O'Rourke Denis: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 05 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13340. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): The National Government has waited several years while a housing crisis developed. Over the last 5 years the Government has allowed a housing bubble to emerge in Auckland by its inept immigration and housing policies. Now it blames local government. The Government pretends that with the introduction of housing accords and special housing areas it can solve the problem. But it will not. Only a comprehensive housing strategy to address both demand and supply factors as advocated by New Zealand First will make housing affordable for home buyers.The price of houses will not reduce under this legislation. Even the rate of increase is unlikely to reduce as a result of this legislation. First-home buyers will not be able to afford a house because the Government’s approach will have no effect on their capacity to raise a 20 percent deposit or to find an affordable home. Historically low interest rates are now rising to make matters worse.New Zealand First supports a broadly based housing policy that will again make homeownership a reality rather than a dream for ordinary New Zealanders. NewZealand First wants to see direct assistance to first-home seekers. Although New Zealand First has no problem with the concept of housing accords and special housing areas they will not be enough to improve the housing crisis.What the Government fails to grasp is that the housing crisis is not driven just by the availability of houses on the market but by the price driven by many other factors as well and by access to finance especially the capacity of first-home seekers to raise a 20 percent deposit as is now required.The Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill addresses only the issue of collaboration with local government to assist it to ensure land availability. This is clearly only a part of the problem. It does not actually cause any more houses to be built and it does not address the issue of the affordability of those houses. The hopes of at least 80 percent of first-home seekers have now been annihilated by the Reserve Bank’s limiting of the quantum of high loan-to-value ratio mortgages that the trading banks can make. This will do great damage to the proper expectations of first-home seekers to buy a family home. This does not address the fundamental issue. The Reserve Bank does not care about it. This Government obviously does not care about it either.Another problem not being addressed is that overseas property investors and speculators have been buying up Auckland property outbidding Kiwis trying to buy a home and worsening the housing crisis. They of course are not hurt by the Reserve Bank’s loan-to-value ratio restrictions. Back in March this year the BNZ-REINZ Residential Market Survey said that in Auckland an estimated 11 percent of sales are to people offshore not 3 percent as Melissa Lee claimed—11 percent. You see I actually read the report so I know that as a matter of fact—11 percent not 3 percent. That is a significant proportion of the total number of home buyers in Auckland contributing to the housing bubble there.The trend is worsening. There is still a significant number of real estate agency companies promoting Auckland houses in Malaysia China and other parts of Asia. Here is what one recent Chinese magazine article said: “What could be better than a picturesque comfortable country that is attractive to foreign buyers? You can benefit from New Zealand’s rising domestic housing market. Data released last month reported the Auckland real estate market is firing like crazy and will soon exceed the 2007 peak and international buyers can share in this.” That gives you a flavour for what is going on as far as encouraging overseas people to buy houses especially in Auckland.The Government also does nothing about the migrant flows that have been concentrated in Auckland. It does nothing to tighten immigration policy in areas such as parental reunion which have added significantly to housing demand in Auckland. This is not xenophobia. It is good immigration policy to create those restrictions. It puts New Zealanders first and that is one of the primary purposes for New Zealand First in this Parliament.Most important the impact of Reserve Bank policies will fall most directly on first-home buyers. The Government’s response to that has been pathetic. All it has done is ease access to KiwiSaver which is both ineffective and inappropriate because the Government should be encouraging people to save for their retirement.This bill may do some good in assisting local government to free up land for housing but it is far far too little and far too late. It is likely to be at the expense of good planning too and at the expense of the usually well-thought-out plans of city councils and regional councils to balance housing land availability with sustainable urban boundaries. And it will be at the expense of local democracy with local people having a very limited say in what will happen to their own city and their own neighbourhood.This bill lacks balance. It lacks a strategic approach that would cover all of New Zealand and not just Auckland’s problems. It will not in the end help even one of the thousands of young families on limited incomes seeking their first home to find a modest and affordable home on a smaller section and to access a deposit and a sufficient home for their needs. These people need a Government with the ability to get them into a home they can afford. This legislation is a dismal failure in bringing that reality to them. So in the end New Zealand First has resolved to oppose the bill. The basis of our opposition is not opposition to the concept of housing accords or special housing areas; it is a protest at the inadequacy of Government housing policy. It is far far too little and far far too late. It is mostly a protest at the Government’s tacit approval of the Reserve Bank’s shutting out of low-income first-home seekers from the New Zealand housing market.This Government does not get it. The problem is affordability—affordability—for these people. Much much more needs to be done about that and this Government simply has no ideas about how to deliver affordable homes to New Zealanders and to assist them to get their first home. It should be one of the first priorities at the top of the list for any Government in this country. This Government’s attempt to attack that problem after 5 years of inaction has been utterly pathetic and this bill demonstrates that much better than my words can say.