O'Rourke Denis: Budget DebateText is subject to correctionO'Rourke Denis: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 07 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11681. Text is subject to correction.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): Ten minutes now.Hon Member: Do we have to listen to this for 10 minutes?DENIS O’ROURKE: Ten minutes is always better than 5 when it comes to speaking about a National Government Budget. The thing I want to talk about first of all is the social housing crisis because it is a crisis and yet this Budget does next to nil about it. That is actually particularly cruel when you consider how many people there are in New Zealand especially in Auckland who are searching for a home—any decent home—to live in and they cannot find one. In fact large numbers of people in New Zealand and especially in Auckland are being forced to move from one rental home to another as rent increases force them out of one property into another one. The rent goes up again they go into another one and so on. That is the scenario that we have under this Government.It is actually caused by three things I believe. First of all it is actually caused—caused—by this Government’s awful housing management over 8 years. It has tried to deny it. It actually tried to deny that there is a housing crisis and yet its policy is one of the primary causes of it. The other cause is uncontrolled immigration—a rate of immigration that this country simply cannot sustain if we are going to house everybody and if we are going to provide them with all the basic services that they need. The third reason is that this Government is selling off State houses in a complete absence of any State house - building programme. So there are three fundamental reasons why there is a social housing crisis in particular and why it is actually all this Government’s fault. And this Budget does next to nothing about it.This Government’s ideologically driven housing problems have actually created what is nothing less than a toxic mess as far as housing is concerned in this country at the present time. I particularly want to take a look at the provisions that there are in this Budget because there is nothing new really. The first is that there is a total of $257 million over 4 years which averages only $64 million a year to solve such a serious crisis. Of that $257 million $200 million—or an average of $50 million a year over 4 years—is actually the income-related rent subsidy top-up. That itself is needed because of huge rent increases caused by this Government’s policies so almost all of its provision for social housing is addressing issues that are actually caused by the Government’s own policies.There is another $41 million provision for emergency housing over 4 years and that is only about $10 million a year so it is not a huge amount of money in relation to the problem. I want to read out what the narrative to this in the Budget is: “This funding will pay for emergency housing places in areas of high demand including some places specifically for perpetrators of family violence. It will also establish an Emergency Housing Special Needs Grant to meet housing needs of individuals and families.” What that really means is that we are given a band-aid at the bottom of the cliff—not even an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff; a band-aid at the bottom of the cliff—to solve the emergency housing crisis which is of course just part of the total housing crisis. That $10 million will not go very far. No doubt it will pay for some more motels as the Government’s housing agency scrambles to find emergency accommodation for people. The fact that this $41 million provision is there at all is actually an admission of failure by this Government. It is a $41 million admission by this Government that its social housing is in complete disarray—total failure—and this money is needed to just throw some band-aids around and try to fix the problem from time to time when it occurs.I want to go on to mention one other particular item of interest and it is under the heading “Growing the Māori Housing Network”. It is a provision of $3.15 million a year and the narrative for that is “repairing and building homes for whānau living in sub-standard accommodation including emergency housing.” New Zealand First says there should not be separately provided provisions of this kind based on a person’s race in the Budget. If there is a need then it should be met whether the person is Māori Pākehā or another ethnicity. It is completely wrong in our view that there should be Budget provisions of that kind based exclusively on race—that is wrong.New Zealand First does have some policies to offer the Government since it seems to be so devoid of anything sensible of its own. First of all New Zealand First would require territorial local councils to prepare and implement a social housing plan for their districts. We in New Zealand First think it is a core function of local government that it should have plans for its districts and its people. It should ensure there is an adequate supply of good-quality rental homes in its districts. It can do that by encouraging private investment but also by direct provision by the council on a long-term basis. New Zealand First as a Government would make long-term very low-interest 2 percent loan finance available to local government for the establishment of elderly persons’ housing and for the establishment of low-cost public rental housing developments.We would say that that should be administered by local government - owned and controlled housing enterprises. Those would operate independently but would be required to carry out not just the local councils’ housing plans but also the requirements of a New Zealand housing strategy which is something that New Zealand First also wishes to see in place. Those enterprises would also be required to reinvest all of their profits if any back into housing in the districts. We would say the same about Housing New Zealand by the way—all of the dividends it receives and currently pays to the Government should be reinvested back into housing.Secondly we would legislate to improve the security of tenancies so that we can move to see longer-term tenancies in New Zealand as you see in many countries overseas. We want to provide mechanisms to avoid large fluctuations in rents and if people think that is too hard to do then take a look at what happens in the United States and many parts of Europe. There are a lot of templates for us to follow in that regard. We want to see generally a raft of policies to improve the quality and attractiveness of renting as a viable alternative to owning a home in New Zealand because that is going to be a necessity for people in New Zealand in the future. Thirdly we would reform Housing New Zealand to make sure it fulfils the role it once had as a primary and high-quality provider of social housing in New Zealand.I want to finish up by just mentioning something about transport because I note there is a $190 million provision in the Budget over 4 years. That is not new—that is the 2015 provision of $200 million less $10 million for the first year. That is all the Government is prepared to invest in rail in the next 4 years and yet it has signed up to the Paris accord on climate change. We have no idea how the Government will meet that but I can say this: if that is going to be achieved then there is no doubt the rail system in New Zealand needs investment and needs to be upgraded so it can take its proper share of moving freight and passengers around New Zealand without us continually having to see increases in the use of fossil fuels for road transport of both cars and also other road transport. New Zealand rail needs secure funding—Hon Simon Bridges: We’ve invested $4 billion—$4 billion.DENIS O’ROURKE: —not $200 million every now and again. That is exactly what I am talking about Mr Minister. That amount is utterly inadequate to see the New Zealand rail system properly develop in the way it would need to as a 21st century not a 19th century railway system. That $200 million—$10 million a year—is not going anywhere. The rail system should be funded in the same way as road transport from a single land transport fund. In that way we can guarantee that it will get its fair and necessary share of transport funding.