King Annette: Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill — Second ReadingText is subject to correctionKing Annette: Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 07 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14513. Text is subject to correction.]Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai): It was interesting listening to Melissa Lee read out the research notes. What I got from that is that she thinks that if you tell a lie often enough people might believe it. The lie that I thought was being told was that for 9 years Labour did nothing in housing. Well that member was not around I believe during that time but I can tell her that we spent 9 years fixing up after the great State house fire sale undertaken by the previous National Government. Maybe she was not aware of that. Maybe nobody told her that the previous National Government sold off 13000 State houses and replaced very few of them.She then went on to say that it is not about kicking people out of houses—that that is not what it is about. Well I suggest that she might like to read the regulatory impact statement which says this: “As at 31 January 2013 HNZC had 63867 total tenancies of which 54520 were identified as having been entered into prior to 1 July 2011.”—that is an important date 1 July 2011—and: “About 80 percent of these are likely to qualify for desktop review.” This desktop review is to see whether they should be kicked out. The criteria for that are going to be very interesting indeed.You see this Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill is about three things. It is about the income-related rent subsidy being extended to all social housing providers. I have no problem with that. It is a very good idea. But why have they not included local government—one of the biggest providers of social housing in New Zealand—in this? If you counted local government as a social housing provider I suspect it would be more than 5 percent. If they are counting local government in the 5 percent then why are councils not eligible in the extension of the income-related rent subsidy? That is a very good question and I would like to put that to the Minister of Housing when I get an opportunity.Here in Wellington it is the local authority—it is Wellington City Council—that provides the largest number of social houses in this city. In fact it is the biggest provider in New Zealand. Why would it not qualify for the income-related rent subsidy? It is providing very good accommodation after the previous Labour Government put in over $200 million in partnership with them—$200 million Melissa Lee that we put into a partnership with the local authority—to renovate those houses and those apartments to make them livable for many many low-income Wellingtonians. That is the sort of thing that the previous Labour Government did. So I do not have a problem with income-related rent subsidy being provided to social housing providers.I do have a problem with the reviewable tenancies of all State housing tenants. When you read the small print yes they are going to be concerned about people with disabilities and people who are unable to physically move but where in this bill does it talk about the elderly? It is the older New Zealanders who have often lived in the same State house for many years—and it is their home. It is not just a place where they lay their head. It is a place where often they have brought up their children. They have made it their home they have put in the gardens often they had to put in the paths they put in the drapes they put in the carpet and they made it their home. These people are some of those who are going to be asked to move on when they have had their tenancies reviewed.The third area is that this bill is supposed to make Housing New Zealand more effective and more efficient. Well poor old Housing New Zealand underwent a big effectiveness and efficiency change under the previous Minister Phil Heatley so it was supposed to have already been made more effective and efficient. Some of us remember how that happened. The Government closed all the Housing New Zealand offices. That is how they became more efficient. So if you wanted to go and see somebody in aHousing New Zealand office you rocked up to the door and the door was shut. You could not even get an appointment to get into the office because you had to ring the toll-free 0800 number to get an appointment if you were going to get through the door and if they would open it. But people sat for hours and hours trying to get through on the 0800 number. It was the 0800 Nowhere number. So talk about more efficiency in Housing New Zealand!There are three areas in this bill. I have to say we are not going to support it because although there are some good things in it it is going to have a detrimental effect on many many New Zealanders who need certainty and security in their housing.One last thing: we already have a mixed model of housing. We have homeownership we have State housing and we have community and social housing. We could add to that but you do not need to do that at the expense of State house tenants.