Delahunty Catherine: Infrastructure Bill — In Committee 
Delahunty Catherine: Infrastructure Bill — In Committee 
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CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Chairperson. Tena koutou katoa. I rise on behalf of the Greens to support the Labour Party’s call for a review of Part 4 of the Infrastructure Bill. We are supporting the bill but we are really disturbed at this attack on affordable housing. It is absolutely essential that we do something about the housing crisis in this country at every opportunity. This is a retrogressive part of what would otherwise be a reasonable bill. 
I agree with previous speakers who said that infrastructure which is a wonderful word must be about something as basic as a roof over one’s head. We are very deeply concerned about the repeal of an optional mechanism for local authorities that could have been a real incentive for change. Some local authorities have taken housing seriously in the past and some of them really have not. We need to encourage and facilitate through legislation that kind of change. 
I lived on the East Coast Tai Rawhiti for 8 years before I moved to Hauraki. I and a former member of this House Sue Bradford who everyone knows was very concerned about poverty visited a number of housing activists in communities such as Tokomaru Bay and other places on the East Coast. These organisations and individuals who were trying to help their people into housing were blocked by poverty and lack of opportunity for housing because the mechanisms were so difficult for people to get through. When we have a mechanism that would have improved that situation the last thing we should do is block it in this Chamber. The local government in that region was not well known for its commitment to addressing poverty or its recognition of housing as part of its responsibility and it needed encouragement and leadership from this House to make sure it stopped being a barrier and started being a facilitator. The kinds of housing instruments discussed in the Chamber today could have been encouragement for places like Tai Rawhiti. 
Sue and I went into homes that were unfixable; one housed a family of a single mother with seven children and no running water. The mother could not get the Rural Housing Programme to fix her house because it was so far gone that it was unfixable. Yet she had no opportunity to get the money to get a new house. For all the rhetoric about fixing up rural homes etc. or getting into new housing it was just not working for these people. There was no way. We started building a process to change that—programmes like shared equity—and it is really disturbing to see that it will be ignored. We were very keen to see change and we will be voting against this. 
If one cannot get into housing one cannot get to first base. I think that in other countries it is really easy to talk about long-term leases and rentals because they have the infrastructure for long-term leases and rentals. It is OK if one does not own a house. But in Aotearoa New Zealand one is really unfortunate if one cannot get past that first base. If members have family members living in places like Auckland as I do who are young and poor they will know that there is absolutely no way that they can even consider getting past first base. 
We need to be listening to the community housing activists not just the developers. The community housing activists in this country—the third sector on housing—have strategies ideas and mechanisms that we need to listen to so that we can break some of the bottlenecks around Maori housing housing for young families and housing for beneficiaries. At the moment those people are in crisis. We do not need to block them in this way. It is very disappointing. Cynicism develops when one sees a bill about infrastructure that is actually about blocking in part some of the most positive mechanisms to help break the bottleneck. 
When I was young I lived in a very old house that needed a lot doing to it but I was able to get a family benefit change which allowed me to get into housing. I was able to build my life and my family’s life from that base. But I know that nowadays lots and lots of people because times are a lot harder and property is a lot more expensive will never get that opportunity. Plus there are those who have student loans and debt before they reach even the age of 25 that I could not have even dreamt of when I was a young broke person. We have to think about the conditions that the next generation faces in terms of housing. It is not good enough to just wring our hands and allow legislation to go through that undermines these mechanisms just because it is convenient for whatever reason. 
I know that there is good local authority effort on housing in this country but I also know that there is a lot of complacency. If one goes to other places like London one sees that housing is vital.