Naylor Jono: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNaylor Jono: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 18 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5911. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JONO NAYLOR (National): I feel this evening as though I am trapped inside a children’s storybook. From what I have heard from the other side of the House it feels like the story of Chicken Licken—“The sky is falling the sky is falling.” It is doom it is gloom and nothing good can possibly ever happen. All we are hearing about are the negative things that perhaps might be going to happen as a result of this bill.I think it is really important that we do put this bill in the context of what it is that this Government is trying to achieve for the vulnerable people of New Zealand. I guess the first point is that the provision of social housing in New Zealand is going to continue. It is something that this Government is committed to having happen. We are looking at some different ways that we can perhaps deliver social housing in New Zealand and I think that is a good thing. We continue to be committed to ensuring that the people who need it the most will still be getting the assistance they need through social housing. That is fundamental in any society that is caring and from a Government that has any level of benevolence. This Government is no different in that regard.The question I guess we need to ask ourselves fundamentally when we are looking at anything to do with social housing is whether the Government should be in the business of ensuring that those people who are unable to house themselves are housed. The answer to that question unreservedly is that yes we should—absolutely we should. It is absolutely the business of Government to ensure that when people are unable to house themselves or when perhaps they are not able to afford to do that the Government provides subsidies on occasion perhaps the Government can provide housing or the Government perhaps empowers other organisations to provide housing. This Government continues to be committed to the idea that the Government should be in the business of providing social housing.Does this mean however that we need to stick to the same mode of delivery that we have always used? The answer to that is no not necessarily.In the 1930s Mr Savage was the Prime Minister and he kind of initiated this idea of State housing in New Zealand. In Palmerston North we have got Savage Crescent which is now a heritage site because it has got some of the first State houses that were constructed in New Zealand. Is it appropriate that they remain there as a heritage site? Yes it is. It is really important because it is an important part of New Zealand’s history. It is an important part of a good idea at the time that delivered a really great outcome for the people of New Zealand. But if I was listening to the members on the other side of the House this evening I would think that innovation stopped in the 1930s—that when Mr Savage as Prime Minister and his Government brought up the idea of State housing it was the last good idea that anybody could possibly ever have about the provision of State housing in New Zealand and that therefore we must not tinker we must not meddle and we must not do anything that could possibly be different from what is happening.Well I am not prepared to just settle on what has been done in the past. I am aspirational for the people of New Zealand.Chris Bishop: Ambitious.JONO NAYLOR: I am ambitious even for the people of New Zealand because I do not want them to simply have just what was always provided before. I think that the people of New Zealand deserve better than to have us simply resting on what was done close to 100 years ago. I think they deserve to have us thinking about creative ways in which we can deliver an even better service to them.We are going down the path of innovation. This Government is absolutely committed to looking at innovative new ways to help people in the area of housing. I will touch on the bill a little bit more but again I just want to get the context right. Remember that this Government is also looking to help more people get into their first home. We have introduced the HomeStart package which is helping young people to be able to cash in on their KiwiSaver account to be able to get greater grants from the Government to enable them to get into their first home. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that we reverse the trend of people finding it harder to get into their own home. We are committed to ensuring that people will be able to get into their first home and we are looking forward to seeing what is going to be happening. We have been doing roadshows on the HomeStart package around the country. The level of interest from mortgage brokers and young people who can finally see an opportunity to get into their first house—they are absolutely getting into it. They are loving the idea. We are going to see some great things happening from that.For those people on lower incomes who have been either renting properties or are living in their own home we have done a whole heap of work over the last few years on warming up those homes. We believe that people should live in healthy homes live in warm homes. The Warm Up New Zealand: Healthy Homes campaign has been a fantastic success which has seen so many people now living in homes that are warmer and drier and they are living better. But we have got to keep going because this Government is not going to just sit there and say: “Well that’s last good idea that we’ve had—HomeStart and warming up homes.” Unlike members opposite who want to rest on a 1930s decision and stay there we are going to keep going. We are going to keep doing more to deliver better outcomes for New Zealanders.One of the things that has received a bit of criticism and I will not shy away from it is the tenancy reviews that have been going on. Some of those reviews have been really really interesting. What we have found is that there are a number of people who are currently living in State-owned houses who are actually paying either a full rent or nearly a full rent. I have to ask myself: what is the point in the Government owning houses that people live in and pay full rents for? Those are people who could be paying market rents who perhaps could even be potentially buying their own homes but they are staying in the house that the State provided for them as was appropriate when they had the need beyond the point when they have that need. So it is appropriate that those people move on from that point and that they move into other arrangements that they can afford so that we can free up those houses for those people who most need them.It has been really interesting. The moment that those tenancy reviews have been done with a number of people the first thing they have said is: “Oh yes I guess we could go and look somewhere else. Actually perhaps we could think about buying.” I think that is a really positive outcome for those people to get out from underneath the feet of the Government and start to take control of their own lives and get involved in that way.I think it is really important again that we continue to work down this path. It was really interesting and I have told this story before but I hope if people have heard it they will not mind hearing it again. Last year I spoke to a woman who was living in a four-bedroom State house. It had been really good for her when her children were young. They had grown up and they had moved on. This woman said to me: “But don’t worry Jono those rooms aren’t going to waste because I’ve got international students living in there. I’ve got international students who are helping to supplement my income.” On one level I was kind of thinking that that was very good innovative entrepreneurial thinking on her part but that said I also thought that what she was doing was stopping some people who perhaps needed that kind of housing. So we are looking at what we are doing with our portfolio. We want to make sure that our portfolio delivers the right kind of housing to the people who need it most rather than just presuming that the stock of houses that was built in the 1930s for families of the 1930s will meet the need of today.I just want to come back finally to this point about innovation. Currently we have got over 60000 New Zealand homes. What we are talking about here is some empowering legislation that will allow the relevant Ministers to sell—or actually not just sell. It is interesting. People have been talking about selling but if you read the explanatory note on the front of the bill—I suggest members opposite do—it states very clearly that “Contracts may be for the sale or lease of properties”.This is not just about sales; it is about having flexibility for us to be innovative. We have got over 60000 State houses; we are talking about one or two thousand. That is about 2 or 3 percent of the current housing stock that we are debating tonight. We are not talking about a radical overhaul. We are not talking about a mass sell-off. What we are talking about is giving the relevant Ministers the flexibility to be innovative with a very small proportion of our housing stock so that we can have a look we can see whether or not these things will deliver better results and if they do perhaps we will do some more. But what we are going to keep doing is we are going to ensure that the people of New Zealand who most need our help get our help. Therefore I commend this bill to the House.