Little Andrew: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Little Andrew: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 07 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6368. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW LITTLE (Labour) 
: 
 There is only one thing worse as Oscar Wilde said than being talked about and that is not being talked about. All the Government can do today is talk about the Opposition talk about the Labour Party. Actually it is only the Opposition coming up with new ideas to deal with the very serious problems that this country is facing. The Government has no ideas. Worse than having no ideas it is out of touch. This is the Government of Jim Callaghans—the new Jim Callaghans. “What crisis? There is no crisis.” There is a crisis. There is a crisis in manufacturing. In the last 5 years 40000 jobs have gone and export capacity is reduced. Gone. Fewer of them. That is why we are struggling. There is a crisis in manufacturing and this Government has got no answer to it. 
But the other big crisis in this country—which even Tim Groser cannot see because he spends far too much time out of this country—is in housing. The Government’s own report the Government’s own Productivity Commission said there is a crisis in housing an affordability crisis. Housing is absolutely essential to a healthy community and a healthy life. Everybody needs a roof over their heads and this Government has got no answer to the growing number the thousands of people who are increasingly finding it difficult not even to buy a house but to rent one because the prices are going through the roof. The Government is out of touch and housing is out of reach to a growing number of New Zealanders. The issue is about affordability. It is about affordability but also it is about access to housing—to social housing to rental housing—because there has been a run down in rental stock. 
You see I was in New Plymouth just a few days ago with our housing spokesperson Annette King and we went up to the site of a Labour project there to develop housing—State housing rental housing affordable housing. It was a project all ready to go in 2008 and no sooner did this Government get in it shelved it. It is in an area called Discovery Place. You know there is a song that goes along the lines of: “Can we do what they do on the Discovery Channel?”. Well in New Plymouth the song is: “Can you not do what they do on Discovery Place?” because it is doing absolutely nothing. It took all the houses away because it told people it was going to redevelop them. It let what housing was there run down. There are only a few tenants there. They live in substandard housing. They have no idea what is going on because nobody tells them. Nobody tells them what is going on in Discovery Place and they need to know. 
What is the Government’s answer? The Productivity Commission tells it that there is an affordability problem. The Government’s own department tells it that there is a housing problem and what is the Government’s answer? Nothing. No plan. No answer. Fiddle a bit around the edges of planning. Tell the local authorities that they have got to pull up their act but what is it doing to the local authorities? It is trying to take away their powers because local government under this Government will have no responsibility for social issues for broader economic issues or anything else. What the left hand wants to do the right hand says it is not going to do. That is the problem with this Government: no coherence no consistency and no plan. 
Actually a lot more needs to be done. It is not just about the builders; it is about those who want to get into housing too—those who want to rent at an affordable level those who want to buy at an affordable level those people whose dreams and aspirations young people in particular are built on getting on the first rung on the ladder of housing and they cannot get there. The average price of a house now in Auckland is $600000. The average nationally is $360000. It is impossible for people to get in a house. What is this Government’s plan for housing? There is not one—there is not one. 
There is a lot more that we could be doing. What about intervening in the lending market? What about the State playing a role as we used to with the old State Advances Corporation? Why do we not assist young people? 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: For goodness’ sake. 
ANDREW LITTLE 
: Mr Joyce says: “For goodness’ sake.” because he does not want to because those members have no plan. They will talk about the Labour Party and they will talk about the Greens and everybody else. They have to because they have got no plan of their own because they do not want to help people. They do not want to help people. They have never cared about people who are finding it tough and who just want to get ahead. They do not want to help them; they want to help their rich mates. That is what this Government is about. That is why it does not care about housing and it does not care about the jobs people are in. It does not even see a problem in manufacturing because that is the nature of it. That is the nature of it. It does not see a problem when there is one. More has to be done. This Government is doing nothing and this country is crying out for an action plan. A decent housing plan would create jobs and would stimulate the economy but this Government will not do it because it has run out of ideas it has run out of steam and all it can do is point the finger at other people.