Moroney Sue: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3640. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): I am shocked as I speak to Part 2 of this bill because what happens in Part 2 is that it actually guts the Housing New Zealand Corporation and it washes the Government’s hands of any responsibility for providing decent housing for New Zealanders. It is an absolute disgrace because in Subpart 2 of Part 2 the Housing Corporation Act changes so that the Housing New Zealand Corporation is not even responsible for giving policy advice to the Minister any longer. How disgraceful is that?The Minister does not want to hear the policy advice from the Housing New Zealand because if the Minister did hear what was actually going on out there the Government would know that it is going to have blood on its hands. It is going to have blood on its hands from this disgraceful attempt to absolve itself from any responsibility for providing decent housing for New Zealanders.I come from the Waikato and in the Waikato region here is what is happening in housing. Housing New Zealand is not going to give advice to the Minister to tell her this any longer so listen up Minister because this is what is happening. Aucklanders are marching down over the Bombay Hills in their droves to buy affordable housing in Hamilton because they cannot do that in their own city where they live and work in Auckland. This is because the Government has failed to fix the housing crisis. It has buried its head in the sand and pretended that it is not happening. Well it has been happening and now that housing crisis is marching south into the Waikato.In Hamilton house prices are going through the roof and rents are going up on literally a daily basis as Aucklanders—and there is no problem with the Aucklanders because it is not their fault; it is the fault of the Government for doing nothing—are having to move down to Hamilton to buy their first affordable homes and they still work in Auckland. They have to travel backwards and forwards between those cities on a daily basis and that is creating a housing crisis in Hamilton. So what is that going to mean? Well what it means—and we will not hear from the Government Waikato MPs on this issue; you will not hear them getting up and speaking on this—is that there are people living in cars there are people living in garages and there are two to three families living in one home just to make ends meet.Just the other day in Hamilton I was at a network meeting where the issue of housing came up. One of the community workers asked the Housing New Zealand person who was in that meeting whether houses are going to be sold in Hamilton. I felt really sorry for this man but what he said was: “Oh no no. No houses will be sold in Hamilton. It’s great news. They are going to be sold in Waharoa and in Ngāruawāhia.”—Waharoa and Ngāruawāhia.If anyone knows the Waikato what two poorer communities could you find in the Waikato than Waharoa and Ngāruawāhia? That is where the Government is going to be flogging off these State houses. It says that there is no need there. There is no waiting list apparently in Waharoa and Ngāruawāhia. Well when I heard that I went straight back to the 1990s because in the 1990s when a National Government flogged off 13000 State houses I was one of the people who stood and formed a human ring round houses in Waharoa to stop those houses from being picked up in the middle of the night by that National Government and being shipped up to Auckland so that it could charge a higher market rent for them up in Auckland and leave the people in Waharoa without the housing that they desperately needed.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Come back to Part 2.SUE MORONEY: Mr Chair why this is about Part 2 is—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): You are giving a Part 1 speech. Come back to Part 2.SUE MORONEY: —that the Minister is no longer going to hear from Housing New Zealand about these—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Order! The member will resume her seat and I am sorry to interrupt her. She should have taken the indication I gave her without me having to stand on my feet. This is a Part 2 debate. She should have another look at it and not just continue with a Part 1 speech.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Again I will just make a couple of very brief points the first of which is that traditionally—certainly in the time that I have been in the House—when a bill goes through all stages under urgency and particularly when a debate has been curtailed on one part there is some scope given to members speaking on a subsequent part if they have not had the opportunity to make all of their points on the first part to address the wider part of the debate. That has always been the—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Thank you for making that point of order. You may resume your seat. There is also a convention which the member will know very well that if she wants to do a little bit of straying she makes at least some reference to whatever is in Part 2. She has been here a long time for as long as I have. She knows the rules. Let us hear it.SUE MORONEY: In clause 21 where this bill will take away the ability for Housing New Zealand to give policy advice to the Minister the Minister is not going to hear this information from anyone else. Housing New Zealand is not going to tell the Minister because in this part of the bill it has been reduced to being just a badly run State-owned property developer. It is a property developer; that is what it has been reduced to because clause 21 in Part 2 says that it is no longer required to give any research or policy advice to the Minister.