Beaumont Carol: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBeaumont Carol: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 03 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13204. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour): I actually find it sad to be rising to speak on this bill the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill when there is such a genuine need to have something done to deal with the issue of affordable housing. During the course of this debate the Minister of Housing has finally said something about an Order in Council as my colleagues Rajen Prasad and Phil Twyford have alluded to tonight. But when you look at this bill it is not a bill about affordable housing and that is what we need.We oppose this bill but I actually say there is no pleasure in doing so because we are genuinely committed to seeing effective changes in the area of housing. For Labour housing is a huge and important policy area. It is going to make a difference to people’s quality of life and a difference to children’s health and education. Accessing housing at a price that people can afford and being able to own their own house are part of being part of a community and feeling like a person has a place in their community.In terms of this Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill others have talked about renaming it. Well I thought you could keep that name except perhaps add on to the end the phrase “(But Not Affordable Housing)” so that the title would be the “Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas (But Not Affordable Housing) Bill”.We do see the need for bold action to address the housing affordability crisis and we support the idea of a short-term mechanism to stimulate the building of affordable housing through accords with councils in special housing areas and fast-track consenting. We do not actually have a problem with that. During the course of this debate—and I have tried a couple of times previously to have a say on this—we have heard all sorts of comments made by the Minister which are actually not true about what our motivation is and what our housing spokesperson is and is not saying. We do actually agree that there needs to be land supply and that planning regulations do need to be looked at in terms of housing.The Minister is looking at me so I think maybe I could help him out on this and quote from Phil Twyford on the matter of land availability because I want to set the record straight. It was said earlier today that we did not think that land supply was an issue. This is a direct quote from Phil Twyford in the second reading of this bill: “There is no doubt—and I want to put to rest any suggestion by the Minister of Housing in his last speech—that this party does not accept that land supply is a problem in Auckland. It is clearly not a problem in Tauranga and other regional centres that suffer extreme housing unaffordability. But for the sake of this argument let us be very clear and put on record that there is no doubt—the data makes it crystal clear—that constraints on land supply in Auckland and the failure to intensify is behind an increase in the price in land that has flowed on to the price of housing. But land supply is only one factor in the housing crisis and the National Party has a fixation with it.” I just wanted to set the record straight on that. I think it is pretty important.We supported this bill going to the Social Services Committee because we were interested in seeing whether there was some value in this bill. However we are not going to support this bill because we believe it is flawed in its design and it will not achieve its stated aim of more affordable housing. The mechanism is not there in the bill. The Minister is now talking about what he may do by Order in Council but in this bill there is nothing that ensures that of the new houses that are built in special housing areas a portion of them will be affordable to low and middle income earners.At the moment there is something like 5 percent of new residential construction that is affordable. That is just meaning that so many New Zealanders see no hope of owning their own home. I want to particularly note young New Zealanders like my niece who is currently finishing her university education with a large student loan. I do not believe she sees that at any time in the foreseeable future she will be able to pay off that debt and save enough money to buy her own home in this country.Andrew Little: She’ll be overseas by that time.CAROL BEAUMONT: That is right. In all probability as my colleague Andrew Little says a bright young woman like her will probably end up going overseas for a better income and a better future. That is not what we want and what we need in this country. So again I say that this bill picks up only a couple of factors underlying the crisis—