Lees-Galloway Iain: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:9134. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): Well we are on the title and commencement clauses of the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill. I think we could all come up with a range of titles for this legislation but what we need is a title that captures the things that this bill actually does. What it does is it vests enormous authority in the hands of Ministers with absolutely no transparency and with absolutely no accountability. Also what it does is it allows for the corporatisation of our social housing stock.The other thing that it does which does not appear to have been considered in any great detail in this Chamber is that it allows for the massive confiscation of property rights that have been held for over a century in this country. That is in Part 3 where it talks about how the Public Works Act 1981 does not apply and has never applied. So in other words under the Public Works Act what normally happens is that the previous owner of land that was acquired under that Act would be able to have first right of refusal if the Government decided this land was no longer going to be used for housing. That does not apply under this legislation. That no longer applies.So we could call this legislation considering the title and commencement clauses of this legislation “The Most Massive Confiscation of Property Rights in New Zealand History Bill”. That would be a far better and more appropriate title for this legislation than the rather bland Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill. Another name we could give it is the “Vesting Enormous Power in the Hands of Two Ministers Bill” because that is another thing that this legislation does. It takes away decisions from Housing New Zealand—the Government agency that has the expertise to deal with housing—and hands them over to two Ministers.This could be the “Handing over Social Housing to the National Party’s Mates Bill”. That is a far better title for this legislation because what we have got is a piece of legislation that gives the National Government the ability to hand more of the State infrastructure to its buddies to its rich mates than it has already done. Think Rio Tinto think Skycity think Warner Bros. Well the next thing will be the Aussie banks that will be able to get their hands on our social housing stock under the “Give the National Party’s Mates Our Social Housing Stock Bill” which would be a far better title for this legislation than this bland title that we have got.As for the commencement date I have got a suggestion: never. Never ever allow such an ugly piece of legislation to be enacted. How about that? I propose that as an amendment. Let us never commence this legislation because it is a land-grab because it is the corporatisation of our social housing system because it is giving more wealth to the National Party’s mates and that wealth will come from our most vulnerable people. The rents that people will be paying in social housing will be going directly into the hands of the Aussie banks under this legislation and that is appalling.So how about never? How about we do not commence this legislation? How about we do not pass it for a start? But if we are going to pass it how about we have a commencement date of just never? “We never meant to do that. It was folly it was a really bad idea and even though we passed the legislation let’s just not start doing it because New Zealanders just know that this is the wrong kind of direction for us to be taking our social housing stock.”Let us not privatise more of our social housing. Let us not hand over more of our social security net to Australian banks to American movie companies to Australian gambling corporations. Let us not do that. Let us actually do what works. Let us have a solid social security net. Let us have a State housing stock that is sufficient to actually meet the needs of New Zealanders. Let us not sell off houses in one part of the country—