Heatley Phil: Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHeatley Phil: Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10107. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei): Can I be the first to congratulate the Minister of Housing this morning on the changed paradigm in housing that he is bringing forward. It is something that the community housing sector is supporting—in fact even promoting—because it has said for a long time now that we need to make sure that people looking for housing have a significant choice right across the board not just Housing New Zealand properties. Currently the paradigm is that people needing housing will go either to the Ministry of Social Development or to Housing New Zealand. If they go to the Ministry of Social Development they get a subsidy of about $3000 or $4000 a year on their housing and they rent privately. We are delighted that the private sector actually provides housing in New Zealand. I do not know why the Labour Party attacked the private housing sector. Quite frankly if that sector left the market tomorrow the Government would be left with billions and billions and billions of dollars’ worth of required investment. So we are glad that landlords provide housing in New Zealand.Or the needy family would go to Housing New Zealand and there they get a subsidy of about $6000 or $8000 a year. So naturally people go to Housing New Zealand—because the subsidy is twice as much as what they would get on the accommodation supplement—line up and then you get the waiting list. Under Labour we saw the waiting list hit 10000 people a year—10000 people a year—because everyone wants a State house. Furthermore once you are in a State house—currently under the Labour Party principles anyway—you do not leave; you have it for life. It does not matter whether you took on a four-bedroom house with three kids and a husband. Twenty years down the track when all the children have left and your husband has passed away at the moment you can rattle around in a four-bedroom State house even while a needy family of six is languishing on the waiting list for 10 years. The Labour Party thinks that is fine. Well we are saying no. We believe that we can transition that single person into a smaller State home or into a community house.I am saying that it is good that the Minister has changed this paradigm where once you either lined up at the Ministry of Social Development or lined up at Housing New Zealand preferred Housing New Zealand and had a State house for life. Now of course we are going to see people go to the Ministry of Social Development. They will have the opportunity to go into private housing with the accommodation supplement into State housing with income-related rents or into the third sector which is a great thing because in the community housing sector care they wrap around services for mental health clients and they wrap around services for the disabled for the very young and for the very old. And for those young mums they care for they provide budgeting services and sometimes there are medical visits as well.We are going to be supporting the community housing sector with both capital—significant capital—and cash flow the income-related rents so that we can provide housing right across the board: the private rental market with the accommodation supplement income-related rents in State housing and income-related rents in the community housing sector. We are giving tenants choices right across the country. I support this Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill and I support the Minister in taking the courage to actually deliver to New Zealand what the community housing sector has been pushing for and promoting for years.