Whaitiri Meka: Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWhaitiri Meka: Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 04 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:1190. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa. I just want to acknowledge the last speaker from the Treasury benches Mr Bishop for his multifaceted contribution in defending the bill. The only problem was that I was listening with interest for the “multi” part and the “faceted” part but alas that was not to be.Labour supports any initiatives that assist first-home buyers into affordable homes but there is a roaring fire across the country—the fire is called a serious housing crisis—and I liken this bill to a water pistol attempting to put out that roaring housing-crisis fire. I have been listening to the National members and they are defending a bill that is going to address housing affordability in New Zealand but I struggle to hear the rationale as to how this bill is going to address that.But let us turn to the purpose of this bill. The bill implements part of the Government’s HomeStart package to enable people to withdraw Government contributions to their KiwiSaver accounts in order to buy a home. The other part of this bill makes amendments to ensure that income replacement payments under the Veterans’ Support Act 2014 are treated in the same way as ACC payments making them subject to tax and allowing the partner of a deceased veteran to claim their Working for Families tax credit.I listened to the contributions particularly from our side of the House and I say from my experience going up and down my electorate of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti the housing crisis goes beyond what this bill is attempting to do. It is like what previous speakers on this side have said: the supply issue is real. The supply issue is real and yet what we have in front of us does not even address the supply issue unlike Labour’s policy of KiwiBuild. That is a complete policy initiative aimed at building 10000 homes to address the supply issue we have in this country. But no here we have in front of us today the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill. There is a housing shortage and there have been contributions around the reality of that but I as the member for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti can guarantee that we have housing shortages right throughout my electorate.When I go through this bill and I ask myself the questions that this bill is attempting to address one of the questions that comes to mind is whether the bill will improve homeownership. That is the question I ask. Will it improve homeownership? The answer is no. How do I come to that conclusion? The Cabinet paper. What did the Cabinet paper say on HomeStart? It noted the impact on homeownership will be small and cancelled out by rising interest rates. This is in the Cabinet paper: “The impact on the proportion of owner-occupiers is expected to be small as most recipients of a HomeStart grant would have purchased a house eventually anyway. While the grant will make a material contribution to first-home buyers’ ability to raise a deposit the grant makes no difference to the cost of servicing a mortgage. With mortgage rates expected to rise to 7.5 percent over the next 2 years”—Chris Bishop: Not to 11 percent like under you guys.MEKA WHAITIRI: —no you had your turn—“higher financial costs are likely to reduce the number of first-home buyers able to purchase their first home.”Generally when we bring legislation into this House we take advice from officials. Treasury officials themselves have said in their advice to Cabinet: “Treasury does not support the expansion of first-home buyer assistance subsidies at this time given that they stimulate demand for housing when demand is already outstripping supply.” Like I said in my opening contribution this is a water pistol trying to put out a roaring fire called the housing crisis. Kia ora tātou.