Nash Stuart: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNash Stuart: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:9118. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): I disagree with what the Minister has said with all due respect. I think what she has outlined and what is in this bill is actually poor governance. I am sorry but under every single definition when a Minister has the right to overrule a board that is not good.But there are a couple of other things that I would like to just pick up on. New section 50L in clause 8—this is “Publication of social housing transaction”. There are just a couple of terms here that I think we need to clarify so we know exactly what we are talking about. What is says under new section 50L(1) is: “The Minister must as soon as practicable after a social housing transaction is settled”—what does “as soon as practicable mean”? I would say in this sort of situation with this sort of transaction with such a public good or a public interest component that it should be within 24 hours. It continues that the Minister must “(b) present a copy of that notice to the House of Representatives”. The interesting thing though is that under new section 50M(1)—and this is the thing that strikes me as a little hasty and again poor legislation but more than that it is poor process—it says: “The Minister must give written notice to the Corporation or subsidiary as relevant of the Minister’s intention to enter into a transitional services contract at least 5 working days before entering into the contract.”—5 working days? So what this actually says is that the Minister has no legislative right whatsoever to tell his or her staff what he or she is planning to do with any sort of social housing contract before a 5 working-day period. The Minister may turn up on a Monday and say to the chief executive “I’m signing something on Friday.”Goodness me! I just do not think that 5 working days is at all enough to allow any sort of corporation to respond in a way that would allow whatever needs to be transferred or the proper process to go through in any way shape or form. It says that the notice must be accompanied by a copy of the proposed contract. Well hallelujah! Thank goodness for that. Of course it should be.But I can imagine that these contracts when you are selling off State houses or chunks of State houses would come with a pretty meaty contract. The sale and purchase agreement of a stock standard house requires—well you get 60 days to complete it before it becomes void or you need to seek an extension. What this piece of legislation is saying is that the chief executive officer has 5 days—only 5 days—to consider the contract if the Minister is entering into something. That is woefully inadequate. I think it is woefully inadequate.I would also like to go to subsection (1) of new section 50O set out in clause 8. This is a very interesting subsection. I am not too sure why it is here but what it does do is it says to me that there is a lot of malcontent—discontentment—within Housing New Zealand. New section 50O(1) says: “The Corporation or subsidiary must supply to the Minister any information requested in writing by the Minister to facilitate transaction process or to facilitate the implementation by the Minister of a social housing transaction.”Phil Twyford: You can’t blame them for being unhappy.STUART NASH: I agree with you Mr Twyford. This is saying “Officials you must obey the Minister.”Meka Whaitiri: No it’s that they have no faith in them.STUART NASH: Exactly. What this is saying is the Minister does not have any faith in her officials to give her or him the right information to make sure this proper process is implemented so what we must do is actually put in legislation a requirement for the officials to obey the Minister.I speak on a lot of tax bills and that sort of thing and I have never seen a clause in a bill that says the officials must obey the Minister. In fact I actually believe that that is part of the State services contract. Mr Bishop would know more about this. Perhaps you could take a call on it. But I would have thought that if an official did not obey a Minister or did not give the relevant information that a Minister had asked for then that official would be in really big trouble. But the fact it has to be in a clause in the legislation says that there exists a level of distrust between the officials who probably know this is the wrong thing to do and the Minister who just does not trust the officials. If I were an official I would feel pretty slighted about that actually—I really would.The other thing that I perhaps want to ask the Minister a question on is if we go down to new section 50Q the rights of delegation—it says in subsection (1): “The Minister may delegate all or any of the Minister’s functions and powers under this Part to the chief executive of the Ministry.” So what that in essence says is that the chief executive has the power to override the board.