Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust (Trust Variation) Bill

I move, That the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust (Trust Variation) Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider this bill.

It’s a pleasure for me to bring this bill to the House, and I want to acknowledge the constructive engagement and support that I’ve had prior to bringing this bill to the House from across the various parties that make up this Chamber, because this is precisely the practical, community-focused measure where Parliament is at its best and where we can work together.

I’d also like to acknowledge the tenants in our Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust—or ŌCHT, as you’ll hear me refer to it as we go through this first reading—the tenants that live across Christchurch and Banks Peninsula in our houses. I think what they’ve showed through their lives is what an exceptional model we can offer here. I’d also like to acknowledge the Christchurch City Council and to acknowledge the team at ŌCHT—to Cate, the chief executive, and to Darren, who heads the board, and their exceptional team of property managers who work tirelessly every day for the betterment of their tenants.

This is a modest bill in technical terms, but it has significant implications for communities right across Te Wai Pounamu, the South Island. Its core purpose is exceptionally simple. It’s to remove an outdated geographical restriction in the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust founding deed so that a proven high-performing community housing provider can respond to housing needs beyond Christchurch and Banks Peninsula while keeping those communities as their primary focus of work.

ŌCHT was established by the Christchurch City Council in 2016 to manage the council’s community housing portfolio and to help address housing supply and affordability challenges in our city. Since then, it’s become one of the largest non-governmental providers of community and affordable housing in the South Island, with a strong track record of building and managing quality homes.

ŌCHT exists to bridge the affordability gap that the private markets cannot reliably fill, whether this is in ownership or in rentals. It provides social and affordable rental housing for people at different stages of their life and at different points on the housing continuum, from those with the highest housing need right through to low-income working households who are struggling to get by in the private market. In doing so, it delivers exactly the kind of integrated housing response we say that we want to see more of across this House, a system that stabilises people, supports our families, and strengthens our neighbourhoods and our communities.

Over recent years, demand for ŌCHT’s model has grown beyond the Christchurch boundary. When I was Minister of Housing, I had a delegation of South Island or largely Canterbury mayors who came to see me, and Mayor Phil Mauger demanded to know why it was that they could not expand this model beyond Christchurch City and Banks Peninsula. I reminded the mayor it was his trustee and that it was within his purview to fix that—and that is exactly what we’re here doing today. It’s a great delight to be able to see this work through and to bring this bill as a local bill in order for us to make this change so we can expand this model beyond the boundaries of Christchurch City and Banks Peninsula.

Local councils outside of this area have explicitly asked ŌCHT to help provide and manage affordable housing solutions in their areas. The Greater Christchurch Partnerships Joint Housing Action Plan identified the need to expand the model to serve the city’s regional neighbours, and Christchurch City Council has voted to back this move. I want to congratulate the council on that.

The trust’s current deed has a clause that limits its work to this area, and the deed’s own amendment provisions prevent changing that core purpose, and that’s why we’re here in the House with a piece of legislation. Legal advice is clear that neither a standard deed variation nor an application to the High Court is likely to succeed in varying the trust’s purpose to expand its operating area. In other words, the object of this bill cannot be achieved other than by this bill, and this is why we are here.

Its purpose is to vary that trustee so it can expand. It does this by replacing the key purpose and geography clauses so that the trust can provide social and affordable rental housing and associated services in Christchurch, Banks Peninsula, and in “other areas as determined from time to time by the trustees”. It gives the trustees the ability to expand beyond that geographical boundary. In doing so, it also updates relevant provisions including definitions, the wording of the board appointment panel clause, and the winding up clause so they align with the expanded geography, including ensuring that if the trust was ever wound up, remaining assets would go to organisations in any area where the trust had provided that service.

This is a pragmatic enabling bill. It does not change the trust’s charitable purpose, its governance model, or its accountability to its founding community—the people of Christchurch and Banks Peninsula. It does not create a new entity or, in itself, alter funding arrangements. Its job is simple but critical: to take the legislative padlock off the gate so that a strong community-owned organisation can respond to the housing need that councils and communities up and down the South Island are asking for.

I do, again, want to acknowledge Cate Kearney, the chief executive of Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust, and the trust chair, Darren Evans, for the clear strategic way they have set out the case for this bill. In explaining why this change is needed, Ms Kearney said that when the bill is passed, it will unlock the potential to help many more communities tackle the affordable housing challenge while strengthening our core operation here in Christchurch. Darren Evans, the trust board’s chair, said the bill offers a practical way to address the urgent housing needs in other regions while ensuring ŌCHT grows as a strong asset for Christchurch. These are critical things for us to realise, that this can be a win-win for Christchurch and the South Island. Not only will the South Island get an excellent social housing provider providing a range of options but it will strengthen ŌCHT’s operations within the Christchurch area.

These are the voices of the people on the ground doing the work. They’re telling us why this legislative change is needed, because the ŌCHT neighbourhoods are microcosms of all of our communities. They include older people living on fixed incomes, and young families starting out, key workers and apprentices, people between jobs, many New Zealanders, new New Zealanders and long-time residents who have been part of their suburbs for decades. They include essential workers such as healthcare assistants, retail staff, cleaners, and hospitality workers—the people that make our communities run.

One of the things that we have seen ŌCHT do over the period of time of the last few years is it has been very willing to innovate. In Government, Labour was proud of the thousands of new houses that we introduced—around half of them were introduced by our community housing providers, and ŌCHT was a critical partner we had. Many thousands were added to the stock over our six years in Government—not only were they all income-related rent subsidy homes but we also had innovations like affordable rentals. We saw ŌCHT move into the progressive homeownership space. We’ve just had some of these hit the market in Christchurch. To see different ways in which people can access homeownership has been hugely encouraging.

I want to see this innovation not only up and down the South Island—although I do occasionally wear an eye patch and can be a little parochial when it comes to that—but across the country. I think we do need to see what ŌCHT can do when the padlock to the gate is removed and we can see the move beyond Ōtautahi in Banks Peninsula.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

I rise on behalf of National very much in support of the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust (Trust Variation) Bill at this first reading. It goes without saying that when Dr Megan Woods’ email landed in my inbox asking for our caucus to support this bill, it was an absolute no-brainer, so I acknowledge the member for her advocacy of this.

It is a focused and enabling piece of legislation, which is what we like to see. It’s not a bill that creates a new policy framework, and nor does it attempt to redesign the housing system. Instead, it’s making that targeted change that the member spoke about to remove that geographic restriction that’s been held in place for 10 years, and it no longer reflects the reality of that burgeoning housing need in Canterbury and, indeed, across the South Island.

The Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust was established by the Christchurch City Council in 2016 to manage its own community housing portfolio and to address the affordability challenges that had emerged around Christchurch and Banks Peninsula following the 2011 earthquakes sequence of events. At that time, I actually worked for Sir Bill English, who was not only the finance Minister but also held the social housing portfolio. I distinctly remember the meetings with the council and his ardent support for the transfer of these assets to a community housing provider, which he has always said and always maintained—and thus has proven to be true—are far, far better managers of social housing than a Government department.

Here we are, 10 years later. We’ve seen this trust develop into a mature, well-governed, and financially robust organisation. I’ve actually, as a local MP, engaged a number of times with the trust over the years, given as much as I am the MP for Selwyn. There are parts of Selwyn which border Christchurch City Council, particularly in Yaldhurst and Templeton, and I’ve always found the management of the trust and the way they treat their people, their clients, has been absolutely class A.

It is now the largest provider of community and affordable housing across the South Island, as has already been acknowledged, and they do manage thousands of homes and support thousands of tenants and they do, as I just said, with real care and real conviction. It has demonstrated that it can deliver its scale, manage its assets responsibly, and partner effectively with local government as well, which is also key to its success. That is why I think other communities have begun to ask whether or not that particular expertise can be applied beyond the current boundary.

We know that that housing pressure doesn’t stop just at council arbitrary boundaries or borders. In recent years, those districts neighbouring Christchurch in particular—as I said, in my patch in Selwyn and Matt Doocey country up in the Waimak—they have experienced massive population growth. The MP for Selwyn will always tell you that Selwyn is one of the fastest-growing districts in the country. As we know, while growth does bring opportunity, it does bring pressure on infrastructure and services, and particularly housing supply.

It is, of course—goes without saying—in those fast-growing communities, we do on occasion, and increasingly so, see households that fall through the gaps. They may be working families, they may be older people, they may be individuals on modest incomes who can, at times, earn too much to qualify for the traditional social housing, but not enough to compete in that increasingly tight and expensive private rental market. These are challenges that councils alone cannot address by themselves. At present, Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust is prevented by its deed from operating outside of the Christchurch and Banks Peninsula boundary. That restriction can only be removed by an Act of Parliament, and this bill does exactly that.

It’s really important, I think, also to outline what the bill does not do. I think they’re really positive in just saying that it doesn’t require the trust to expand, it doesn’t mandate projects in any particular district, it doesn’t redirect funding away from Christchurch, and it doesn’t dilute the trust’s core mission. Any further expansion will obviously be undertaken carefully in partnership with the local councils and their communities and in a way that protects the trust’s commitments to its home city. The trust itself has been very clear that its focus on Christchurch will not be weakened and will not deviate.

From the Government’s perspective, it’s a bill that fits very much with our own approach to housing. We’ve been clear that tackling housing need across the country is going to require a mixed delivery model. Whilst Kāinga Ora plays a critical role, it cannot and should not be the only provider of housing. Experienced community housing providers—also colloquially known as CHPs—are essential partners, particularly where they have strong local connections and proven governance and the ability to deliver effectively, like Ōtautahi Community Housing has proven. The Government’s new Housing Investment Plan makes it clear that community housing providers and CHPs will play a central role in delivering both social housing and affordable rental homes under this new framework. It also makes clear that providers who can demonstrate capability and scale and sound governance will be well placed to contribute.

Alongside that, we’ve taken steps to strengthen the CHP sector itself, and that includes clear and more consistent funding settings, improved operating support, and better access to finances, all for the public benefits. The aim of those changes is straightforward, and it gives providers the confidence and certainty that they need to plan and invest and deliver homes more quickly and more efficiently to those that need it. This bill, of course, complements the wider programme by removing the unnecessary legislative barriers that we’ve all outlined already today. It allows this particular proven provider to respond where communities are asking for support, and without forcing outcomes or pre-empting local decision-making. It’s also avoiding duplication: rather than each district having to establish new structures from scratch, this bill will actually enable them the possibility of sharing expertise and achieving economies of scale, and, of course, therefore delivering better value for money.

I, like the previous speaker, the Hon Dr Megan Woods, also want to acknowledge that this proposal has been supported widely locally. It’s emerged through the Greater Christchurch Partnership and has the backing of Christchurch City Council, which will remain as the trust’s key strategic partner. Therefore, that gives a lot of confidence to us that the changes proposed in this bill will be responsible, deliberate, and well governed. It’s a really tightly drafted bill; it’s appropriately limited; it amends the trust’s charitable purpose only to the extent necessary to remove that geographic restriction; it doesn’t alter the trust’s not-for-profit status or its accountability arrangements.

We all know that housing affordability is a complex challenge. There is no single solution, and no one sector can solve it alone. Whilst this bill is not necessarily the silver bullet, it is a very sensible and enabling step. It allows the successful model that we’ve seen for the last 10 years to be applied more widely, where communities are asking for it, to support those people in need of supported and permanent housing in Canterbury. For those reasons, I’m really pleased to be able to support the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust (Trust Variation) Bill at its first reading, and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Greens to support this bill. I commend the Hon Megan Woods for bringing this really important issue to the halls of power. Everyone in Aotearoa deserves to have access to safe, warm, and affordable homes. Supporting community housing organisations like the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust is one of the ways we can meet the gaps that leave people living in cars, tents, and under bridges.

Housing security is a huge issue in Aotearoa. We know that the rates of homelessness are getting worse, and many whānau face housing insecurity. The decisions of this Government are making things worse. That’s why we need to empower our communities and organisations to create the housing solutions that we need—because we can’t rely on Luxon’s Government to take the housing crisis seriously. At a time when so many are needing community-focused housing, this bill is a welcome move. It means more housing across Canterbury being built, with the wants and needs of our communities in mind. Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust is a not-for-profit, and Christchurch’s largest community and affordable housing provider. Thank you to the crew, past and present, at the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust for your care, manaaki, and practical solutions that meet the needs of our communities.

This bill is a simple change to the trust deed to allow the trust to provide social and affordable housing beyond just Christchurch and Banks Peninsula. It’s important that the trust works in collaboration with community housing providers already in these expanded areas. Luxon’s Government has cut 212 Kāinga Ora developments this term, including in Canterbury. In Christchurch, the Holy Trinity Church saw a need and filled a gap left by cruel Government decisions. The church welcomed homeless community members to live in their parking lot. They were in tents, sheds, and cars, and had access to some services. Last year, the Christchurch City Council kicked them out without anywhere for them to go—so it’s really good to see that the council is involved in housing solutions for community members.

I visited some of the homeless community who were kicked off the church land by the council. They have set up again in other areas of Christchurch, and they support each other and keep each other safe. The Christchurch City Mission, and other community housing supporters like Housing First, have said that law changes—especially to emergency housing—are making it harder for people to access the support they need so they’re not left out in the cold.

Our Christchurch community cares about each other. We are seeing this right now through the state of emergency, with neighbours checking on each other and mucking in on the ground. Please, everybody in Christchurch, find that up-to-date advice on official Christchurch City Council sites.

The Green Party supports this bill, and we say thank you again to the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust and we look forward to hearing success stories about our community members in warm, safe, dry homes.

Thank you. The ACT Party supports this bill, and commends the member the Hon Megan Woods for bringing this legislation to the House.

Just to set out the purpose of the legislation, it amends the trust deed of the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust to allow it to provide affordable social rental housing and services outside of Christchurch and Banks Peninsula, where its current trust deed limits it to operate. It will enable the trust to operate nationally, rather than being confined, subject to its existing governance and finance arrangements. Why is this important? Well, the taxpayer spends about $5 billion a year on housing and housing support for New Zealanders; it spends over $2 billion on Kāinga Ora, and another $2 billion or more through the accommodation supplement to people who qualify. It turns out that despite successive Governments’ best efforts to channel $4 billion to $5 billion through the State to house people, actually, Governments can’t solve all these problems, because they’re not close enough to the people and communities where housing is needed and those important support services are needed. The ACT Party firmly believes in devolving decision making and funding to those closest to the problem. That is something that is in the core of ACT’s DNA.

Major areas of change that this legislation will introduce are to amend the trust deed to remove geographic restrictions, as I mentioned, and expand the trust’s housing model in line with the Greater Christchurch Partnership’s Joint Housing Action Plan. This amendment does not alter the trust’s charitable purpose beyond its scope, and Christchurch City Council’s approval has been sought and obtained for this material change, consistent with existing financing arrangements. Expansion of the trust’s services and delivery is intended to improve its financial resilience by diversifying income sources—because greater scale is needed to deliver economies of scale in providing housing for people in need, by spreading administrative and management costs across a larger housing portfolio. Any operational growth outside Christchurch is intended to strengthen, rather than dilute, outcomes for Christchurch residents who currently participate in the trust’s activities.

Now, all of this is important, but there’s something going on behind this. For decades and decades, the Resource Management Act and other legislation has artificially created scarcity in the price of land, made it too hard to plan and zone for development, and made it too expensive and difficult to consent and connect the infrastructure to service land. This means that many people are experiencing housing hardship and household costs being far too great when it comes to paying rent or servicing a mortgage simply because the regulatory system, the planning system, has said, “We all want you to live in cities. We want to make it hard to develop new land, even though it might be a paddock growing nothing but rusting farm machinery and thistles. Couldn’t possibly allow people to live there when they should really be living close to a bus stop.”

All of these ideological constraints have been manifested through the resource management system, leading to New Zealanders in places like Auckland facing the cost of buying a home roughly 10 times greater than their annual salary. Housing affordability is not just an issue for people who earn low incomes. Even in our biggest cities, it can be a problem for people on good incomes, on two incomes, who rightly feel that they should be able to get on to the housing ladder, actually bank some wins in terms of building an asset base, and create equity in a home.

Now, this bill will go a long way towards providing support and services for people in immediate need, but the long-term fix is replacing the Resource Management Act with a system based on property rights that makes it easy to build, easy to deliver infrastructure, and, ultimately, will make generations of Kiwis much, much wealthier. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support this bill. I want to start by congratulating Megan Woods, congratulating the Christchurch City Council, and congratulating the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust, or ŌCHT, for the bill which we’ve got in front of us.

I also want to say congratulations to ŌCHT for the great work that they do. They were set up in 2017. It’s quite an extensive process to get to that point. I think you can see from the process that they went through that it has a very, very strong community and service ethos. The Trustee Appointments Committee—right back in those days—shows that. That’s included the Rata Foundation, the Methodist Mission, the Canterbury District Health Board, and Age Concern Canterbury. The trustees are a mix of independent trustees and city councillor trustees. It started as four and three; it’s now six and three. As you heard, Darren Evans is the trust chair and Cate Kearney has been the chief executive throughout the entire journey. I think that, together, they and their team do an absolutely fantastic job.

So what’s the job that they do? They build, they maintain, and they manage a large and growing portfolio of safe, warm, dry homes for people on low incomes. It is, I think, now the biggest portfolio of houses, outside of Kāinga Ora in the country; certainly in the South Island. By 2023, they had built enough homes to replace all of those that they had lost in the Canterbury earthquakes, and of course, they are still going. They provide support services for tenants who need them, and their occupancy, according to the latest annual report, is running at over 98 percent. That’s pretty impressive. They also provide a pathway to homeownership through a progressive homeownership scheme, so I think this is a really great operation. They also provide integrated communities. Financially, with Government support—obviously the accommodation supplement and income-related rent subsidy are critical; it more than washes its own face. It made almost a $6 million surplus last year.

Christchurch and Wellington have the largest social housing portfolios in New Zealand outside of Kāinga Ora. When I was the Mayor of Wellington, we recognised that we had a problem with our portfolio, that financially it was basically going into an abyss and we had to do something about it. Previous administrations hadn’t done that. One of the organisations that we spoke to to get their experience and their knowledge was ŌCHT, because they had a lot of experience which really helped us on the journey that we needed to make.

It was also great to work there with Megan Woods as the Minister of Housing, to start that journey for Wellington City in establishing its own housing trust and to start digging itself out of a very, very large hole. I also met with ŌCHT as an MP, and as the New Zealand First housing spokesperson, and they were very, very clear in their desire to expand their geographical remit. That was about 18 months ago, so they’ve been on this journey for a little while. I also met with the Selwyn District Council a couple of times and they noted that they didn’t actually have any Kāinga Ora houses in their entire district—or virtually none, I think is the case. I’m getting a nod there from the local member. They had no houses in their district at all, and they said, “Well, hang on, you need to look after us as well.” I did point out to them that trying to evict the good folks from the Upper Selwyn Huts at the same time, many of whom would have then ended up on the social housing register, wasn’t the smartest move. They kind of realised that a little bit late in the piece. That council’s definitely changed since those times a few months ago.

I want to congratulate also the Mayor of Christchurch, Phil Mauger, the Christchurch City Council, and also its neighbours Selwyn and Waimakariri for the way they’ve been working together in the Greater Christchurch Partnership. That’s both on transport and on urban development, and housing is obviously a very, very important part of that.

One of the things they did say specifically was they wanted to investigate the ability to extend ŌCHT’s remit beyond Christchurch City and the Banks Peninsula. That is exactly what this bill is doing. When I met with ŌCHT, I also noted that they said they had—and this was 18 months or so ago—approaches from the likes of Ashburton and the West Coast, saying, “Please can you come and help us and provide social housing in this area?”. This bill will enable that and I think that is a great thing to do.

Look, if I can just finish off by saying that they certainly signalled in their annual report in 2025—this is very, very clear—that this is exactly the pathway that they wanted to go down. They were reaching out to Government—so this is what we’re seeing in front of us at the moment—so that they can deliver the fantastic service that they’re delivering at the moment for the people of Christchurch, which includes, now, the Banks Peninsula, and that they can deliver that in a much wider rohe, potentially across the South Island. That is a fantastic thing. It’s common sense, and New Zealand First is delighted to support this bill.

E tū ana ahau, mema Pāremata o Te Tai Tonga, ki te tautoko i te pire nei. Me te mihi tonu ki a Megan, nāna tēnei pire i hāpai ki te Whare.

[I stand as the member of Parliament for Te Tai Tonga, to support this bill and to acknowledge Megan, who has brought this bill to the House.]

The Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust is the largest provider of community and affordable housing into Te Wai Pounamu. That’s not a title; that’s a track record of houses built and whānau housed. Today, this House, our Whare here, faces the simple question of will we back them or not?

Hon Member: Absolutely.

TĀKUTA FERRIS: And yeah, it sounds like we absolutely will.

We were fortunate enough to spend some time down there last year with general manager Bob Hardie. He took us through all of their operations and it is truly quite a significant and well-run organisation. So, to Matua Bob and the team, tēnā koe.

At the 2023 census, over 100,000 people were living in severe housing deprivation. That trend is moving in the wrong direction, unfortunately, with negative impacts compounding year after year. Affordability has slipped beyond the reach of thousands of people, and when incomes cannot keep pace with rents, the inevitable burden and shortfall lands with community providers like the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust. We owe them a debt of gratitude. For three decades, we’ve not built enough homes in the right places at achievable price points. Regional supply gaps have accumulated, particularly where population growth has been the strongest. Expanding the trust is how Ōtautahi closes that gap faster, and it also provides opportunity for the rest of Te Wai Pounamu.

The bill removes the outdated geographic handbrake that has confined the trust to Ōtautahi and Banks Peninsula alone—and to all of our whānau who were affected by the floods recently in those locations: e mihi ana, e mihi ana [I acknowledge you.]

Housing need does not stop at a boundary line on a map, and neither should good, proven solutions. We know Māori are overrepresented in housing hardship. Many of our people live on the edges of Ōtautahi and Banks Peninsula, in areas where growth is outpacing supply. It reflects where whānau experiencing housing hardship actually are.

This proposal did not appear overnight. It grew from the Greater Christchurch Partnership, including mana whenua, because durable solutions are built with communities in mind, not imposed on them. Smaller regions often lack the workforce, the capital, the organisational structure, and the scale to deliver housing at pace. The trust has this capability in droves, and if we delay the expansion, we create bottlenecks, we slow construction, and we leave whānau waiting. This bill enables partnership with iwi and hapū in new regions, and that will enable many opportunities for many iwi around Te Wai Pounamu who have set out on papa kāinga development, much like Ngāti Huia, who only next week will open their latest papa kāinga development.

So we completely support the bill. The bill enables partnership with iwi and hapū. As I’ve said, it enables housing to be shaped by kaupapa Māori and centred on whānau wellbeing, not just on balance sheet. This is how true intergenerational stability is created.

The Greater Christchurch Partnership Joint Housing Action Plan identified expansion of the trust as a priority. This bill turns that strategy into action. It operationalises a regionally backed, iwi-inclusive solution. That’s what smart Government should do and should look like. Community-based providers have proven they can build, manage, and sustain housing and housing development, so let’s back them and make sure that the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust gets the resources that it needs.

It is true to say that the answers are already in the communities. So all we need to do, e te Whare, is back them, fund them, trust them, get out of their way, and watch them deliver.

Nō reira, ki ngā whānau ki roto o Ōtautahi: tēnā koutou. Kei te Pika, tēnā koe. Huri noa, tēnā tātou.

[Therefore, to the families in Christchurch: I acknowledge you. Mr Speaker, I acknowledge you. To all those here, I acknowledge you all.]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a good bill—a relatively simple one, so I won’t spend too much time on it. But I will, if I may, just reminisce, because I like to think that I had a small part to play in the creation of the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust. I think it was in 2015 when I and a team of other socially conscious lawyers sued the Christchurch City Council for not consulting on rent increases for its housing portfolio. What it demonstrated was that the politicisation of social housing was a bad idea. Having different councils coming and going, as Andy Foster said earlier, wasn’t good for the maintenance of the houses, wasn’t good for ensuring that rents remained affordable, and wasn’t good for the people who occupied those houses or, indeed, the people of Christchurch.

So in its wisdom—and it was a good move—the city council placed its entire social housing portfolio into the management of the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust. That’s, essentially, the legacy issue that the trust created, because it was a city council asset that was placed into the trust. It kind of was a very sensible thing to say that if we’re placing our assets into this housing trust, then it’s to be used for the benefit of the people of Christchurch, including Banks Peninsula, that owned that asset. That was the right thing to do at the time, but, in fact, homelessness and housing affordability do not recognise municipal boundaries. As is well put in the select committee report, there are advantages to be gained in terms of scale and just in terms of opportunities for making people’s lives better by expanding that in appropriate circumstances.

So this is just an evolution of something I like to think I started, but at least had a bit of a role to play in in making housing solutions, particularly for the people of Canterbury, better. I absolutely endorse this bill. Congratulations to the member for promoting it, and I hope we’ll see it through this House as soon as possible.

Excellent. Before I start talking on this bill, I do just want to take a moment to acknowledge the flooding that has gone on in Christchurch and particularly Banks Peninsula. Although the rain has gone, there’s still massive amounts of water around, and it’s impacting those around the Heathcote River, around Little River, and also Akaroa. I do just want to wish my colleague Mark Mitchell, the Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery, and my colleague Dr Vanessa Weenink, the local MP, very well. They’re there to do their utmost to support those communities that are affected.

I also want to take this time to actually thank the team at the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust, specifically the hard-working chief executive, but also the 55 other staff who help provide housing across the city. You all do an amazing job and should be proud of the work that you do and you have done in the past.

With that said, I do rise to speak in strong support of the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust (Trust Variation) Bill. It’s great to be able to stand in this House, and I think we’ve had support from every party represented in this House. This is a straightforward piece of legislation, but it is a very important piece, because it empowers one of the most successful housing providers to do what they do best: provide quality affordable housing to those who need it the most.

The Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust has already proven its value as one of the largest providers of community and affordable housing in the South Island. This bill ensures that their expertise is no longer restricted by outdated geographical boundaries. I will just also point out this stops the need for needless duplication for other community housing providers to have to be stood up in those very close-by surrounds of Selwyn and the Waimakariri.

To understand why this bill is necessary, we must look at where the trust has actually come from and how it was formed. Of course, we’ve heard that it was established back in 2016—so 10 years ago. The trust was designed to manage the social housing and the Christchurch City Council’s housing portfolio to address the issues of supply and affordability of housing. Of course, since then, Banks Peninsula was added to that, but it has become a central part of our social housing in Christchurch. I have had many great interactions with the team as we’ve helped some of our local residents into housing.

It is a registered charity, providing clean, warm houses. It has a clear charitable purpose, ensuring that surpluses are reinvested back into the community. Because of that success, we’re now in a position where that trust model can be spread out, not just for Christchurch but for a greater regional solution.

The core purpose of this bill is to amend the deed trust. It’s not overly complicated, but it has restricted the trust area of operations to the limits of Christchurch and Banks Peninsula. We’re not standing here today on a whim. It is in direct response to the Greater Christchurch Partnership’s Joint Housing Action Plan, which was adopted in December 2023. This partnership includes the Christchurch City Council, Selwyn, and the Waimakariri District Councils. It’s identified a clear need to expand the trust’s successful model.

I do just want to acknowledge that some of the most popular mayors in New Zealand do come from that area. That, of course, is Phil Mauger, Dan Gordon, and Lydia Gliddon. So I do just want to thank them for the work and leadership they do in Christchurch, Selwyn, and the Waimakariri.

We have seen rapid growth in the areas. After the earthquake, of course, Christchurch has gone through a rebuild and we have opened up land for housing in the Waimakariri and Selwyn, and that has had a great effect on the local region. But, unfortunately, there is going to be demand for community housing with that population growth.

So, simply, beyond just building more houses, this expansion makes strategic and financial sense. It extends the operations of the trust. They will be able to achieve economies of scale, diversify their revenue streams, and enhance the overall trust’s financial sustainability, which is good for the trust, it’s good for the tenants, and ultimately good for all of New Zealand.

So, therefore, I commend this bill to the House. I look forward to it being passed. This is the only way in which we can fix this problem. By doing so, we can actually extend the trust’s good work, not just to the boundaries of Christchurch but to the surrounding areas and beyond.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s great to have an opportunity to stand and speak in support of this bill as well. It’s been good to hear so much support for this bill and what it will enable the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust to do.

Now, we know that they are the South Island’s biggest non-Government community and affordable housing provider, maintaining more than 2,400 homes and serving more than 2,700 community and affordable housing tenants across Christchurch and Banks Peninsula. As a number of members have in their contributions, I did also want to acknowledge the adverse weather that Christchurch and Banks Peninsula have experienced over the last couple of days, and hoping that as that weather eases, so the recovery can start to take place for those people as well.

Now, since 2017, the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust has returned more than $136 million in lease payments and about $29 million in annual operating surpluses to the Christchurch City Council. So, on behalf of the council, Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust has invested more than $55 million improving council-owned units, and more than $70 million of its own capital into more than 360 new homes. These are very important for us to have in Christchurch, where I’m lucky enough to be the member of Parliament for Christchurch East. We have a number of Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust properties, and the work that they do in our community to provide warm, dry homes for tenants and members of our community cannot be underestimated.

Now, we also know that we’re facing severe homelessness issues across New Zealand and we see these, particularly, in Christchurch East. I’ve spoken in other speeches that I’ve made in the House recently about some of the issues we’ve seen with people moving back into parts of the Bexley Red Zone, an area that was deemed to be unfit for people to live in post the Christchurch earthquake and now has people living in tents and cars and vans. We’ve also seen people moving into doorways of New Brighton and also Hampshire Street. Just this week, I spoke with a parent who—on their own, with six children—was moving into a tent in a friend’s backyard in Christchurch East, because there simply wasn’t a home available for them and their children.

We really ought to be doing everything we can in this House to work constructively together to find solutions to address the very real homelessness challenges that we see, because I know that these situations exist beyond Christchurch East, beyond Christchurch, and beyond Canterbury. They exist around the country, and that’s why the opportunity to bring the experience, the expertise, and the capability of the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust into action to solve these issues is so important. I want to acknowledge my colleague Dr Duncan Webb, who in his contribution alluded to the role he had played in the important conversation around community housing in Christchurch, and also to my colleague the Hon Dr Megan Woods. It’s our duty to do all we can to address homelessness. This goes some way to addressing that.

Ah, that renowned Cantabrian Tim Costley stands up! The honourable Cam Brewer just accused me of thinking that Canterbury was the name of a sporting brand, but I have heard of it. In fact, my father is a Cantabrian and he would love to know I’m speaking on this bill.

Of course, this bill will, no doubt, end up in the Governance and Administration Committee, and we’ve received a number of local bills over this term of Parliament. I think many—including Mr Brewer—will be thinking of the Allan McLean trust variation bill, which was another trust from Canterbury that provided housing, and it’s been well traversed in this House. I don’t want to use up too much of the House’s time to go over that one again, but we all remember those stories.

I guess one of the questions that a bill like this raises, notwithstanding the great work that the trust does, is: do we need to keep using up the House’s time to go over these bills and these variations that maybe could have been handled in another way when there are other great bills that we’re waiting for? I think of the Modern Slavery Bill in the name of Greg Fleming; I think of the life jacket bill that Cameron Brewer is promoting, to see people wearing life jackets—saves lives in our water. There are some great bills coming through the biscuit tin, the tin where every non-executive member can put in their one idea and it gets drawn out. There are some great bills on the Order Paper, and yet we stand here doing this. This is not to say that this is not a good bill, that this is not a good thing to be doing—in fact, I would say it’s a great thing to be doing. It demonstrates that the Government doesn’t have to hold the answer to every problem that we face.

It is great to see a local charitable trust set up by a council that is providing housing for almost 3,000 people; 2,400 long-term sustainable rentals in Canterbury. It’s a great model, and it shows us that the Government doesn’t have to—yes, we’re building more houses; yes, we’re making it cheaper and easier and faster to build houses, we’re speeding up consents, we’re getting more building products. But, actually, there is a community responsibility, a community approach, to tackling a lot of these issues, and it’s great to see that. But the question continues to be raised—and I will ask as we work through the select committee process: can we fine-tune this so that we don’t have to keep coming back?

This is not the first time in the 10 years that this trust has existed that we’ve had to come to Parliament. They wanted to clarify, the first time, that Banks Peninsula is part of Christchurch. Now, we’re saying that it is broader areas. I like the fact that, in Part 1, it uses the phrase “other areas determined from time to time by the trustees”. We’re not just saying, “Well, it’s Matt Doocey territory, it’s down in Rangiora.”, or “It’s Nicola Grigg and James Meager territory, as you work your way South.”, but, in fact, we are putting the onus on the trustees. Well, if we trust them to make these decisions, why wouldn’t we trust them all the time? Do we need to have this bound in an Act of Parliament rather than trusting the trustees to do what they have been put there to do?

I always think we’re better to write—and this was the advice I had when we set up the Missing Wingman Trust, which is the charity that supports air force families when someone’s killed, injured, wounded, or ill—but the advice that Mark Sinclair gave us, a great lawyer in Palmerston North, he said, “Make the deed broad, and then pick good trustees and trust them to make good decisions.” I just think we should be looking at those kinds of issues as we continue to come up against these. We just had the Auckland Future Fund: because of the supermajority in that bill, they needed an Act of Parliament to set it at a 75 percent majority; otherwise, by law, it would be only two-thirds. We had the “Takapuna Ice Cream Bill”—it had a more technical name, but, effectively, it allowed them just to make a small amount of commercial money to upkeep a building at the Takapuna Boating Club. But, again, we just keep coming back to Parliament, using up this time. So I think it’s a fair question.

The other question I’d like to ask—I don’t want to drill into the nitty-gritty: everyone’s talked about what a great thing this trust is; let’s take that as read. But I just noticed in Part 4, which is the replacement clause for 25.2, it says that the assets of this trust, if the trust is wound up, can be given not just to Christchurch and Banks Peninsula but any other areas for which the trust provides services. I think that Cantabrians, represented by people like Hamish Campbell and Vanessa Weenink, would want to know that if the majority of assets are held in Christchurch—which it says it will be: the majority of assets will be held within Christchurch; that’s where all the houses will be—shouldn’t the majority of assets, if they were at one point in time funded by ratepayers, be going back to that area? Have we got the right settings in place to provide some surety—some assurance to ratepayers and to anyone involved with the trust—that they will be returned, in that case, back to the right place?

So I think there’s a couple of questions. I broadly support it; I think there’s some work to do in select committee, but I commend this bill to the House.

I’d like to thank colleagues across the House for the contribution they’ve given and for the broad support we’ve got for this issue. It’s much appreciated.

I think a number of issues have come up in the course of this debate that will be useful when we go to select committee to tease out. I think that one of the things that we’ve heard is the appreciation across the House that people hold the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust in, and the long history that many members have with it. Duncan Webb, I can beat you: in 2007, 2008, I organised carloads of tenants down to the council chamber to protest about council rate rises. I think, in Christchurch, we were the first city in the country to have social housing; in the 1930s, it was our city that pioneered councils providing social housing. It’s something that we hold dear to, and it is critical to who we are as a city.

I think the question that we had raised in the last speaker’s contribution about “Are there other ways to do this?” is a fair question. I would like to point out, and really congratulate the trust on—this was their last-resort measure. They wanted to find a way to amend their trust deed through other ways. They sought legal advice. Their advice was that going through the High Court or seeking to amend it in other ways wasn’t a goer, and this was their only option. But I think it’s something that should be drawn out at select committee.

The question around assets and where they go—believe me, wanting to make sure the citizens of Christchurch are well served was top of mind when putting this in place. The purpose of that clause in the bill is that, for example, if social housing is built in Ashburton or Timaru or in Rangiora, and then the trust winds up, those assets wouldn’t then revert to the ownership of Christchurch City Council; they instead would revert to ownership in the communities in which those assets rest. Making sure we’ve got that watertight and making sure that, where assets belong to a community, if, for some reason, the trust was wound up, they would stay in the community for which they’ve intended, is the intent of that clause—to ensure that that is the case. And we nearly got there; we nearly got there in the spirit of bipartisanship.

I do have to point out that, against any claims that this bill is evidence that we don’t need central government in terms of the provision of social housing, in our time in Government, more community housing provider houses were built than in any point in history. It is not either/or; it’s and. It’s about Kāinga Ora and working with the community housing sector. If we’re going to solve a housing crisis, we have to do that. We have to put in place provisions so that we can have innovations like we’ve seen. We’ve put in place the upfront funding and the long-term contracting to give the ability for these organisations to leverage their balance sheet. This is the kind of innovation that we want to see continue, that we want to make sure endures, and that we want to see spread across the South Island. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

Referral to Select Committee