Street Maryan: General Debate 
Street Maryan: General Debate 
[Volume:643;Page:12863] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Minister of Housing) 
: 
 One of the stark differences between that party opposite and the Labour Party is that we are pleased to have democratic processes in our party and we are not afraid of challengers. We have an embarrassment of riches so the only spin the Opposition can put on that is that somehow it means we are falling apart. Nobody else could possibly deduce that from the facts as they stand. There have always been challengers within the Labour Party and I hope there always will be. 
We are an active and democratic party and what we saw last weekend was not only the largest conference we have had since 1984 but a conference brimming with ideas and plans for going ahead and progressing Labour Party goals and aspirations. Those aspirations are the aspirations of ordinary families in New Zealand. What families in New Zealand want is exactly the same as the agenda of the Labour Party. The Labour Party can prove that and demonstrate that because of the things this Labour-led Government has done for families in the last 8 years. We look forward to continuing to do more. 
I begin with the area of housing which I have now taken up as a ministerial portfolio a portfolio I am very happy to walk into. When Labour became the Government in 1999 we restored income-related rents for State house tenants. State house tenants—low-income tenants—now pay no more than 25 percent of their income in rent. Already more than 60000 Kiwi families are benefiting. 
Dianne Yates 
: How many? 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: More than 60000 Kiwi families are benefiting from that policy alone. Their anxiety will be about what will happen should the National Party members ever be elected to Government. We can predict what would happen because they have done it before. They would introduce market rentals again and create the kind of housing shortage that used to be associated with Depression times. National in selling off 13000 State houses when last in Government sold 10000 of them to developers so all this talk and bleeding-heart nonsense about this newly acquired concern for people in substandard housing is sensationalism at its worst because it is sensationalism at the expense of the most vulnerable. Those members opposite know that people remember National’s record in Government. National absolutely dealt to the most vulnerable in our society because it has no interest in them at best and does not care about them at worst. 
Labour has increased the housing stock. We are a little over halfway through recovering the position that National members when in Government brought this country to. Labour has built something in the order of 7500 more State houses since it took office. In addition we have tried to assist people to get into their first homes. Housing affordability is a really important issue. It is a fundamentally important issue for New Zealand families going ahead. We are leading on affordable housing with the ground-breaking development at Hobsonville which has in its ambit 30 percent of sections set aside for the vulnerable. It is that kind of creativity and commitment that will get us back to where we were.