Clark David: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClark David: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3625. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I rise to take a call on this bill. I want to challenge members opposite who have read their economic textbooks—and I believe there are many. I can see faces across the Chamber that I have heard preaching on the benefits of sound economics. Indeed I guess I am talking particularly to those—Hon David Parker: Thatcherism 101.Dr DAVID CLARK:—yes interested in Thatcherism 101—who sleep with Hayek under their pillow those who have to run a spray mister at night in their room lest they spontaneously combust—the really dry ones; the really really dry ones. Even they will have heard of market failure. Market failure is something they might not want to acknowledge. They might not want to acknowledge it but it is something they in their heart of hearts know exists. They know that we have State housing provided in this country so that even those who struggle every day have a backstop have security and have a safe place to raise their children and that is for the benefit of future generations beyond just today. Those who are walking the tightrope of poverty know that they have underneath them a safety net provided by a sound State housing system.As we have heard from many members contributing today that safety net has been taken away by this Government. It is no longer interested in addressing that market failure. It wants to pretend that it does not exist. Well in my experience it does still exist. I can think of very recent examples a couple of which I would like to outline today. These examples are poignant to this bill because these are people who would like to ensure that they stay in State housing because of their experience of going into the private housing market.The first story I want to tell is of a family that I visited during my home visits. They live in a house that meets their needs roughly. It is a house with the right number of bedrooms. It is within a reasonable proximity of other family members and therefore they can share the care of children and grandchildren. But when I went to visit this family the house was rundown. It was cold. It is a private rental. They want to be on the State housing list. They used to be on the State housing list but they got bumped off. They got told they could have a private rental.I went into that house and I was horrified. It is a house I had visited many times as a student. It was pretty rundown then but now it has holes in the wall it has no insulation and it has young children living in it. They have runny noses. They have tears in their eyes. I do not want to be too emotive about this but these are children who are going to develop preventable diseases through their childhoods and we as taxpayers will end up bearing the cost of that for their whole lives—and they and their wider family will end up bearing the cost of that for their whole lives.I sought to intervene on behalf of this family—in fact they asked me to intervene. They asked me to represent their cause because their landlord would not listen. They want simply some insulation for which there are subsidy schemes. They want the holes in the wall repaired. But what happened when I did seek to intervene when my office sought to go alongside them to meet their landlord was that their landlord said no. He said they may not bring a representative with them to that discussion; if they did they risked being turfed out.That is the kind of bullying that can exist in the private market where the need is so great—is so great—where there is so much unmet need for social housing that private landlords can exploit the system. A good State housing social housing provider ensures that those private landlords are kept honest and that they do have to meet basic needs because they otherwise cannot compete in the market. But that situation currently does not exist at least not in Dunedin where I live.I have heard just yesterday of another case where there is a Dunedin family living in a State house that has just had its fire escape removed. And they have been told it is not coming back. It is the second case I have heard of in the last fortnight where a fire escape has been removed from the second story of a building that children sleep in and is not coming back. That is emblematic to me of what is going on in the social housing sector.The Government is physically—actually physically—dismantling the State houses that provide care and security for the most vulnerable citizens in our society. And here we have in this bill an attempt to flog these State houses off. These examples point in that direction and of course the State housing sales in Dunedin will continue. We have seen many come on to the market. Many are currently vacant in Dunedin despite the need despite the families who come through my door every week and despite the families who come through my colleague Clare Curran’s door every week in Dunedin. Those houses are kept vacant because of the criteria the Government applies. It says the need is not great enough.How great does the need have to be? How great does the need have to be? Surely when there are children in private rental accommodations getting preventable diseases the need is great enough to want to provide State housing. Yet Minister Smith has previously released papers saying that the Government expects that there will no longer be the need for the 1500 State houses in Dunedin. It is expecting the need to go down to 1000 State houses and it is selling them off now.This is a Government determined to get out of the social housing sector determined to wash its hands of the social problems it is creating by not meeting that market failure. This will have very long-term consequences for New Zealand. That is why we on this side of the House will continue to vigorously oppose this bill at every stage. We note that the public have not been invited to make submissions on this bill and I think that that is shameful and very telling of the Government’s agenda here.I doubt that we will hear much from the members on the other side during the debate. I would like to be proven wrong. I would like them to stand up and tell me that in their heart of hearts they do not think this market failure is going to hurt future families. I would love for them to get up and speak to it but actually I suspect they want to see this bill through the House as fast as it will go because they do not care about these people.This is a Government that does not care about these people. It is shameful. They may go to sleep with spray misters in their rooms—they are expensive spray misters that not everyone can afford I am sure—and they may to sleep with Hayek under their pillows but they should not sleep easily at night while knowing that they are doing away with these protections for our most vulnerable. These protections ensure that private providers are kept honest and must meet a certain minimum standard. This dismantling of our State housing sector cannot be allowed to continue. We will vigorously oppose this bill at every stage of its passage through this House.