanders every day, and they look to the Government for some leadership and they see nothing—look, blank faces—from National, because National has nothing to offer because it has deliberately created this mess. I mean, was that the point of the comprehensive housing plan, National—to actually drive us into the worst housing crisis we have seen in generations? Was that the point of your plan? Because that is what has happened.

And the National members are not the ones who are going to be suffering for it, right? It is ordinary New Zealand families, it is the working poor who are living in their cars, and it is people on benefits, who are continually harassed by this Government because of their poverty. They are the ones who are suffering every day. This is why we need a change of Government. This is the only option that we have got. A change of Government is what will turn this around.

💬 Dr David Clark: Hear, hear!

We will provide a plan—thank you. We will provide a genuine plan to protect families, to raise incomes, to provide housing affordability for New Zealanders, and to reduce and then eliminate child poverty from this country. Only a change of Government will deliver on that because, as we have seen, National members have had their go, they have failed us, they have failed families, they have failed our kids, and they have nothing new to offer. We saw that today. Even after 4 weeks away, they still had nothing new to offer. And, in fact, National is just recycling Labour and Green policy, as we saw with the tax holiday, the dividend holiday, for Housing New Zealand.

Housing should not be such a hotly contested political issue, because there should be consistent approaches across parties around housing because it is so fundamental to New Zealanders and to families’ well-being. It has become a hot political issue because National’s ideology is driving families into their cars and on to the streets. That makes National fundamentally irresponsible and incapable of governing for the benefit of the country as a whole, and the sooner it goes the better. The sooner we get a change of Government the better. New Zealand families deserve better. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Over the adjournment break, Māoridom lost one of its iconic leaders: Dr Ngāpō Wehi, affectionately known as Uncle Bub. E te rangatira, me ngā mate katoa o te motu, haere, haere, moe mai rā!

[Esteemed one, and all the deaths of the nation, farewell, depart, rest there indeed!]

This Budget has failed to deliver for middle New Zealanders. This Budget shows that we have a Government that has lost touch after 8 long years in office. It is too often focused on the few at the top and has completely forgotten about everyday New Zealanders. This is a Budget that demonstrates that National does not know what is going on and that it has no answers to the problems that our people are concerned about. This is a Budget that continues to underfund and put pressure on our health, education, and housing systems.

In the adjournment Hawke’s Bay played host to the Minister for Social Housing, the Hon Paula Bennett, where, of course, she expressed what was good about this Budget. But at that meeting hosted in Hastings, things turned quickly for the many attendees there to the real issue of housing confronting people in the Hawke’s Bay area. I took the opportunity to remind the Minister at that meeting that Hawke’s Bay had lost some 377 State houses since 2011 and it had built seven. Do the maths: we have lost 377 and we have built seven homes in Hawke’s Bay. That has dislocated over 300 families in Hawke’s Bay. And, of course, we did the decent thing and asked the Minister what her plans were for addressing the real issue facing many people in Hawke’s Bay, and I want to quote the Minister’s response. When asked “We need more housing—what are you going to do about it, Minister?”, her response was, well, clearly we need them “right now”. But then she added: “It’s kind of where’s the line of it being enough. I’m sure for some it will never be enough.” Well, the message is really clear to that Government, through the Minister, that there are not enough houses in Hawke’s Bay. We do not have the supply to meet the need.

💬 Dr David Clark: Seven is not enough.

Seven is not enough. But, further, the question was asked “When will new housing be provided in Hawke’s Bay?”, and Mrs Bennett said this—

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: Miss—it’s Miss.

—Miss Bennett, apologies—“I don’t want a country full of State houses.” That is what she said at the meeting: “I don’t want a country full of State houses.” What people said was that if it was good enough for the Minister and if it was good enough for the Prime Minister in their time of need to live in a State house, then why is it not good enough for everybody else?

I want to talk about the sharp end—the over 1,648 Māori families on the waiting list, according to the social housing register. This is 100 more than in the previous quarter and a whopping increase of 21 percent of Māori who have been waiting since last June. In the Waiariki electorate of the Minister for Māori Development there are 422 people waiting for homes, of whom 261 are in very serious need. In late 2014 his co-leader of the Māori Party, Marama Fox, called National’s plan to sell off State houses “disappointing” and “an abdication of Government responsibility”, yet, just 3 months later, the Māori Party changed its mind and voted with National to flog them off. This is a disgraceful move, especially in the middle of a housing crisis. But Labour has a comprehensive plan to tackle the problem. We will build more affordable homes. We will end National’s State house sell-off and stop using Housing New Zealand as a cash cow. Whānau camping in cars or garages will be helped into temporary accommodation, through extra funding to emergency housing providers.

During the adjournment I constantly heard this catchcry: “Change the Government. Change the Government. Change the Government, because it has got out of touch and stopped listening to ordinary New Zealanders.” This is what we need to do. We need to present Labour’s comprehensive housing plan. It will make a difference to many of the people throughout my electorate of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. All I say is, bring on next year’s election.

It is an honour and a privilege to rise and make a contribution to the Social Development and Housing Sector part of the appropriations debate. Can I start by just acknowledging the great work of our Minister for Social Development, the Hon Anne Tolley, in this space. She is totally committed to the young people of New Zealand and to the vulnerable young people of New Zealand, making a difference in their lives, and being aspirational for them so that they expect what every Kiwi kid expects—a great upbringing.

If I can reflect on the last week, I attended the Grey Power meeting in North Canterbury. There were 200 senior citizens who turned up to that meeting. I was able to have a talk to our superannuitants in North Canterbury. It is fair to say that in North Canterbury our superannuitants are fairly buoyant. I know the member across the House from Waimakariri will be down there tomorrow, just to touch base in North Canterbury. They are thinking that things are looking good. It was great, in these appropriations and in Budget 2016, to see an extra allocation of $41 million for the SuperGold card. When you look back, it was not that long ago, in 2008, when there were only a few hundred services available on the SuperGold card. That has been expanded now to about 12,500. That is great for superannuitants across the country, but, of course, in my home patch of Waimakariri they are grateful for that.

It was interesting over the adjournment to see a quite confusing press release from Phil Twyford, the Opposition spokesperson on housing. He has a sort of scattergun approach to putting out press releases. He put one out about the temporary housing village in Kaiapoi—that it should be used for homelessness. Well, I suppose, possibly that is a good idea. One detractor from that is that it is on council land, and I am sure it can do what it wants with that. Secondly, the temporary housing was sold to community providers. But, most importantly, someone wrote in to the paper—because Phil Twyford said it could address the waiting list in Christchurch—and said: “When will Phil Twyford realise that Kaiapoi is not in Christchurch?”. So it just goes to show that you can have this scattergun approach, but, really, you need to drill down and understand the need.

In the “Waimak” we have one of the lowest percentages of people on the waiting list, per head of population. When you look at the $41 million that was invested in Budget 2016 for this appropriation, it is much needed and it will do great work in that space. But what we have got to remember is that it is about ensuring that there is housing provision along the whole housing continuum, whether that be community provision, State housing, or private tenure.

I met with Housing New Zealand. We in the “Waimak”, in North Canterbury, are going to have more Housing New Zealand houses post-earthquake than we did pre-earthquake. A large part of that is because this Government fought very hard to free up land in Canterbury, to increase supply to equal demand. It is as simple as that. When you look at annual house price inflation, “Waimak” is the third - fastest-growing electorate in New Zealand, and annual house price inflation is only 2 or 3 percent. In Canterbury it is about 5 percent. Then you get the double-digit annual house price inflation that we are seeing nationally. I think that Waimakariri is a good example that we can roll out to the rest of the country. By freeing up land, it increases supply and equals demand. That is around private but also community housing, and State housing as well.

I just want to touch on something that has been missing in this debate, to balance it up. It is the acknowledgment that we spend $25 billion a year on social services—about $12 billion or $13 billion on superannuation, $7.5 billion on benefits, and a couple of billion on student loans—but the reason we can do that is that we have such a strong and stable economy. We are back in surplus. There is very low unemployment, high workforce participation, low core Crown debt, and a GDP growth rate that is the envy of all other OECD countries.

We can have the most ambitious social policies, which the Opposition will pitch up to us, but the reality is that if you cannot pay for it, it is all pie in the sky. The reality is that because of the good management of this Government we can spend $25 billion a year under the social services appropriation. I would like to take the time to acknowledge our finance Minister and all the great work he does. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the Social Development and Housing Sector part of the appropriations. There are a couple of things that I would like to get through if I have enough time.

First, I would just like to mention one thing that Minister Tolley said, which was that the best thing for beneficiaries is to get back into work. The question I have for her is that if that is the case, then why has the Government demonstrably failed especially in regard to youth, those youth who are unemployed, and those youth who are disengaged from society? So we are talking about those youth who are not in any sort of education, employment, or training. At the moment we are looking at over 82,000 of those across the country. That is actually the highest it has been in the past 3 years—the highest that it has been in the past 3 years. That is youth between 15 and 24 years of age who are totally disengaged from society. It has never been lower than pre-2008 levels. So we have got a Government that is preaching one thing, and delivering another. The Government is saying that the priority is to get beneficiaries and disengaged people, if we are talking about youth, back into work. It is demonstrably failing.

One thing that the Minister mentioned about youth and about the way the Government was addressing youth unemployment was the extension of the Youth Service that has occurred. We saw the legislation go through the House, last month I believe it was. New Zealand First has a number of issues with that. First and foremost was the fact that the fundamental principle behind all of the social policies that the Government is pushing through at the moment is the social investment approach. The main purpose of the social investment approach is to ensure that the financial cost to the State of any individual in New Zealand is minimised. That is the sole purpose of the social investment approach. It is not about the need of the individual. It is not about what that individual or the family needs. It is about how much that individual costs the State in the long term, and about those decisions that are made now that will affect that later on. It is not about the need.

It is demonstrable that the Government’s approach is not working. We have not only got “neets” at record levels but we have got youth unemployment, which is chronic.

💬 Hon Steven Joyce: It’s not at record levels at all. That’s rubbish.

Mr Joyce, it is the highest level in 3 years. The “neets” rate is at the highest level it has been in 3 years. Not only that but it is the highest rate increase of young males. What we heard at the end of last year was the likes of Mr Joyce standing up in the House and saying that it was at record lows for 15 to 19-year-olds.

💬 Hon Steven Joyce: It was.

It was. The fact that he was failing to mention was that we were 18th in the OECD, and that was something that he was standing up and saying was a good thing. We have got a record level—the lowest level in New Zealand history—but we are still 18th. We have got 17 countries in the OECD with lower levels of “neet” rates than us.

But where does that go? Where does that end up? What does that mean? Eighty-five percent of all youth in the youth justice system actually have no qualifications or have dropped out of school. We are talking about 15-, 16-, and 17-year-olds. They have got no qualifications, or have dropped out of school. Not only that, but 60 percent of those who have gone through the youth justice system end up back in prison within 2 years and 80 percent reoffend. What we are talking about is the fact that those kids are inactive and have got periods of inactivity when they leave school. They have a greater chance of being inactive and being on a benefit 10 years later.

So where is the social investment approach from this Government when addressing those issues with our youth? One of the youth courses that has been effective is called the Limited Service Volunteer (LSV) scheme. What this Government has done over the past 4 or 5 years is to slowly cut away, every single year, the funding to that scheme and the numbers to that scheme. It was at 2,000. If we can recall, the Prime Minister actually campaigned on it in 2008 and 2010, and the Government has cut away from 2,000 places on the LSV down to 500. The Government has closed the Trentham base and it is looking at closing the Christchurch base, as well, and having only a small course in Auckland. What that does is it takes away one of the main courses that has been successful for the youth and for the “neets” over the past few decades. This Government preaches one thing about unemployment and about getting them into work—

It is my pleasure to take a call on the Social Development and Housing Sector. I think when we look at Budget 2016, we can see the clear denial from this Government that we are in the middle of a housing crisis. We can see that the Kiwi Dream of homeownership is slipping away from more and more New Zealanders. I think, if you actually have a look at the Government’s activity post-Budget and the flailing around on the issue of housing that we have seen, with bungled announcement after bungled announcement—some of them by tweet—from this Government, we see that this is a Government that has no answers to the housing crisis.

I want to take issue with the comments that the member for Waimakariri, Matt Doocey, made in his speech, because I think what we had there was another example of post-fact politics. We have the repetition of the idea that Christchurch and Canterbury can be held up as some kind of exemplar of how things can be done to solve the housing crisis. This really speaks to the fact that this Government does not get it—that what was in Budget 2016, and the bungling about since then, is really not going to address the problems we have with housing in this country.

We had this holding up of an exemplar, with Matt Doocey saying that we had only single-digit growth in house prices in the Canterbury region in the last financial report. That may be the case, but let us look at the bigger picture. The period of hyperinflation before that has seen house prices in the Canterbury region rise by more than 30 percent on pre-quake levels. If that is what this Government thinks is affordability—and thinks is having a good hand on the tiller of housing—then we really are in trouble. And that is what we have been saying. This is what it thinks equals success and what it thinks can be held up as an exemplar—that when housing has risen to 5.5 times the median income in Canterbury, this will be held up as some kind of exemplar. This speaks to a Government that has absolutely failed on the issue of housing.

What we do have in Canterbury—and I am dumbfounded that Mr Doocey does not see it in his own electorate office—is an ongoing issue with overcrowding. We have an ongoing issue with more and more Cantabrians being shut out of ever hoping to own their own home, because, Mr Doocey, when you are going to get a mortgage, inflation of 30 percent over 6 years makes things unaffordable for many New Zealanders. For many New Zealanders that puts the dream of homeownership out of their reach, and more and more Cantabrians have been put out of reach. In the 8 years that this Government has been in power it has done nothing to address the housing crisis, and it has exacerbated it.

A month ago Labour celebrated its 100th birthday, and we did not just look at our glorious past; we actually talked about a bold vision for the future. We talked about what we are going to do in our next 100 years, and tackling the housing crisis is one of those. We talked about setting up an affordable housing authority. And when we look at how this will play out in Christchurch, in terms of the way in which the money in Budget 2016 could have been used—alternative ways that it could have been used—you see that there is an alternative way.

If you take the issue of the East Frame in Christchurch, where this Government will claim a victory despite this being another bungled anchor project that is sitting with nothing happening on it after one already residential anchor project has already fallen over, we could do this in a different way. We could have a Government that is not content to sit back and make some zoning decisions and think that the houses will magically appear. What we could have is a Government that is willing to work alongside developers to make sure that we actually get houses built. If we take the residential development that was planned for the East Frame—which was around 900 inner-city apartments, which I think is actually a pretty exciting prospect for Christchurch and something that I want to see built—I think that we can look at alternative ways that this could be done. We could see that we would not rely on traditional development models, like this Government has done. This Government is so stuck in 20th century thinking that it is out of ideas and is not willing to look at different ways of doing stuff. Instead, it is content to see projects fall over.

Votes agreed to.

Economic Development and Infrastructure Sector