Salesa Jenny: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSalesa Jenny: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 18 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5910. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): The Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill is an indictment on this Government and its duties to New Zealand. This bill proposes to give Ministers Bennett and English extraordinary powers to sell off Housing New Zealand State houses. This bill will allow them to personally negotiate contracts on any terms and conditions that they like and to take any actions to ease the sales process. If this bill is passed into law it will allow Ministers Bill English and the Hon Paula Bennett to sell off State houses without reference to the Housing New Zealand board to its chief executives or to its legislation.This Government is not being straight up with New Zealanders. It pretends that there is no housing crisis and that there are no issues with our economy.We have thousands and thousands of vulnerable families living in our electorate of Manukau East in South Auckland. Just last week I saw a family of nine—parents with seven young children. They came into our office because they are homeless and were seeking assistance. This family of nine have moved in with their relatives. They share a home with three other families—17 people living in one house—because the father who is earning a low income can no longer afford to pay the rent.The average rent for a three-bedroom house right now in Ōtara—which according to New Zealand’s deprivation index is one of the poorest most vulnerable communities in New Zealand—is $460 per week. Spending an average of $460 a week on rent is a lot of money especially when you take into account the fact that these are some of the poorest most vulnerable in our society. The median household income in Ōtara right now is $48500. The median household income for families in Ōtāhuhu is $46200. The struggles for so many families whom I see in my office in Ōtara are very very real. The family of nine whom I saw who reached out to me for assistance because they are homeless has gone through the Work and Income assessment process. I am glad to report that they are able to qualify to be housed in a Housing New Zealand State house. However our office has been informed that State houses in our electorate of Ōtara are 98 percent occupied so who knows how long this family will have to wait—and wait—before they are eventually housed.Meanwhile Ministers English and Bennett are about to flog off the thousands of State houses that we currently have. How about housing the vulnerable families that we already have on the book? How about housing the thousands who already qualify to be housed by Housing New Zealand—the thousands who have been waiting for months and months and some of them for over a year just to have a roof over their heads? It will be great when this Government through its actions actually shows that it cares equally for all families in all of Aotearoa New Zealand instead of just saying that it does care and instead of just saying that it is a compassionate Government. Actions speak louder than words.Social housing plays a significant part in supporting the communities in my electorate. At the last census count a third of Manukau East’s rental properties and two-thirds in Ōtara actually belonged to Housing New Zealand. In terms of numbers that is 2128 State houses in Ōtara and in total in Manukau East it is 3761 State houses across our electorate. There is a shortage of social housing and the numbers are indeed at an all-time high. Across all of New Zealand over 5000 families are on the waiting list for a social housing State house.I urge this House to reject this bill. I urge the Government to give up selling our State houses—our assets—and instead to actually house our most vulnerable families. Thank you.