Salesa Jenny: Housing Amendment Bill Housing Corporation (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (No 2) Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (NO 2) — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSalesa Jenny: Housing Amendment Bill Housing Corporation (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (No 2) Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (NO 2) — Third Readings[Sitting date: 18 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:9185. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): Thank you for this call Mr Assistant Speaker on the third reading of the legislation arising from the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill. The Labour Party strongly opposes this legislation for very good reasons. Labour supports the Kiwi Dream. The Kiwi Dream includes growing up in a country where our children have a roof over their heads a country where all our children can hope to one day own their own home. It is pretty simple really. Our people do not ask for very much: a job to do somewhere to live someone to love and something to hope for. That is the Kiwi Dream in the words of Norman Kirk. But under this National Government the Kiwi Dream is slipping away. We have an economy that is stacked in favour of the rich and the privileged few while everyday New Zealanders are finding it harder and harder just to get by each day.Under this National Government we have an entire generation who have been locked out of the dream of owning their own homes. Around 1937 mainly as a result of the Depression the Prime Minister at the time—a Labour Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage—began to build State houses on a large scale for the very first time in the history of New Zealand. Why? Because he cared—because the people of New Zealand at the time needed to be housed. There was a huge need for housing at that time and the Government of the day stepped in. It stepped in because it cared enough. If this Government cared enough it could do something about this. If this Government had the political will to address one of the biggest issues of today—housing—it could step in and do something to solve this problem.Fast forward 80 years to today—2016—and you see that the No. 1 issue of today is still housing. The No. 1 issue that I see is housing. Families who do not have a house are coming to my office in Ōtara South Auckland asking for my help with housing. My colleague Meka Whaitiri has just spoken about that fact that 90 percent of the people who come to her office do so because of housing.Last Friday I spoke with a Māori family with nine children. They are just about to be evicted. They are just about to be made homeless. They came seeking my help. Last Friday on the same day I saw another Māori family: a mum with four kids. They have been homeless for 2 years. They have been on the waiting list—on that waiting list off the waiting list on the waiting list again and off the waiting list—and this time they have been on that waiting list for 3 months. Still they are homeless moving from garage to garage. We have also been helping a baby who is less than 12 months old. This baby has spent half of her life—6 months—in hospital mainly in the neonatal intensive care unit.So you see we collectively as a society still pay. When people are homeless we pay one way or another. Whether it is the hospital bill of this baby who has been 6 months in a hospital whether it is for educational facilities when families move from school to school or whether it is for justice we still pay. Why do we not just do the decent thing which is to provide housing?I hear my colleagues on the other side of the House saying: “Yes we need more houses.” I heard the Minister Nick Smith yesterday saying that yes we need more houses and yes we need more quality houses. Well will this legislation actually end up giving us more State houses? No of course not. Will it actually give us more good quality houses for the State? No of course not. Housing will end up in the private sector. What this legislation does is it allows the Minister of Finance Bill English and the Minister for Social Housing Paula Bennett to have unfettered powers. It enables them to bypass the normal way—bypass the Public Service. This legislation allows them the personal power to conduct any negotiations strike any deal sell the State houses to whomever they wish.I leave the House on this note. The departmental disclosure statement—