Collins JudithHon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you for the opportunity to speak in this debate. This is a very good document prepared by Treasury and I think it should be compulsory reading for everybody in this House every MP and particularly for the Ministers and particularly the Minister who's just resumed his seat because I'm sure if he read it fully he would see that the Government books and the Government assets were left in extremely good condition by the former Government.When we look at this document from Treasury—and I'm one of those MPs who having been a Minister for quite some years are very very respectful of the advice from Treasury. Even if it doesn't always meet political agendas it is actually always carefully thought-out and considered.One of the things that Treasury makes very clear in the document is that the Government should only own assets when one social and economic benefits outweigh the costs; two the risk cannot be transferred to the private sector; three the Government has most relevant expertise; and four the Government needs to be directly accountable. That is actually quite a tall order that I suggest that every Government and every Minister should put beside any of their big-spending plan decisions.Well I well remember one particular—some people in this House were very upset about the mixed-ownership model for some major assets but in fact that particular mixed-ownership model was incredibly successful according to this particular Investment Statement. By selling down a minority stake to the private sector to private mum and dad investors and others in three generation retailers Meridian Energy Mercury Energy and Genesis Power and Air New Zealand as well this Government—or the Government before with us and also the people; the Crown—was able to actually make a far better return on their investment which actually means more money being available for things like schools and for things like law and order.Coming to the huge chunk of the Government asset base which is that represented by the Housing New Zealand Corporation I see in the report that the report makes very clear that there is a problem with the oversupply of three-bedroom homes compared to those that are needed in the community. That was something that the previous Government of which I was part was deeply concerned with—to make sure that we were able to actually get people who could move into one- or two-bedroom homes into those and out of the three-bedroom ones but at the same time to build homes that for larger families were going to be far more efficient and effective for them taking into account that not all families come with 2.3 children and nor should we expect them to.So we could also say that it was very concerning today to hear from the Minister that we have a situation where the State tenancy register or housing register is the highest it's ever been with over 8000 families in need. This is significantly higher than what it was last year. This particular statement from Treasury makes it very clear that there was a lot of work going on with replacing housing by the previous Government and to try and state as some have said today that that wasn't being done is actually quite false.On page 102 of the report I see that the redevelopment activity of Housing New Zealand houses was accelerating with a 1421 replacement and new homes delivered in 2017 against a target of 1339 and 1400 replacements over this year were expected. There was considerable work going on—at the same time bearing in mind that it is very disruptive for people who have lived in a State house for some time to be asked to move into a different State house often losing neighbours who they valued and community facilities that they knew well.I see that Housing New Zealand in this report is planning for a 15 percent reduction in construction programme build costs by 2021. I would be thrilled to find out how that is possibly going to happen because all I can see out in the building sphere is that those costs are going up. I'm also concerned about the fact that in the report itself the Investment Statement it states that low commercial returns mean that Housing New Zealand Corporation cannot afford to replace houses in the case of a stress event—for example an earthquake damaging a significant number of assets. I think that is actually a very real concern and it is something that we should be concerned about as a Parliament. I think the fact that Housing New Zealand can't make much of a commercial return makes it even less likely that Housing New Zealand should be favoured over the private sector who can in many cases ensure that they can take the steps that they need to. Certainly I think that that is something that can be looked at and I'll certainly be asking some questions later this year about that.In response to the Canterbury earthquakes I see that there was a huge issue for Housing New Zealand in Christchurch in particular and Housing New Zealand undertook a large initiative and programme to restore the city's public housing stock to pre-earthquake levels by mid-2016. That is an enormous task that Housing New Zealand took on and achieved and we have never heard anything from what is now the Government about that excellent work.I think we can also see that some new stock for Housing New Zealand is being challenged"—it says here in the report—"by land-use regulation" I think that means the Resource Management Act. They've also said that Housing New Zealand is being challenged by building costs and yet we also see in the report that Housing New Zealand is counting on a 15 percent reduction in building costs. I have no idea why that would be and there's no explanation around that.I also see that the report notes that Housing New Zealand is challenged by capability and capacity in the construction sector as well as availability of funding. Well we already know that Housing New Zealand is now going to be required to buy or to borrow in order to build more State houses under the Budget that's just been announced and voted on just a month ago. That tells me that actually Housing New Zealand's going to get itself into debt and we already know it's not making commercial returns that are of much use to it when it comes to repairing or to building new housing stock. I heard today that the costs—the maintenance cost repair and maintenance bills—for Housing New Zealand in the last year were close to half a billion dollars at $490 million. That's no new stock; that's just repairing and maintenance. So I think these are very serious issues when you come to one of the biggest assets a Government has which is the assets of the Housing New Zealand Corporation. These are serious issues.We've heard the previous speaker the Minister of Finance talk about the dreadful state of New Zealand's public health system. I actually think that is a completely unfair thing to say about our public health system. I have certainly experienced the public health system. I have been delighted with the careful and considered way in which decisions are made and I have been delighted by the state of many of the buildings that I have seen in the public sector—bearing in mind that every building every hospital will have something that they want to improve.I also see from the report—and this is the statement itself from Treasury—it notes that New Zealand's health system was tied with Norway for fourth place in the world in a 2017 Commonwealth Fund comparative study of 11 OECD countries that looked at average care process access administrative efficiency equity and—most importantly for New Zealanders—healthcare outcomes. That's what matters. They noted though that there were obviously certain losses and various other challenges and some inefficiencies around the asset condition of some of the particular district health boards and also some of the controls of that. That is the sort of thing that happens in a big undertaking and health is one of the biggest undertakings—in fact I think it is the biggest undertaking of Government.It notes also resilience and particularly that around mental health and emergency management obligations. These are the things that happen and should be taken account of with every one of the entities that Government has. Overall I think it's a very good report. It deals with a lot of issues in a very sensitive and sensible way without emotion and without hyperbole—which I think is often sadly lacking in Parliament—and it deals with things in a way which I think New Zealanders can have some comfort in. Treasury and they may all be quite young chaps and "chap-esses"—and girls—but they are very sensible—SPEAKER: Order! Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —people who are doing very very well and I support them."