Heatley Phil: Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Heatley Phil: Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:632;Page:3948] 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 In this last discussion around this bill I would like to reiterate that National is supporting the bill as the party that originally brought the idea to this Parliament in 1999. In turn I thank the Minister Chris Carter and Labour members for supporting one of our ideas and I ask the Minister to consider many others that we have rolling forward at the moment. It might interest him to wander off to England—to have some nice nights in restaurants and hotels to enjoy the company perhaps of the royal family or to do whatever the Minister does over there—but clearly if the Minister is adopting National policy it would be easier to walk a mere 5 metres across this Chamber get the ideas and then pass them into legislation as he has done with this Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill. So I thank the Minister for his support. 
I would like to clarify the issues around boarders. Of course National was aware while we were looking after the finances of New Zealand over that 9-year period that some State house tenants had boarders and we were happy to have boarders in State houses. Who would deny a State housing family the right to have their 16-year-old kid in the house while he or she was studying at polytech? Of course we would not. Who would deny State house tenants having their 75-year-old grandmother live at home with them? I guess if the Minister wants to label that person as a boarder then who would deny that? Certainly National would not. 
We do not mind one or two boarders being in a State home especially not family members who are in need but my question to the Minister asked what was the maximum number of boarders that a State house tenant had in New Zealand. The answer was not three boarders or four or five or even six. We have one tenancy in this country in which there are seven boarders under a State house roof. That is not a State house; that is a boarding house. That is a business. It is both a boarding house and a business. The Minister reported back to me that many State homes had four five and six boarders and I have illustrated the worst situation where there were seven. I say that because New Zealanders Kiwis who pay their taxes have asked me to say that. We never envisaged that we would be paying our taxes so that State house tenants who were not in need could have five six or seven boarders. That was not the intention. We as taxpayers provide State houses for families who are in need. People tell me that if families need to house a couple of extra relatives in the situations I have pointed out—the 16-year-old at polytech or grandma at home—then they accept that. But we do not accept the Minister providing State housing for five six or seven boarders. I tell members now that Kiwis will not put up with that and it is not something that National believes in. 
National does believe in this legislation though and that is why we support it. Information matching is very important—yes for the reasons the Minister says so that those who are in need can assure themselves that they are getting the full extent of taxpayer help when they are struggling. Information matching is also important to catch the ratbags who are ripping off mum and dad Kiwi workers who pay their taxes. Those workers have had enough of it. The majority of people in State houses are genuine but some are ratbags. Sometimes they are second or third generation Labour Party voters who have been caught up in the cycle of welfare dependency—who have been trapped by Mr Chris Carter and his colleagues. When members throw out the hook of welfare those people become fish who have been caught and they will remain on the Government’s payroll for the rest of their lives. They will tell their kids to do the same and their grandkids as well. Of course National has greater aspirations for those people than the Minister has. 
So National supports this bill and we support it for these two reasons—firstly to make sure that those in need get what is required and secondly to catch the ratbags that the Minister would otherwise hook.