King Annette: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
King Annette: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 07 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6363. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 Of course Bill English knows a lot about leadership because he was “Mr 22 Percent” who took the National Party to one of the worst defeats that it ever had. He is still bitter about it he is still whinging about it and he is still plotting at every moment how he can get back into the Prime Minister’s seat. 
Last week the long-awaited affordable housing package from the Government was announced. You know it reminded me of that old Peggy Lee song from the late 1960s “Is That All There is?”. If you remember Mr Speaker—and I am sure you do—it was a song about disillusionment. I have to say that New Zealanders who have been waiting and wishing and hoping for a response to the growing housing crisis in New Zealand have every right to feel disillusioned. Seven months ago the Government received a report from the Productivity Commission on affordable housing. What did that report do? It set out the issues it highlighted areas for action and it gave the Government 33 recommendations. For 7 months we had to wait for the Government’s response. For 7 months we got the old political striptease from the Minister of Finance: a little speech here a little hint of action over there a patsy question or two in Parliament and some pathetic comments like “We clearly have a problem in Auckland with a lack of supply of housing particularly for low-income people. We are determined to get a better deal for people.” 
I say to Bill English that he is either not determined enough or he is a spent force in the National Cabinet because he has been overtaken by the ideas man the apparatchik of the National Party Steven Joyce. The affordable housing package is toothless and it is gutless. As John Armstrong wrote in the  
New Zealand Herald  
last week “Package? What package?”. I have to agree with him. He said that the Government’s plan looks like a first draft. Duncan Garner on his blog wrote that “There is nothing bold in here at all.” [ 
Interruption 
] Oh so they are now laughing at Duncan Garner. This is a man they all suck up to most of the time. They do not like it when he writes the truth. He said that “it is tinkering while Auckland burns in the face of unsustainable house prices.” He said that National “has shied away from getting hands on or even getting its hands dirty.” He said that there was one word for it: underwhelming. 
What I say is that it is tinkering by muddled thinkers devoid of ideas paralysed by ideology lacking in vision and innovation and into a whole lot of blame shifting. Local government they say must stump up or else. We do not know what the “or else” is but local government is being told it must stump up and address affordable housing in New Zealand. Of course the irony of that is that at the same time that Bill English is saying that Nick Smith and his would-be Minister of Local Government David Carter are saying “No no local government you must get out of anything the private sector could do.” Well I can say that this is a pathetic response to a very serious problem in New Zealand. We have been told that there will have to be more inquiries more work done and more evaluations. 
There is a choice the Government can make. There are two paths a Government can go down. One is where it is hands-off with an approach of “Business knows best” and letting the market rule; a deregulated economy deregulated safety and deregulated everything. We are seeing the results in New Zealand after two decades or more of that approach with some of the worst health and safety records around the world with leaky buildings and with a deregulated electricity market that they said would give us cheaper prices but which means we are paying more. Then there is the other path a Government could go down; a Government that is more hands-on that is supporting its exporters that is protecting New Zealand jobs and that is leading our building of affordable homes in New Zealand. The Government should be leading by example. An example was in Hobsonville. What did it do? It cancelled affordable housing and it cancelled State housing. It is devoid of ideas and nothing in housing will happen under this Government as long as it occupies the Treasury benches.