Twyford Phil: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:9100. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): It is good that Dr Smith is the Minister in the chair because he was the housing Minister so he knows a thing or two about selling the Government’s housing policy. This was before he was so cruelly stripped of his responsibilities and the politically sensitive job of selling the Government’s carve-up and privatisation of State housing was handed to let us say colleagues with a safer set of hands: Paula Bennett and Bill English.You know up to Dr Smith’s arrival I was disappointed that we had not had a single contribution in nearly 2 hours of debate from the National Party members in the Chamber today. I can only assume that they have a feeling of shame and of unease about the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill because they know that this bill that they are pushing through Parliament is dismantling a system of State housing that has been absolutely central to the values that New Zealanders have had for decades—that the most vulnerable struggling members of our society at least deserve a decent roof over their heads.But what did we get from Dr Smith? Well what we got was a recycling of the tired old spin lines that we have put up with for the last 2 years and that have been used to try to confuse the New Zealand public about this privatisation of State housing. The first question he addressed was who was going to be buying these houses. Dr Smith—it was very retro—went right back to the beginning of this political episode by trying to say that it is the community sector that it is charities and community organisations that are going to be buying these houses.Well Dr Smith nothing could be further from the truth. Did you not get the memo? That spin line was thrown out the window 18 months ago after the Salvation Army said it was not interested in buying these houses or taking them off the Government. And the Government is now actively courting Australian companies. Bill English yesterday was widely reported as saying that he wants to see private equity firms and retirement village - like companies buying up State housing because they can make a big profit on it. Did you not get the memo Dr Smith?It is no longer about community organisations. That particular justification was dispensed with years ago and your colleagues are actively talking to merchant bankers and property speculators and public–private partnershipfirms from the UK. It is no longer about that Dr Smith.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Come back to Part 1.PHIL TWYFORD: I want to comment on amended section 2(1) in clause 3A because I do not think anyone has done justice to that. It defines the term “ministry” for the purposes of this bill saying that it “means the department of State that with the authority of the Prime Minister is responsible for the administration of this Act.” I presume that the Government intends that the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment which has carriage of most of the housing issues that Dr Smith is responsible for—I am assuming it wants the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment to be the undertaker of State housing under this Act. I assume that is what is going on here.But it is absolutely appropriate that the authority of the Prime Minister is cited in this bill because the current Prime Minister will walk away from politics with his political epitaph being that he carved up and sold off the very system of State housing that gave him and his mother a decent secure roof over their heads in the 1960s. The New Zealand taxpayer provided that assistance to John Key and his mother and it gave him a very good start in life. No one is going to argue about that. He got a very good start in life thanks to the New Zealand taxpayer and then he constructed this finely crafted political backstory about how he was a State house boy done good. That has been part of his charm and his mystique but he has no qualms dismantling the very system that gave him this start in life.It is that inconsistency it is that hypocrisy that I detest from the National Party. I absolutely have contempt for it. That is what this bill does. It pulls up the ladder it dismantles the very system—