Twyford Phil: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 13 April 2016. Volume:713;Page:10505. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I am very glad to take a contribution in this annual review debate. I want to talk about housing and the work of the ministry of business innovation and enterprise—or should it be employment?Grant Robertson: Employment.PHIL TWYFORD: Employment. The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment—otherwise known as “Mobie”. The Minister the Hon Dr Nick Smith has talked a good game over the last 4 years about this Government’s commitment to try to make homeownership affordable once again. But when we look at the record in Government of this Minister and this ministry it is a tale of woe and I am going to catalogue that woe for the record. I think it is clear to everybody that New Zealand is in the grip of a housing crisis and the latest Statistics New Zealand numbers show that under this National Government homeownership has dropped from 66 percent to 63 percent. It is a very significant drop in the last 7 years. In the last 12 months according to recent data released by one of the international banks New Zealand had the highest rate of house price inflation of 23 countries in the Western World—the worst record in skyrocketing house prices and unaffordable homeownership in the Western World. Young Kiwis are locked out of the dream of homeownership. We have unprecedented numbers of families all over the country but probably most acutely in Auckland living in cars and garages.How does this Government respond? What does Nick Smith do? He wheels out one stunt one phoney press release after another and we have been discussing it in the House for the last couple of days. The centrepiece of the Government’s housing announcement in the Budget last year was its vacant Crown land initiative in Auckland. The Prime Minister and Nick Smith promised 500 hectares of new land freed up from Crown ownership to be developed to provide housing in Auckland. What has happened in the last year? Nick Smith has spent $52 million and all he has got to show for it is 25 hectares of Crown land. Not a single new house has been built. This was the centrepiece of the Government’s housing announcement in the Budget and the nation has been subjected to this classic Nick Smith fiasco as he has denied point blank that cemeteries power substations and schools were included in the list of land sites that he used to make that 500-hectare promise. Thanks to Nick Smith’s officials under the Official Information Act that list has been released. The substations the schools the cemetery—they are all on the list as is Government House. If this was not such a tragedy it would be funny but Aucklanders desperately need real houses that they can live in.The Crown land fiasco is just one of them. The special housing areas in Auckland which is supposed to be the Government’s centrepiece policy to tackle the supply shortage of houses in Auckland in 3 years has resulted in the construction of only about 700 houses according to Nick Smith—700 houses. Under this National Government we have seen a shortfall of between 30000 and 40000 houses build up over the last 4 years. They are only building about 9000 houses a year in Auckland but the city needs 14000 just to keep up with population growth. Record net migration in Auckland means that in the last 12 months an additional 31000 people have settled in our country’s biggest city. The new build rate in Auckland will not even house those new arrivals. So the shortage under Nick Smith and this National Government is getting worse by about 4000 to 5000 a year.Why this elaborate charade why this constant procession of fake phoney policy announcements that are obviously designed to have minimal impact? Why go to all the bother? Well John Key made it very clear the other day when he told Leighton Smith on Newstalk ZB that a lot of people in Auckland like their house prices going up. That is why his policy is not to do anything that will disturb that house price inflation and he is cynically prepared to look after the interests of the wealthy the leafy suburbs the speculators but he is prepared to cut adrift Generation Rent the mortgage slaves—