Street Maryan: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStreet Maryan: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 05 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13343. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): It gives me some pleasure to rise as a former Minister of Housing myself after the speech from the former Minister of Housing Phil Heatley. So let us just track through some of the different ideas that exist between the National Party and the Labour Party on housing affordability.First of all however I do want to say that in the 5 years that this Government has been in office we have seen a stunning lack of activity on housing affordability. The previous Minister—the member who has just resumed his seat—has said that he came into the portfolio on a slogan about cold old and mouldy houses which was just about the only thing he ever saw fit to address in his time. There was no acknowledgment of the work that had gone on by the previous Government in upgrading and insulating State houses starting with the coldest part of the country first at the bottom of the South Island and moving progressively northwards so that we could improve the state of our Government’s housing stock for those who are most in need.In addition to that of course we also brought in a subsidy system for insulation for homes owned in the private sector and that of course is never acknowledged by the former Minister of Housing. Suddenly getting to this point 5 years on in this Government’s tenure and seeing a rush of activity on housing affordability tends to make us on this side of the House roll our eyes.One of the points is that in the period that the National Government has been in power since the end of 2008 we have seen skyrocketing prices. Prices for housing are up 30 percent in Auckland and up 26.5 percent in Christchurch. We have seen 1500 fewer building consents between 2008 and 2012. This Government has not been attending to the issue of housing affordability. I thought the situation was dire when I was the Minister of Housing in 2007-08 but in fact there has been a more precipitous decline in homeownership particularly in Auckland in the last few years than at that time. Not only have we seen housing ownership levels getting worse but we have seen this huge increase—some 17 percent on average I think—a 17 percent increase in housing prices over the whole of New Zealand. It is worse in Auckland worse in Christchurch and worse in those less affordable parts of the country but it has got worse under this Government not better.In response to one of the earlier speakers I would like to say that Labour would be happy to support this bill if we thought it would make one jot of difference to housing affordability. Nowhere does it talk about housing affordability except by implication in a rushed Supplementary Order Paper 351 which the Minister brought to the Committee at the last minute earlier this week.So this bill is not about a planned systematic approach to housing affordability. This is a knee-jerk reaction because there is a lot of noise out there about housing affordability. It was bad enough when I was the Minister of Housing but at least webrought in legislation that made it possible for local authorities to require 10 percent—not the whole lot just 10 percent—of any residential development to be put aside for affordable houses.What did the National Government do on assuming office? Almost immediately it repealed that legislation because National has never been concerned about the low to middle income earners who have as much right to get their foot on the first rung of the homeownership ladder as anybody else. Now that it is beginning to squeeze the children of the upper middle class whom the National Party listens to more than anybody else the National Government is hearing the noise for the first time and that is because the prices are so much higher than they were even 5 years ago.In addition to bringing in legislation in our day we brought in a raft of other measures such as the Welcome Home Loan which in fact this Government has kept but has cut back its funding. We introduced the KiwiSaver measures which allowed for those who had invested in KiwiSaver signed up to KiwiSaver and saved a certain amount—$1000 a year for 5 years—that $5000 would be matched by the Government with another $5000. So if a couple could manage to save $5000 over 5 years which is achievable even on a low to middle income if one works hard at it then that would have been a combined amount of $20000 to go towards a deposit which in concert with the Welcome Home Loan would have given people the first step up on that ladder of homeownership.But the shared equity scheme that we introduced was scrapped by this Government. It repealed our laws as it has said. It has opposed the ambition of having 100000 new affordable homes over a 10-year period. It has opposed our proposals for a capital gains tax that would see a tax on a capital gain made from speculative investment in housing and would change the nature of where people in this country might invest.I also want to correct something a previous member said when she railed against xenophobia. I would join her in railing against xenophobia. There is no place for xenophobia in this multicultural society of ours. But I would say that our opposition to foreign buyers is on the basis of those who speculate not those who want to come and live in New Zealand. It is on the basis of their being speculators not people who are genuinely seeking to be citizens and permanent residents of New Zealand. So let us not hear any more nonsense in that respect.Finally I want to revert to one of my old themes and it is about land supply. The previous speaker Phil Heatley talked about land supply being the critical factor; it is only one of the critical factors. Low wages are another critical factor in housing affordability. It seems to me that in the releasing of Crown land for increased density—which is what the Labour Government did both in Glen Innes and in Hobsonville—that was the approach that combined all the necessary factors to get things going. The Minister told us the other day that 400 houses had been built in Hobsonville—400 houses had been built in Hobsonville. We were meant to applaud him. How many of them were affordable? How many were affordable? Seventeen were affordable. Seventeen of them are meant to be affordable houses. So this Government has no interest in genuinely addressing affordable housing. If it was genuinely interested it would have brought forward a bill that would achieve that rather than this nominal piece of nonsense that we have in front of us today. Thank you.