Twyford PhilNew Part 3 Amendment to Housing Corporation Act 1974PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I am really pleased to see this new Part 3. I think there is no doubt that this is going to significantly strengthen what is a flawed and disappointing bill based on the first two parts. Part 3 will really strengthen this bill. It is quite consistent with the goal of this bill which is housing affordability and particularly in this case an increase in the supply of housing.We made a number of criticisms in the first and second readings especially when the Hon Dr Nick Smith was in the chair about the limitations of the Government's policy of special housing areas. It has yielded very few new homes in the 3 years since the Government legislated the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Act. We have seen in Auckland—I think in 3 years—only 1300 new homes have been built in the special housing areas. It is highly debatable how many of those would not have been built if the Act had never been passed in the first place. At best we can say the special housing areas have perhaps brought forward some houses that would have been in the pipeline anyway.The other big defect of course in this whole policy approach is that it has resulted in very few affordable homes which after all is what people are so desperate for. We have seen in Auckland—Dr Smith was kind of pressured by Auckland Council and this Parliament into allowing a requirement for 10 percent of new dwellings in the special housing areas in Auckland to be required to be affordable. But we know also that in other parts of New Zealand where he negotiated housing accords he refused point-blank to allow a requirement for a certain percentage of affordable homes.The approach that we see set out in Part 3 of this bill is a whole different approach to tackling this problem and it recognises that we currently have a broken housing market. In fact—yesterday I think—Dr Smith Minister for Building and Housing acknowledged to Newshub I think it was that he was willing to concede that the Auckland housing market is out of control". After 8 years in Government and after 3½ years as housing Minister he has acknowledged not that there is a housing crisis but that the Auckland housing market is "out of control". One of the ways it is out of control is that it is not delivering any affordable houses. Only about 5 percent according to the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister—only 5 percent of the new homes that are being built are affordable.Part 3 of this bill which I will dub the "KiwiBuild" part of this bill would actually result in the construction of thousands and thousands of new high-quality affordable homes for first-home buyers. What this part does is it amends the Housing Corporation Act and says that the Minister for Building and Housing—for the moment let us assume that is the Hon Dr Nick Smith—must ensure that affordable housing is built—Grant Robertson: Not in about an hour.PHIL TWYFORD: —for the moment—that the Minister for Building and Housing must prepare a plan in consultation with the corporation for the delivery of 10000 affordable houses per year for first-home buyers. This is the first decent housing policy that we have been able to debate in this House for many a day. For years—how many years?Hon Members: Eight long years.PHIL TWYFORD: For 8 long years we have had to come to this House and debate one inadequate ad hoc piecemeal panicked housing policy after another. Finally hallelujah we get to debate a proper housing policy. It happens to be a housing policy that a majority of New Zealanders support according to the most recent opinion polls. I think it was about 60 percent of New Zealanders who said they wanted to see a Government-backed building programme to deliver large numbers of high-quality affordable homes for first-home buyers. So happy days. Our time has come."