Salesa Jenny: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSalesa Jenny: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 16 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:9009. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill. Labour opposes this bill. In one of the addresses from the other side of the House earlier the statement was made that it does not matter whether you own your own house. Can I say that it matters a lot to people in South Auckland whether or not you own your own house. It matters because in terms of rental property it matters a lot whether you can actually afford to pay the rent on a house.Every day in our office we see people come in and the main issue they come seeking our help with is housing. Many of these people work but even though they work full-time and sometimes with the addition of a part-time job they still cannot afford to pay the rent. For so many people in South Auckland it is a case of two families or sometimes three sharing the one house. Why? Because they cannot afford the rent. Many of the people who come to see us do not have even a State house. They qualify for a State house but they cannot yet get into a State house.This bill is an indictment on this National Government and its attitude towards the duties it has for the people of Aotearoa New Zealand. On the general principles proposed in this bill alone it should not be allowed to stand. What the Government is proposing here is that we should give Minister Bennett and Minister English unprecedented extraordinary powers to sell off New Zealand’s State houses. This legislation once it gets enacted will allow them to personally negotiate contracts on any terms whatsoever and on any conditions they like and to take any actions necessary to ease the sale’s process. If this bill is passed it will allow Ministers English and Bennett to sell off billions of dollars’ worth of our State houses without reference to even the chief executive officer or the board of Housing New Zealand. That would not allow transparency. We are currently debating and considering the wisdom of giving these two Government Ministers the right to sell off our State assets—in this case our State houses—holus-bolus without any regard whatsoever to the realities of thousands and thousands of New Zealanders today those who qualify for a State house and those who are homeless.Thousands—too many actually; over 2500 in Auckland our largest city alone—are on the waiting list for a Housing New Zealand State house. In addition to this the Citizens Advice Bureau late last year released a report where it said there are over 3000 families who go to it seeking advice. These families are homeless and 50 percent of them have children. So we are talking about thousands and thousands of families with their kids who are currently homeless. Under this National Government the Kiwi Dream is slipping away for so many people with a housing market that has become the plaything of speculators and a housing market where there are so many people who are locked out of the dream of homeownership.Labour backs an economy that works well for everyone—for all of us regardless of where we live—not an economy that works for just the privileged few. We back an economy and a country where our children—all of our children—can hope to one day own their own homes; a country where homes are affordable either to buy or to rent; a country where we do not have thousands who are homeless; and a Government that can address the issue of homelessness. Instead of building more homes for people and instead of fixing the State houses so that they are warm dry and healthy we are today in the House debating whether or not to give two Ministers the power to sell off our State assets collectively owned by all of us as taxpayers.What is really astonishing to me is the fact that this Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill would exempt Ministers Bennett and English from the normal legal requirements we would expect putting them above the law and allowing them to sell billions of dollars’ worth of our assets on any terms they like in a sale process ripe for backroom deals. The Government wants the power to do secret deals the power to flog off billions of dollars’ worth of land and housing to its Cabinet mates and it does not want to be bothered with pesky public servants or indeed with the rule of law. This proposed bill will exempt Bennett and English from all relevant enactments including the objectives and function of Housing New Zealand which includes social responsibility environmental responsibility and good financial oversight. The Ministers are not constrained by any rule of law relating to the capacity or validity of their acts.There are very very good reasons why our Government Ministers are supposed to be at arm’s length and why we have protective checks and balances built into our system. In fact the proposed powers in this bill are so out of line with proper practice that the bill’s departmental disclosure statement attached to the bill states “there are no direct precedents for this approach in other statutes”—there are no direct precedents for this approach in other statutes. This is not the way our system of Government works for very good reason. There are checks and balances throughout our system that among other things protect the people of this country from unfettered or unwise exercise of power by Ministers. They also protect Ministers from any perception of corruption.Compounding these risks is this Government’s poor track record of deal making. It has come off very badly trying to negotiate deals with Rio Tinto with Warner Bros with Skycity and let us not forget with Saudi businessman Al Khalaf for sheepworth millions. Selling off State houses is not the choice a forward-thinking Government should be making. Giving Ministers the right to take over what is essentially an operational matter without the usual checks and balances is very unwise.Going back to Auckland we have a shortage of housing right now of about 40000 houses and the prediction is that we should be building somewhere along the lines of 13000 houses per year just to keep up with the demand. Instead of doing that instead of actually building houses and making sure that the State houses are fit dry and healthy for our families what is this Government proposing with this bill? “Oh no give us the power to be able to flog off and sell off our State assets.” Two-thirds of my Ōtara constituents and one-third of our people in Ōtāhuhu rely on State housing to provide a base for their family. They live in areas of the highest levels of deprivation. They come from low-income families and many are struggling just to provide the basics let alone prepare their kids for school. Many of them are just not in a position to get into the private rental market given the state that that rental market is in right now in Auckland.We as a society pay in very many different ways. Just to give you an example over the last few weeks our office has been dealing with one family in particular a family who is homeless. They have a child—a baby in fact. This baby has been in and out of hospital many many times. She has respiratory issues and for one of those hospital stays this baby stayed for nearly 2 months—nearly 2 months—and the hospital was basically very very hesitant to discharge this baby out into the community. Why? Because (a) the house that they were living in was not a healthy house and it was not a warm dry home and (b) because some people in that house—remember this is not their house—were smoking. Because this family was living in the lounge of this house they did not feel they were in a position to tell other family members not to smoke. The reason why I made that point is that when families are homeless—and this child is one example of so many people who are homeless in this country—we pay as taxpayers in various different ways.As a country New Zealand is so much better than this. We are a country where we should look after each other where we should take care of each other. Having a roof—shelter over your head—is a basic human right. We should be taking care of our own people in this country. Thank you so much.