Twyford Phil: Appropriation (2015/16 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Appropriation (2015/16 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate[Sitting date: 18 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5879. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): The previous speaker Alastair Scott was not so much pedestrian as—well actually I think that if he had been any more comatose he would have fallen over at his desk. I want to correct one thing that that speaker said. He claimed that Gerry Brownlee was a farmer. Gerry Brownlee—he is no farmer. He might be a grazer but he is certainly no farmer.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: You saved my life then.PHIL TWYFORD: Thank you Clayton Cosgrove. I want to talk about this Government’s housing policies because in the Budget it made two announcements that are typical in so many ways of this Government’s housing policy. The first was Nick Smith’s nowinfamous Crown land fiasco in Auckland where he tried to flog off patches of land that the Government does not even own and claimed that the local iwi had no right of first refusal—and it turns out that they actually did—and he is in court defending the Government’s policy against legal action by Ngāti Whātua.The second Budget housing policy that the Government announced after having denied and denied for the last 3 years that property speculators are even a problem in Auckland was the so-called 2-year test designed to catch a few property speculators. Flying in the face of all the evidence the Government denied that property speculation is a problem yet it announced in the Budget the 2-year test which is basically an invitation to property speculators in Auckland to hold on to their properties for 2 years and a day and then flick them off. Why are this Government’s housing policies so token so superficial and so ineffective? That is the question that everybody in Auckland is asking because basically this is the “seenoevil hearnoevil” housing policy and it is obvious that this Government is in denial. It is complacent and in denial that there is a housing crisis in Auckland.The housing market in Auckland is obviously completely out of control. The average house price in Auckland in the last 12 months went up $135000—18.8 percent. That is the average and yet this Government says that there is no housing crisis. Generation Rent is locked out of the housing market—it is obvious for anybody to see. It is impossible for that generation except for young people who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths to ever hope realistically of owning their own home in Auckland. We have a rise in homelessness across the city. There are people living in cars in garages and in camp grounds. There is ballooning inequality between the young and the old between people who own property and people who are landless and between people who live in Auckland and the rest of the country.You would think that Government members would be worried. In fact it is hard to find anyone who thinks that this is not a major social and economic crisis in Auckland. The OECD has told us that Auckland housing is among the most overvalued in the world. The Reserve Bank has repeatedly cautioned this Government and said that the Auckland housing crisis is a threat to financial stability. It embarrassed the Government by saying that it had not done enough and that it needed to do more to increase supply and to deal with property speculation. Chris Parker the chief economist at Auckland Council said in the last few days that Auckland’s housing market was not far away from being a bubble.He cited independent research by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research that showed that Auckland’s house prices were one-third overvalued compared with future rental incomes—one-third overvalued. Chris Parker of Auckland Council says that we are not far away from it being a bubble.Then there was the final indignity for this Government’s housing policy. Standard and Poor’s the international credit rating agency on Friday afternoon downgraded the credit rating of all the major banks in New Zealand—the six largest banks. It cited the increased risks from Auckland’s housing boom. It left its issuer credit ratings at AA- but it lowered the stand-alone credit profiles by one notch for each of the four major banks.It said that the actions “reflect our view that New Zealand financial institutions face heightened risks because of an increase in the country’s overall level of economic imbalances over the past 3 years. In particular we believe the rapid rise in house prices in Auckland during this period has amplified the risk of a sharp correction in [the housing market]”.Standard and Poor’s is one of the leading international credit agencies. It has said that the housing crisis in Auckland is posing a significant risk to our banking system. It is plain; everybody can see it. Aucklanders know what is going on. But why is this Government in denial? Well the answer was revealed inadvertently in an interview that the Prime Minister gave on Newstalk ZB a week and a half ago where he said that Aucklanders are happy because they are getting wealthier because their house prices are going up. It was the most candid this Prime Minister has been in the last few years about why it is a do-nothing Government when it comes to housing policy.The Prime Minister revealed that he is comfortable with Auckland house prices going up on average $135000 in the last 12 months. He is comfortable with that because he has made the cynical political calculation that he can harvest enough votes from homeowners who are watching their paper wealth increasing by the year by the week and by the day and he is willing to throw under the bus the more than half of all Aucklanders who actually live in rented accommodation and a generation of young Aucklanders who under this Government’s housing policies face no prospect of ever owning their own home. That is why—it is that level of political cynicism by the National Party—this Prime Minister has condemned a whole generation of young New Zealanders to being Generation Rent. In his words they are becoming landless tenants in their own land and this National Party is happy to stand by and watch that happen. That is why Nick Smith is the worst Minister for Building and Housing in living memory. He is the Minister of photo ops of stunts and grudging half-measures.I come now to Nick Smith’s Crown land fiasco. He promised 500 hectares of new land for housing development. Where is that now? Where is that land? Where are the houses? Where are the thousands of houses that were promised in his special housing areas in Auckland? At last count the Auckland Council—18 months after it announced the housing accord in Auckland—confirmed 300 houses. Three hundred. Auckland needs 13000 houses just to stand still just to keep up with population growth. Yet as the Productivity Commissionthis Government’s pet thinktank pointed out at current build rates Auckland is slipping behind by 5000 houses every year. There is a shortfall of 32000 houses at the moment in Auckland. That shortage is one of the main reasons why house prices continue to go through the roof. Yet under National we are 5000 short every year and the Productivity Commission predicted that by 2020 that 32000 shortfall will have blown out to 60000.The housing crisis is getting worse by the day in Auckland and this Government does nothing effective about it. It is in denial about the rampant property speculation that is driving house prices higher and higher. According to Quotable Value 45 percent of all property transactions in Auckland are to investors with multiple properties and yet the best that this Government can do is that grudging half-measure that 2-year test which its own most respected tax adviser John Shewan said will do nothing to rein in house prices. It will do nothing to deter house speculators. It is a housing crisis that is having huge economic and social consequences for this country but this Government is out of touch with what people want and it is refusing to listen to the demands of the public of New Zealand for serious action on the housing crisis.