General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

I’m not sure if anyone noticed but the Government announced their housing plan yesterday, and I’ve heard a view from multiple sources that political success comes when you’ve pissed people off from both sides. Well, congratulations, Labour, I guess you are a success.

The problem with that analysis, though, is it treats the concerns of those benefiting from a system that has long incentivised exploitation and greed as equivalent to the urgent need for a warm, dry, accessible, and affordable home for the most disenfranchised in our society. The Greens acknowledge that the Government’s housing plan is a start, and we believe much more is needed to meet the scale of this crisis. The announcements are a step in the right direction and a signal that the Government is beginning to front up to the inequality driven by property speculation, but it needs to go further and it needs to go faster. There are still more tools in the tool box that the Government can use to stop the accelerating housing crisis.

I read the speech of the announcement and accompanying material yesterday, looking for the words “disabled”, “accessible”, even “universal design standards”—nothing. I’d just been at the Hīkoi of Hope for Disabled, and I have to say that their challenge to us in this House was deeply and rightly confronting. They are holding us all accountable for the woeful 24.3 percent labour force participation rate; for the rates of material hardship for children with an adult in their household with a disability 2½ times higher than other households; for the rates of child material hardship for disabled children twice the rate of other children; for the failure of our education system to meet their needs; for the abysmally low rates of disability allowance, 3.2 times lower than in the UK and virtually so difficult to get at all; for a welfare system that disincentivises people from having loving relationships; for financially punishing them for doing it; and for immigration rules that tell immensely qualified and accomplished people that they and their families are not wanted here because we see disabled people as a burden.

This is far from a complete list of what we heard yesterday and, believe me, the lack of accessible housing was recognised. The Greens’ research shows that 0.25 percent of houses on TradeMe are indicated as accessible and the stress of housing insecurity and the profound limitations of never being able to visit friends or family because their houses aren’t accessible is so significant. Our failure to create policies that centre the needs of disabled people disables them and robs us of their full participation. So forgive me for sounding a little bit mad that we didn’t hear any mention of these people’s needs yesterday, and forgive me for being a little mad that the last time I asked the Minister of Housing about how many houses are accessible, she proudly told me—and I’ll quote—“I’m pleased to inform the member that Kāinga Ora has recently put in place a policy to ensure that at least 15 percent of all new builds are built to accessible universal standards.”

Disabled people are asking “Why aren’t all houses accessible?”, and at their most conciliatory they’re asking “When will the Government implement its manifesto promise of at least 25 percent of new builds meeting universal design standards?” Disabled people are, rightfully, asking where they are in the Government priorities. Their voices matter to the Greens and should matter to every member of this House. Upsetting disabled—

Order! Order! The member’s time has expired.

I want to congratulate Jan Logie, the member who’s just resumed her seat, for standing up today and taking the opportunity to say who she’s backing in a situation like this, in housing. I want to recognise the issues that face disabled people in terms of accessibility and commit this Government, again, to working on them.

Choosing what side you’re on in a debate about housing is really important, and yesterday the Opposition had an opportunity to stand alongside first-home buyers. They had an opportunity to stand alongside people who want to add to our housing stock, to develop more housing, to make sure more affordable housing is available, and the National Party did not take that opportunity. They took the opportunity to stand alongside speculators. They took the opportunity to defend the rampant house price inflation that we have seen in New Zealand in the last few months. So when it comes to where people stand on housing in this House, I am proud of this Government standing up for first-home buyers and standing up for renters.

The housing issues that New Zealand faces are many decades in the making. Constantly around the country, when we go and talk about these issues, people understand that. They understand that there is no single silver bullet. What they’re looking for is a Government that is prepared to take actions that will start to address this, to make—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: How’s KiwiBuild going?

I’ll tell you what, Dr Smith. I’ll tell you what: I’ll stand in this House on the record of this Government building affordable homes versus the shambles that you left us in, because that’s the truth, Dr Smith—the shambles that you left us. Affordable homes were never on the agenda of the National Party, but they are on the agenda of this side of the House.

The core of the announcement yesterday was about both supply and demand, and I want to talk a little bit about the importance of infrastructure in this. Local government across New Zealand has said their number one priority is making sure that there is build-ready land and making sure that, actually, when it comes time to do the developments, they can be done because the pipes are there, because the drains are there, because the roads are there. What they didn’t want was another fund from the National Party that was a loan that they couldn’t take on because their debt servicing costs were already too high. What they wanted and what they’ve got from this Government is a $3.8 billion fund that’ll unlock supply right across New Zealand—not just in our biggest cities, either, but right across New Zealand, where we know land is available.

More than that, it’s not just local government. This Government is committed to partnership with iwi and with Māori groups across New Zealand. They have told us, “There is land available. Help us with the infrastructure, and we will build housing for our whānau.”, and that is what this announcement today will do. When we come to the Budget, there will be further support for Māori housing initiatives, because we know the partnerships are there to be made.

But even more than that, this is an initiative that, at the same time as dampening down demand, is opening opportunities for supply, opening opportunities for new building, and that’s what the National Party opposed yesterday. We are clear: the brightline test extension does not apply if it’s a new build; the interest deductibility rule changes do not apply if there are new builds. There are property developers saying this is the answer: this is the opportunity to shift that investment out of speculation and into building new homes. That’s the difference here. It’s a package that does manage to do two things at once: seek to make things easier for first-home buyers and, at the same time, see us add to stock.

There were other elements of the package yesterday that I want to mention, in particular around apprenticeships. This Government is extremely proud of the fact that since we brought in our trade training package on 1 July last year, we have seen more than 100,000 New Zealanders take up free trade training and free apprenticeships. Of those, 58,000 have been apprentices, and, of them, a third have been in the construction industry. That is what a responsible Government does.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: It’s free trade.

Instead, Mr Brownlee—the Government that he was part of, coming out of the global financial crisis, just let everybody go. They let the apprentices go. We’re not going to stand for that. It’s good for business, and it’s good for the young people who are training to be kept on.

This is a Government that is going to partner in addressing a decades-long housing challenge. There is no silver bullet, but the package we put forward yesterday is an important one for shifting the dial for first-home buyers, for affordability, and for increasing our supply. [Interruption]

Order! Before the member calls, I am going to ask Mr Bennett not to make those animal noises again.

Mr Speaker, what I’m about to say to the House is very important. I want to outline for the House why I and the National Party believe it is critical that Trevor Mallard resign as Speaker of the House. Mr Mallard’s position, for the reasons I want to outline, we believe, is untenable. The basic facts of what has become known as the “Mallard rape affair” are, I think, well known.

On 21 May 2019, the Francis Review into bullying and harassment at Parliament was published. The next day, Mr Mallard gave a series of interviews to media, including Morning Report and TVNZ’s Breakfast show, about the contents of the Francis Review and a man he believed was still on the premises. To Morning Report, Mr Mallard talked about serious sexual assault and said, “Well, for me, that’s rape.” Directly in response to the question “So people have been raped in Parliament?”, Mr Mallard said, “That is the impression I get from the report, yes.” On Breakfast, Mr Mallard talked about three sexual assaults and that three appeared to be in the rape category. We know what happened next. Those claims were not correct. Mr Mallard said, later, he knew they were wrong within probably 24 hours. An employee of the Parliamentary Service then sued Mr Mallard for defamation in December 2019, and it was not until December 2020 that Mr Mallard settled with the plaintiff. That settlement cost taxpayers $158,000 as an ex gratia payment and an additional $175,000 in legal fees, the total being over $333,000. Mr Mallard came before the Governance and Administration Committee and said he knew within 24 hours he had made a mistake. There is still an outstanding employment claim against the Parliamentary Service by the plaintiff; so this amount could rise.

I want to put on record for the House three things that have not yet been made public relating to the sorry affair I’ve just outlined. They are shocking and, I believe, make the case overwhelming for Mr Mallard’s resignation or for the House to lose confidence in him. Earlier this year, I applied to the High Court of New Zealand for access to the statements of claim and defence filed by the parties in the now settled defamation action. The statement of claim says that, after Mr Mallard’s morning media interviews on 22 May, where he spoke of rape, his staff advised him that claim was wrong. Despite being told that, he then repeated the claim in the afternoon of the 22 May in another media stand-up. Let me be clear: having gone on radio and TV in the morning and, effectively, accused someone of rape, Mr Mallard was then told by his general manager that was wrong. He did a media stand-up and was specifically asked about whether he stood by those statements. He said, “Yes. And anyone who’s been involved in looking at the rape law would be aware of the definition of ‘rape’ in New Zealand.” That is appalling. Mr Mallard knew it was wrong; he said it anyway.

The second thing I want to bring to the House’s attention is that Mr Mallard intended on pleading truth to the defamation claim. On 10 June 2019, the plaintiff, through his lawyers, wrote to Mr Mallard. He asked for the release of an apology to him. He asked for the apology to be read by Mr Mallard to the House. He asked for the payment of damages, and he asked for an undertaking that Mr Mallard would not make any more defamatory statements. Mr Mallard refused. On 24 June, he wrote back. He refused to publish an apology. He refused to pay damages. He claimed his statements were either truth or honest opinion or covered by qualified privilege. Let me be clear about what that means: Mr Mallard said he intended to prove, in court, the plaintiff was a rapist. He intended to do this knowing it was false. Remember, as I’ve just said, Mr Mallard was told by the general manager the complaint was not about rape, and Mr Mallard told us last year he knew he’d made a mistake within probably 24 hours. So, even though Mr Mallard knew he was wrong, knew he’d made a mistake, in June 2019 he was planning on actually proving the person he defamed was a rapist. The consequences of this are severe. Mr Mallard was either planning on misleading the court or he has misled Parliament. These are not the actions of someone fit to be Speaker.

It gets worse. Mr Mallard said he would defend any claim “vigorously”. He threatened the plaintiff. He said that, should the plaintiff pursue litigation, “the question of his reputation and his conduct will be very much the centrepiece of any public proceeding”. Mr Mallard said he would prove the man was a rapist, knowing it to be untrue, if the plaintiff sued to protect his reputation. This is a gross and disgraceful abuse of power. He refused to apologise to the man he called a rapist, even though he knew it was wrong. He refused to compensate, even though he knew it was wrong. He said, if the man sought to protect his reputation, he would prove he was a rapist. He threatened to put the man on trial. This is a man who should resign—

Order! Order! The member’s time has expired. Members, I chose, during that speech, not to draw attention to the fact that it was completely out of order; Speakers’ rulings 18/7 make that clear. Because I was involved, I thought it was not appropriate to stop the speech. I will say I look forward to the hearing of the Estimates, where the truth will be told.

Yesterday, we—

💬 Hon David Bennett: You’re sweating, Trevor.

—made an announcement that we, on this side—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! Mr Bennett will leave the Chamber.

Hon David Bennett withdrew from the Chamber.

Yesterday, we made an announcement as a Government that we are incredibly proud of on this side of the House. We announced a package of measures to finally address a housing crisis in New Zealand—a package of measures that bring together both demand and supply measures. Often when Governments have come to look at the incredibly difficult issue of housing and how we address it, they do either demand or supply. What we did yesterday was bring together those measures into one place. But more than that, if we have a look at what we’ve done with our supply package, we’ve had a look at what we need to do to tilt the balance in favour of new supply. We see that what we are doing is finally addressing the very long-run problem that if you talk to anyone—you talk to councils, you talk to developers, you talk to iwi, you talk to anyone that has been trying to build houses in this country—they will tell you the thing that is holding them back is not just land supply but it is supply of build-ready land. The reality is, we could change the planning rules in this country, we could rezone every bit of the country that doesn’t currently have a house on it, but unless someone is paying for the pipes that sit under that ground or the roads that lead to that land, we will not see houses built. And that is what we are incredibly proud of, that, for the first time since the 1970s, a central government is stepping up at this scale and addressing that most fundamental of problems.

What we have done is put in place a range of demand and supply measures that unashamedly tilts the balance towards new supply. For too long, we have had mum and dad investors competing with their first-home buying kids in the burbs for the same houses. This is not the New Zealand we want to see. If we look at the carve-outs and the exemptions and the extension of the brightline test and what we’re doing around interest deductibility, we’re saying to those New Zealanders who want to invest in property, “By all means do it but come be part of the solution to finally fix the housing crisis. Help us build new houses, and you won’t have an extension in your brightline test. You will still be able to claim interest deductibility, because that is the behaviour we want to see.” And we know that these are the long-term changes that we need to make.

Some of the changes that we will see will show immediate effect. We will see immediate effect, particularly from our demand-side package of changes, which includes the changes to the first-home products that will come in almost immediately. But some of these are the long-term change we need to see to secure a steady pipeline of building and construction, not over the next one, two, three years—we’ve got to have the courage to look beyond that three-year political cycle—but what will be the pipeline over the next 10 to 20 years of building and construction. We need to make sure that we, once and for all, can confront this housing crisis we face.

We know that there is no silver bullet, there is no quick fix, there is no one thing that is going to fix the housing crisis, that we need to have a programme of work that integrates together, that makes anything we are doing around infrastructure work in lock step with a requirement for housing to be built, for land development to occur—and that is exactly what we will do. In the contestable fund that we set up, we will not do what the previous Government with their Housing Infrastructure Fund did, which was give loans to councils but no requirement for land development to occur—and I invite anyone to look up how many houses we’ve seen as a result of that billion-dollar fund that the previous Government set up. I’ll give you a clue: very, very, very few. Because what we need to do is make sure we are integrating and we are looking on this as a package, and we need to make sure that we are backing first-home buyers, we are backing those that need affordable rentals, and all we’re hearing from the Opposition is the normal cancel culture we hear from the National Party.

Today is an auspicious day. In fact, it is an anniversary for the Minister of Immigration—happy anniversary, Minister. I made the Minister a card, actually. It’s from an old Christmas card with “Happy Christmas” crossed out and “Happy anniversary” written on it. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it none the less, because on this day, 24 March 2021, we officially observe the one-month anniversary of the day that the Prime Minister told Minister Faafoi to do his job. On this day exactly one month ago, Jacinda Ardern was made aware by the Opposition, via the media, of the migrant nurse anomaly: where those nurses who came before the borders closed couldn’t bring their families or their partners and children, but those who came after could. The Prime Minister was blind-sided by this information and seemingly concerned about the plight of those nurses who hadn’t seen their children for over a year, and she ordered her Minister to sort it out, not only for those nurses but also for New Zealand, because we are a thousand nurses short and we can’t afford to lose any more.

So here we are a month later, and while I jest, this is no laughing matter. The Minister, by his own omission in question time, has admitted that he knew about the problem when the policy was changed in June last year. His officials told us in committee that they briefed him on multiple occasions. He then told us that he had received an official briefing in December last year. The Prime Minister told him a month ago to get on with it and find a fix. Last week in the House during question time, he admitted that it was an anomaly and they were working on it—but still absolutely nothing.

And isn’t it interesting that when it comes to tax, this Government can move heaven and earth to pass legislation under urgency in a day, like we’ve seen with the new capital gains tax, but when it comes to our migrant nurses, in the nine months they’ve had to fix the problem, in the nine months the Minister knew about this, and the Prime Minister coming in over the top, telling him to do his job—doesn’t even involve a legislative change, just needs the Minister to make a decision—they just can’t be bothered. This speaks volumes to what this Government thinks about our valuable migrants.

And the Minister’s response: predictably, he points to the constrained space in managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ), completely unable to answer my questions around how letting these nurses leave and replacing them with more migrant nurses taking up spaces in MIQ to fill their place is any different than just simply bringing those families here for the nurses who are already in New Zealand. And we have offered them a solution: open the trans-Tasman bubble, free up 40 percent of MIQ, let those families be reunited, let desperate Kiwis in, and help the struggling tourism sector. And while the Government begrudgingly works on this trans-Tasman bubble at a frustratingly glacial pace, we have story after story of nannies and bands and shows and children’s entertainers who are being fast tracked into the country.

Case in point is The Lion King, with 126 workers, cast and crew, who were allowed in with visas through MIQ. The Minister vigorously defended the decision to grant these visas. In fact, on Radio New Zealand, he was quoted saying that the skills are not readily available here in New Zealand. But when we take a look through the cast and crew list of the people that were fast tracked into the country, we have a look and we see a tutor, a physiotherapist, and a chaperone—for goodness’ sake. These positions are not uniquely experienced or uniquely technical specialist skills that we don’t have here in New Zealand. There is no possible way that these people meet the Immigration New Zealand criteria, but here they are taking up space in MIQ facilities ahead of Kiwis and ahead of migrant families.

And you compare this to the visa applications of crews of superyachts coming into New Zealand last year, who don’t even take up any space in MIQ. Crew lists were poured over with a fine-tooth comb and visas were declined for multiple crewmembers on the basis that New Zealanders could do their jobs. So these billionaires turned around their yachts, they sailed away, and the million dollars a week that they spend here in New Zealand went somewhere else. We turn away Recognised Seasonal Employer workers. We literally have fruit rotting on the ground, and it will continue to do so. We expect farmers in our rural communities to pull 18-hour days and not see their own families because their seasonal workers can’t get in—pushing them to the brink mentally. And we’ve heard so many harrowing stories of those farmers. But here we have a chaperone, a tutor, and a physiotherapist coming through MIQ to help put on an international show, which, by the way, is competing against fantastic local show Jersey Boys, but that is a speech for another day.

Not only is this Minister not doing his job and almost nothing in his portfolio, the things that he does do make a complete farce of the system. So, Minister Faafoi, happy anniversary.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Today I want to talk about the dream of homeownership. I know that there are some in this House—probably a few in this House—who have their own home, but there are plenty of New Zealanders for whom yesterday’s announcement is a game-changer. We know the value of homeownership in terms of the financially advantageous benefit it brings to the family and how it builds communities. When you have your own home, you put down roots, you make social connections, your kids go to the local school—they build connections. You build friends and friendships and people that will help you when times are tough—people that will do things for you.

In my own neighbourhood, Barry and Isabel next door to me, they get their paper delivered every morning. It’s dropped off somewhere on their driveway, and on my run in the morning I pick it up and I drop it at their front door. And, for me, they put my rubbish bins away when I’m at Parliament. You do things for each other. You build communities. You build strength. That’s what the fabric of society is about. That comes from homeownership and it comes from the aspiration that we have for everyone to have that opportunity, and yesterday this Government made it easier for first-home buyers.

There was a raft of things that happened. Firstly, we dealt with how do we incentivise the build of houses, because one of the biggest issues that we faced was the lack of supply. A lot of properties were turning over, but we need to build more in order to deal with the demand that people have for homeownership. But at the same time, the other factor that has been really problematic is the cost. And that cost has been driven up by people who are investors in the market, who speculate on the market, who make an income from the market, who do things like take interest-free loans, who take things like increasing the value to make a capital gain, and that’s how they make their money. Now, you know, on the face of it, some of the market, kind of, specialists in this House would say that’s not a bad thing. But when it actually goes to the heart of the aspirations of those who want to own their home, then you have to intervene.

I have to say: what does this mean for Pacific? For Pacific, it’s more than a game-changer; it provides an opportunity to do what we haven’t been able to do in generations, and that is increase our levels of homeownership. We’ve got the lowest homeownership rates that we’ve had in 70 years, and at the bottom of that list are Pacific people for whom the ability to build communities, to build social connections—it impacts them exponentially to other population groups in Aotearoa New Zealand. What will that do for Pacific people—the ability to own their home?

Now, the Ministers today who’ve spoken about this in the general debate have missed some of the factors that are also really important to Pacific people—the fact that we are now looking at things that will allow us as Pacific people to do things in a different way, to purchase homes as a whānau, as a family, as a aiga, rather than as a couple. The work that Minister Woods, our lead Minister in this space, has been doing has been extraordinary.

But there is a whole lot of other benefits that come to our people because of this, and one of them is the ability to be the rebuilders of our communities through the apprenticeship scheme. How many people have we heard have taken that up and how many in construction alone? Twenty-six thousand. I have to say, quite a few of them are women but we know a lot of them are Pacific people—Pacific people who may have been working in construction, who have now taken the opportunity to learn how to be a tradesperson.

So not only have we provided this game-changer in terms of homeownership opportunities for Pacific but we’ve also given them the basis on which to become the masters of their own destiny. I’m enormously proud of the game-changing policy that this Government has put in place. Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This Government was elected to do two things in particular: one was to fix housing; and, two, it claimed, was to bring a kinder, more conciliatory style of politics to New Zealand. Those are noble goals that I don’t think anyone would disagree with. Everybody thought that there was a problem with housing—and there still is. Nobody thought that politics needed to be nastier. The problem is not with their intentions; as is often the case, the problem with this Government is their outcomes.

You only have to look at the hard numbers. Since this Government was elected, the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand’s median house price has gone from $525,000 to $780,000—that is a 49 percent increase in just over four years under this Government. Nothing that they’ve done—KiwiBuild, Resource Management Act reform, social housing, rental tenancy changes—none of it has worked. Rents have gone up $130 a week over the same period. They are still failing today. The only reason we don’t hear about people in cars, in garages, under this Government is because they’ve put a whole lot of people into motels, with no support, no backup, no networks, and it is a horrible place to be.

The problem is that this Government’s announcement fails at its second task. Not only will the announcements on housing this week be ineffective at fixing the housing problem—like the other policies—but they are also the most nasty and divisive policies. We heard it from the Minister of Finance in question time this afternoon. He said, “You have to pick a side.” And hasn’t this Government made people pick sides? They’ve said they are tilting towards first-home buyers, meaning that they are attacking the speculators—so they call them, but it turns out that many of those people are just property investors.

Now, let me give you an example. Somebody who kept their first home to rent it out, was slowly paying off the mortgage, and hopes to keep it as a nest egg for their kids. Well, they are now going to be hit with the capital gains tax. It is not going to help anyone, but it is going to punish that family. And it is also going to punish that family to take away mortgage interest deductibility. Let’s say the house is worth a million dollars—not much more than the median—and they’ve got a half-a-million-dollar mortgage. Well, they are now going to have to pay an extra $5,000 a year of tax, because they no longer get the interest deducted. Now, you can do the figures. Does anyone really think that they are not going to have to put the rent up $100 on their tenants? Five-thousand dollars a year, 52 weeks, that’s a $100 rent increase per week to pay tax to the Government on rental property. That’s what it means. And this is why the Government’s policy fails at kindness and fails at fixing housing.

You see, those renters—well, it’s bad enough the Government’s hurting them—they are also prospective first-home buyers trying to save a deposit. And they are a hundred bucks a week worse off because they’ve got to pay more tax to the Government, through their landlord, under this policy.

This Government is failing to fix housing and it is pitting New Zealanders against each other, because it doesn’t understand that, ultimately, we are all one. People who move out from their parents’ place become renters, save up to become first-home buyers, pay off their mortgage, maybe buy another property and invest it, and become landlords. It is, as a show recently coming to Auckland tells us, “The Circle of Life”. And the Government is pitting one against each other, and that is a shame.

Imagine a different story where, actually, a Government came into power with a plan to properly reform resource consenting, not just talk about it for four years as this Government has; to properly fund infrastructure with 30-year partnerships between the Crown and councils, not just have a fund for a few billion dollars as this Government did; and to fix building consents so that people can get permission to build things faster than they can actually build them, because at the moment it takes longer to get permission. That would be uniting New Zealanders behind good ideas of building new homes. But, sadly, we have a divisive failure. What a shame. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I want to begin my contribution today, first, with an apology to the good member from East Coast Bays for causing any offence that I have. I want to apologise to her, because I have huge respect for her.

Secondly, I want to be unapologetically proud of the housing policy that we have announced very recently. Four weeks ago, I stood in front of the Māori Housing Conference. The Māori Housing Conference was made up of whānau, iwi, and hapū. They are made up of community housing providers who know the pain of our people, the pain of our people through homelessness, through the inability to be able to secure tenure for rent, the inability to even be able to aspire towards owning a home. They were rather confronting stories. They confronted myself and a number of my colleagues—the Hon Megan Woods, the Hon Willie Jackson, the Hon Marama Davidson—and they made it quite clear that in order to do something to solve this crisis for Māori people, we had to do something aspirational. Yesterday, that happened. I am proud of the work that the Hon Grant Robertson and the Hon Megan Woods have done to shift the dial for homeownership for my people—the Māori people.

I can tell you that I have a nephew who’s fresh out of university, just qualified as a teacher. He’s looking for a job, by the way, and I said I know the Minister of Education, but I digress. He rang me yesterday to say that he is extremely proud of the announcements. Why? Because he and his partner can aspire towards owning a home—aspire towards owning a home. Here is a young 23-year-old Māori male who has been written off, if you look at the statistics amongst Māori and Pacific people. He said, “Uncle, this is awesome. I can now aspire to getting a good job and owning a home and raising a family.” And I cried for my nephew. Why? Because for many of our young people, that dream has been ripped away. Over years and years—decades, in fact—of poor policy, of a lack of houses, and those effects have fallen squarely on the shoulders of Māori and Pacific people.

I’m super-proud. Why? Because when I spoke to those housing providers at the wānanga, they made it quite clear to us that they have the whenua. And the number one barrier to building houses for their people was quite clear: it was infrastructure. Iwi are already partnering with local council. They have made it clear that in partnership, we can build homes for our people. The biggest barrier was infrastructure. Yesterday’s announcement allows, off the top of my head from that conference, over a dozen projects now to be in the pipeline ready to build homes for Māori whānau—right across the country, not just in Tāmaki-makau-rau, where the need is acute, but also in regions like the Hawke’s Bay, Te Tai Rāwhiti, Gisborne, Tai Tokerau, Taranaki—all those places where, we know, we have families living in cow sheds. We do not want that any more, and yesterday’s policy is a step in the right direction.

The Minister of Finance, in his contribution today, also said, “Let’s not just pin it all on that; let’s look towards more opportunities to do better.” He said it in his speech—that looking towards May, we will be looking for more opportunities to support Māori housing providers, to support iwi, and to support hapū to be able to develop and build homes for their people. I’m excited for that opportunity, and I, along with my colleagues, look forward to working with him.

One of the other things that was highlighted by the Minister of Housing, and, of course, the Minister of Finance, was the announcement yesterday also includes whenua Māori and papakāinga. That’s important, because one of the biggest barriers was the belief amongst developers, council, and our people that whenua Māori has far too many fish-hooks to allow us to build homes. Yesterday’s announcement removes those fish-hooks. It allows us to consider whenua Māori, to build papakāinga for our people.

One of the other barriers that was raised with me was the lack of workforce—for example, in Hastings, they’re resourcing their workforce from Taupō and Wellington. That clearly isn’t good enough. We have families there who are looking for work, looking for opportunities. The apprenticeship scheme that this Government has rolled out has been hugely successful, and we look forward to supporting it, and yesterday’s housing policy certainly did that.

In conclusion, on behalf of my Māori caucus colleagues, of which there are a large number, we know the pain that our people have been suffering with respect to housing, and, collectively, we want to acknowledge the hard work of the Minister of Housing and the Minister of Finance to recognise this challenge, and we want to work collaboratively with them, with iwi, with hapū, and whānau, to solve the crisis. And the only way we can do that is through partnership and building our way out of it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to begin my contribution today by sharing with the House a story of a young woman I’ll call Alice, who grew up in the Ōranga suburb in my electorate, in Maungakiekie. I met her in 2016 when she was a teacher-aide in a local school. She told me her story, which is not uncommon. She had grown up, as I mentioned, in Ōranga. She went overseas for a few years, you know, got married, had a couple of children, and came back home because she wanted to raise her family here, in New Zealand, in the suburb that she had grown up in, close to where her parents continued to live. She couldn’t find a home. She moved in with her whānau. There were about 15 of them living in a two-bedroom home when I met with her. That was meant to have been a temporary situation. It had been two years by the time I spoke to her.

She loved her job working with children at the local school but she felt at that point that she wasn’t able to earn enough to be able to ever dream of owning her first home. So she left that job, a job that she was incredibly good at, and it was an incredible loss for that school. She moved to a job that paid a bit better in the hope of saving some money and eventually, at some point, being able to own a home.

This is not an uncommon story, and I share that because it represents the real-life struggles of Kiwis when it comes to first-home ownership. I want to put that at the heart of our debate in the House today and at the heart of the housing package that, on this side of the House, we announced yesterday and that we are incredibly proud of. We’ve come a fair way since 2016, when Alice experienced what she experienced back then, and many others did as well. I want to acknowledge that it’s taken us decades to get to a place of a housing crisis, but we have always been a Government that has acknowledged that there was a crisis in the first place and continued to take steps to address that. In yesterday’s package, we tilt the balance towards first-home owners, first-home buyers, and I’m so proud of that. We’re making it easier for first-home buyers to get into a property by addressing both demand and supply, as other members of this House have mentioned.

In terms of addressing the demand side measures, we’re lifting the income caps on First Home Loans and First Home Grant programmes so that more people can actually access the support that they need to buy their first home. We’re extending the brightline test—we’re doubling it, in fact—from five years to 10 years, with an exemption to incentivise new builds and, therefore, increase supply in that sense as well. We’re also closing a longstanding interest deductibility tax loophole that for so long has favoured property speculators. We’re tilting that balance. We’re investing in supply, investing in new builds that will help drive demand, but we’re also making sure that we have a skilled workforce to be able to supply the housing that we need.

Finally, we’re removing the barriers that have held up housing builds for way too long, by investing in critical infrastructure. In Tāmaki-makau-rau, where I’m an MP, for example, we know that while we may have land to build houses, we don’t have the critical infrastructure nor the investment by council to be able to provide that infrastructure—like pipes, like transport links—so we’re funding that and we’re providing that so that we can actually use the land that we have to build houses.

There is no simple fix. There is no silver bullet. But we are taking incredibly important steps to fix this crisis. We need to also view that in the context of the changes that we have made over the last term as well. Let’s not forget that ours is a Government that stopped the large-scale sell-off of State housing. We need to address this crisis, the housing crisis, across the spectrum, and so we’re building more public houses. We’ve brought in rental reforms to ensure that security of tenure is a possibility and that people can live in rentals that are healthy as well. Those are important changes that we’ve made as well. We’ve increased, significantly, new public and transitional homes. We’ve also put into place progressive homeownership that we continue to build on—again, tipping the balance towards first-home owners.

I want to make the point that this also sits in the context of lifting wages, of addressing the increase of the cost of living over many years as well. All of those need to be seen in their totality when we ensure that we take the steps to fix the crisis that we’re in. If we’d had a Labour Government a few terms before, I want to say that Alice and those in her position would have had a pretty different experience back in 2016 as well. We’ve taken steps—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.

This morning, speaking on the tax bill that extended the brightline extension, I went back to my maiden speech and I referred to being brought up in a home where there were 24 people living under our roof. That was the situation back then, because we chose to so that our families could save money to buy their own homes. I said I came to this House to act, and I was brought up with the mind of acting and providing solutions. So on this side of the House yesterday, those announcements were around action, and it’s quite disappointing to see that we didn’t even get any alternative solutions from across the House, not even a press release, I understand the Minister of Finance said today.

This morning, I took the House through a bit of tax history. This afternoon, I want to take the House through a bit of local Mana electorate history around housing. When I looked back through Stuff recently, back in 2009 when the National Government was in, they bowled down 27 State homes in Castor Loop—27 homes. It sat there empty. And then, in early 2017 when the new Labour Government came in, the Hon Kris Faafoi pitched tents with local community leaders. He held barbecues. He held public meetings on that vacant piece of land, because he was tired of no action from the previous Government. So in November 2018, the Government announced a $1.5 billion investment in Porirua. It’s a partnership with our local council and with our iwi, who have now provided a new subsidy called Te Ahuru Mowai to look after 900 homes in Western Porirua.

I can proudly report back to the House that after those sit-ins on that empty piece of land by the Hon Kris Faafoi, 14 one-bedroom homes have been completed in Champion Street, 53 homes have now been built on that Castor Loop site, which was empty since 2009, and 100 homes are currently under construction in Esk Place and Niger Street. That’s action, and I thank the Hon Kris Faafoi for his leadership in our community when he was the MP for Mana, before he was even a Minister, and for then carrying through with his commitment to housing in Porirua once he became a Minister.

I also thank the Hon Megan Woods for her work to remove some of the barriers holding up the building of new homes. Part of the announcement that she made yesterday was a $3.8 billion acceleration fund. This contestable fund, which is not a loan—and was only a billion dollars under the previous Government—is increasingly important for a city like Porirua, which has trouble with our infrastructure. We cannot build unless the pipes, the sewers, the water underneath, have good pipes to run through, and there’s a lot of repairs and maintenance that needs to be done. As a local member in Tītahi Bay, I see it weekly, where, unfortunately, there is sewage discharge into the beach. Our community is holding a public meeting about this next Monday at the surf club in order to hear from Wellington Water and Porirua City Council about what we’re going to do. I really encourage our local government to be able to bid for this contestable fund to help fix those pipes, to help us build more houses in Porirua City.

I want to go back to last week when, on Monday, I attended the opening of the last of those 53 homes in Castor Loop. I met there, a local mum called Toni, and I met her two kids, TJ and Hope. She said to me, “This place is like a village.” She used to watch the building of these new homes from above the hill, and she used to think, “It would be pretty cool to move into those homes.” She got one of those homes, and she said to me, “The place is like a village. The kids rule the roost around there. All the neighbourhood kids from those 53 homes pretty much rule the lane; so watch for cars that go through that particular part of Castor Loop.” She asked me for one request. She asked, “Could we please get a street sign up?” The name that the lane is being called is Ixion Lane, and so I asked Kāinga Ora in my speech at that opening, “Please put a street name up, because that street name signifies a new chapter. These are new homes for our people in Porirua. It is a new village and these are our homes and this is our community.”

Last but not least, I want to give a quick shout out to the member for Ōtaki, my new neighbour, Terisa Ngobi. We opened up our brand new Kāpiti office on Monday. So I’d like to thank the members of our caucus who came there to celebrate with us. And to our community of Kāpiti, thank you very much. We look forward to serving you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. A few weeks ago, the Climate Change Commission released its advice, a draft report, for the Government or the public to consider, and opened for submissions. They’ve since extended the closing date to 28 March, to their credit, as a result of a letter that came from quite a few stakeholders who said they needed more time. They needed more time because the commission have provided a number of recommendations—26, in fact—in their report that don’t have any costs associated with them, and those stakeholders said, “Well, we can’t make a full submission on this report unless we know what these policies that the commission is recommending cost, how much they are going to abate, and how much per tonne that will cost.”

But the report also covers the budgets through to 2035, the emissions budgets. That means that the emissions certificates under our emissions trading scheme (ETS) that we have—there are a certain amount of emissions certificates going to be available each year and the cap will decline all the way through to 2035 with the budgets in this report. That will set us up on our pathway to net zero by 2050. So the emissions trading scheme is actually going to get us there. Most people don’t even realise, when they are filling their car up with petrol or diesel, if they’ve got an internal combustion engine vehicle, or when they are filling up their gas bottle, or when they’re paying the gas bill to cover their cooking and their hot water, that part of that cost is covering the emissions certificates that those gas and fuel suppliers have paid for. It also will be a part of your electricity bill as well, especially now, because we are well on our way to burning over a million tonnes of imported coal this year, as the lake levels are low and the wind is not really blowing at the moment and we are running out of gas.

But these recommendations—including subsidising electric vehicles (EVs), including banning gas barbecues, including banning coal boilers—they all have a cost with them, but they will not reduce emissions by one gram of carbon dioxide. That is all taken care of with the ETS. So it’s essential that we have the numbers that back up those recommendations and what other implications they will have. Now, there may well be a very good reason why we would want to have an early EV policy. That would be a “feebate” or a subsidy to get more EVs into circulation in New Zealand. However, there is a slight problem with that. At the moment, there is a real supply shortage of EVs. There’s a lack of choice in terms of models that are available. As far as I know, there is no seven-seat EV available, and if you’ve got a large family that would be essential. So we need to know what’s driving that and actually what would happen with a “feebate” or a subsidy for new EVs. It’s middle-class welfare. The only people that will be buying new EVs will be people on high incomes. The only people buying near new—as those vehicles roll through to used vehicles—are people on high incomes. So I don’t see the point in that particular policy. We know we’re going to get to net zero, because there’s only so many emissions certificates available.

The Climate Change Commission really needs to answer a question: how do they think these policies that they are recommending are going to lower emissions if the ETS has already capped the emissions? And we know it has. So is there something they’re not telling us? I don’t know, but I think it’s very poor form if a body like the Climate Change Commission, who work for us—not the other way around—don’t give us all the information that they should.

Other policies included in it are more walking, more cycling, and more use of public transport. I don’t have any issue with any of those activities, but I don’t think the Government, in the end—and that’s what they’re recommending, that the Government bring rules in—should be telling me how much walking I should do, how much cycling I should do, whether I should use public transport or not. The ETS will send the price signals to me whether I choose to walk or cycle to work rather than drive a car. That is a public choice. It should be our individual choice, not a nanny State society where we are ruled by fiat from the Government saying you must walk to work on this day. I think carless days—I saw on the television before Parliament today, they referred to the carless days, looking back to the past. We don’t want to go back to that again. Do your job, Climate Change Commission. Release the numbers.

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call, the last call for this general debate, on housing, such an important issue across New Zealand not only for our Pacific whānau but for everyone included. I just have to look to my parents to get an example of what homeownership is all about, and the struggles of not having one. My parents migrated here from Samoa in the early 1980s. We settled in Ponsonby / Grey Lynn and we moved from house to house, and it was a struggle; my parents worked a few jobs while we were so young. I’m just so glad that in the 1980s, under the Labour Government, there was a housing scheme to help first-home buyers in terms of getting a loan to secure that. My parents were so blessed they were able to settle subsequently in South Auckland with their first home. So, when we talk about whānau trying to settle, we found it a struggle to try to settle, in terms of the early 1980s, when my parents did migrate here, and I’m so glad that we were able to settle in South Auckland.

I only look, when I try to localise this housing issue, into my own electorate of Takanini. The suburbs involved: we have Flat Bush; Mission Heights, in our northern end; moving down to Clover Park; Manurewa East; down to Conifer Grove; Wattle Downs; and Takanini itself. Look, our electorate is rapidly growing; it is one of the fastest-growing in New Zealand—an annual growth rate of 5 percent compared to the New Zealand average of 2.1 percent. Our population is young. A lot of our large families are there. We are ranked one of the first in terms of dwellings that have five or more bedrooms. That data will have changed since 2018, and we’re only seeing more of our families settling in the Takanini electorate. So having the announcements yesterday will definitely help in terms of our larger families—in my electorate, access for First Home Loans, for First Home Grants, and getting their first home secured. I look to the diverse nature of the population in my electorate. We not only have our large Pacific community, our large migrant community, our large multi-ethnic community—our Indian, our Asian, our South Asian communities that have settled in Takanini. And I can say that, from the multiple emails or social media platform messages that I get regarding the housing crisis, I’m sure that many of my constituents will be very happy in receiving the news yesterday.

I look at the multiple levers of the housing programme that have been announced, and I just want to look at again the first-home buyers like my mum and dad in the 1980s, in terms of getting those home grants and the home loan programmes. I look at the removing of the barriers holding up the building of new homes—the $3.8 billion housing acceleration fund that’s available for local councils and the private sector. I look to the many programmes in my electorate, where I look at the Ormiston Rise, Mahia Park, Murphy’s Park developments. These are areas that, again, due to the rapidly growing population, will have access to the infrastructure needed to build more homes in our electorate and make sure that the rapidly growing population will have secured their homes as well—in terms of incentivising investment in new builds, again looking at those programmes I’ve laid out.

I was privileged to go and see one of our training providers on the Takanini and Papakura border. It is called the Skills Update Training Institute, and it was great to meet up with Josh Levi, who is the general manager there. The team was so welcoming of my team coming across and seeing the multiple programmes that they provide and looking at their building, carpentry, and programmes that will help get our community members into apprenticeships. So those are the things that I’m pretty happy about that will make a real change in my community, not only providing those homes for our rapidly growing population but also the training provided to get our community members into good jobs that will secure their future. And that’s why I support the levers announced. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.