Hipkins Chris: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3657. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am very happy to take a call on this second part of the Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill and respond to the Minister for Social Housing’s comments where she said that Housing New Zealand has not been providing advice to the Government—Hon Annette King: For 4 years.CHRIS HIPKINS: —for 4 years—since 2011. Does it not show? Does it not show? I think that is one of the major issues here. It is that the Government is divorcing the practical realities of the decisions it is making from the advice it is getting on those decisions and it is not working. I will speak about the experience I have encountered in my own electorate.Previously Housing New Zealand had if you like three broad functions: the provision of the housing advice on the housing and identifying the people who were going into the housing. Identifying the people who were going into the housing was transferred to Work and Income and as a result we now have a mismatch between the housing available and the people who qualify to get it because Housing New Zealand no longer has—Brett Hudson: With National it’s about the people in need not about who owns the house.CHRIS HIPKINS: I am looking forward to Brett Hudson’s contribution because like most of the people over there he has had a National Party lobotomy and does not seem to have his own opinion any more and therefore has only the option of being rude to other people because he is not willing to stand up and share with the House his own opinion. As I was saying the Government has divorced from Housing New Zealand decisions regarding who gets the houses so Housing New Zealand no longer has the complete picture of the people who are likely to be in need. That has an impact then on its ability to deliver policy advice to the Government. One of the issues there is that the complete picture of who the people in need are is now actually quite difficult to ascertain. Housing New Zealand has cut off the lower two tranches of the waiting list so that we now no longer have any record of the people who are at that lower level. That is a policy issue that Housing New Zealand could be supplying advice to the Government on and it is now no longer able to do so.Here is the real reality of what these changes have actually meant. I think we can look at the policy and we can look at all of the theory behind it. Let us deal with the practical realities of what it has meant. What it has meant is that on a Friday afternoon I have got people sitting in my office saying: “I am living in a car. There are three-bedroom houses empty in this area but because I qualify for a four-bedroom house Housing New Zealand will not place my family.” That is a practical reality. That is an actual case that I have been dealing with for some months where Housing New Zealand will not give that family a home because they qualify for a four-bedroom home. There are no four-bedroom houses available there are empty three-bedroom houses available but it will not place them in a three-bedroom house. That is the practical reality of the policies we are dealing with. And Housing New Zealand of course can no longer provide the Government practical advice on that because the policy function it previously had is being removed from it.There is good reason why the delivery agencies the agencies responsible for delivering on the policy should be able to provide policy advice to Ministers on the implications of the decisions Ministers make. The implications of the decisions Ministers have made in social housing policy are that they have actually made it more difficult for people to get into Housing New Zealand homes more difficult to target assistance to those who most need it. I have got no problem with our looking at the ways we can better support those who are the most vulnerable and most need it. The practical realities are that that is not happening and that there are very needy families out there who are living in cars. The family I mentioned before have got a number of kids. That is why they qualify for the four-bedroom home. The kids are staying with someone else; the parents are living in the car. That is just not acceptable. Then of course Housing New Zealand will offer them a place that is in another city. It will say: “Oh we’ve found a four-bedroom place for you but you’re going to have to move 100 kilometres away.” They have to uproot their kids from their schools and all those sorts of things. It is just not right. This family would be willing to accept a 3-bedroom house but Housing New Zealand will not give it to them. I think that is wrong. That is the practical reality of the policy we are passing.It is important that when Ministers make decisions about these issues they are connected to the practical realities that those decisions result in and that is not going to happen with this bill. The reforms simply are not working. If they were designed to ensure that the needs assessment process was more efficient and that the advice coming to Ministers was better that is not happening. The needs assessment is not more efficient. What it is resulting in is further delays for the most needy people who really should be getting placed in housing. They get shoved from one agency to another and then back again. The policy advice process that should support the needs assessment process is not there and is not robust enough because the agency now providing the policy advice the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment is completely removed from the actual provision of housing and the practical implications of that. It says everything about this Government—that it has handed over the responsibilities for advice on housing to the agency that is responsible for property speculation.