Little Andrew: General DebateText is subject to correctionLittle Andrew: General Debate[Sitting date: 17 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4488. Text is subject to correction.]ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition):I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business. It all started so well. The freshly elected Government came in. Bill English went to John Key and said: “We’ve got to do something. We’ve got to do something for the poor the indigent and the hard up for whom we’ve done nothing for so long.” So he turned up here and said: “What about relief of poverty? Yep we’ll do that. What about the poor people at the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment who need a big screen and a new reception desk?”. That was ticked off as well. “What about trade deals for the Middle East? We’ve got one little farm in the middle of the desert with no sheep on it. Yeah we’ll tick that off as well.” And then they came to housing—then they came to housing—because they have run the housing stock down and they have got people living in poor-quality housing. Bill English said: “Please we’ve got to do something about housing.” Prime Minister John Key because he does not like to think little said: “Yep we’ll go big on housing. We won’t have one Minister; we’ll have three Ministers and half a dozen associates if we have to have them. And we will make housing the centrepiece of our Government for the foreseeable future.” Then they appointed Nick Smith to run the programme and that is where it all started to unravel.That is where it started to unravel because Nick Smith was left in charge of the most pressing housing issues: out-of-control Auckland house prices poor-quality rentals—a whole range of things. He was given the job of fixing it all up. And so he started. He had ignored the problem for several months to begin with. Pressed repeatedly by members of the Opposition about what he was doing about out-of-control house prices he said: “What crisis of Auckland house prices? There isn’t one. What is the matter with them?”. “Somebody can afford the houses.” he said. “Somebody can afford expensive houses. Oh they’re all affordable.” he said. Then he was pressed into actually having to do something. Desperation turned to panic and he has not stopped panicking since so that is where he is stuck now. He signed up councils for special housing areas—it was a couple of years ago that the Government did that. Thousands of houses were promised. The Prime Minister said yesterday that 8500 houses had been built and then he found the truth: it was 170 houses. Two years on and there are 170 houses for a city that needs 20000 houses a year just to catch up. So those members got that wrong as well.Then those members said: “Oh we will sort out the out-of-control house prices. We’ll introduce a brightline test for the people who are buying more than one house. We’ll make it for 2 years.” And so what did the property speculators all say? “Don’t worry we’ll sell them after 2 years.” so that is not going to work. Then they said: “OK we accept that non-resident foreign buyers are a problem so we’ll give them a couple of hurdles to leap and that will get them out of the market.” But the two hurdles were non-resident foreign buyers having a bank account in New Zealand and an IRD number. They can get them online just about. That is no hurdle at all. Then those members got to the serious end of the business—the serious end of the business. They accepted finally that they had to build more houses more quickly—housing supply. And they were not just any houses; they had to be affordable—let us give them that. They understood that they had to build affordable housing. So Nick Smith stumbled on the idea of a State-led house-building programme and he has not stopped stumbling since. He has not stopped stumbling since.Unfortunately a whole number of missteps and mishaps occurred to this “Minister of Outstanding Achievements”. It did not help that the plan was leaked. But leaks happen; we all know that. Then those members announced that there were 500 hectares. Remember? “Five hundred hectares—we’ve got land to burn. We’re going to build houses like you haven’t seen before.” Then they discovered that some of that land had power substations on it and that some had cemeteries. One area of land was earmarked for a motorway on-ramp. They cannot build on that one so that was ditched. Then Nick Smith said: “Right I’ve got the journalists. They’re interested. I’ve got ’em on my side. We’ll take ’em on the bus. We’ll ram a filled roll down their throats and say we’ve fed them and we’ll show them the land.” So he showed them 30 hectares—30 hectares of land. Then it turned out that it was not his land to trade away. The local iwi had rights over the land so that plan then turned to custard as well. Then he denied that the iwi had any rights at all. He told the Prime Minister “No Prime Minister they have no rights at all.” at the same time that he was going around saying to the iwi “We’ll give you right of first refusal.”What sort of Minister is this? What sort of Minister is this? So they had to concede: “Listen it was all just a guesstimate. It is all just a concept plan. We are not really sure what we are doing. We do not know which way it is going to go.” But he does have one redeeming quality Nick Smith. He is a man of great foresight. Seeing his fate as a Minister he recently went bush with Maurice Williamson and started playing like a possum and like road kill. Here he is in this photo in his natural habitat. Road kill: that is our Minister of Building and Housing.