Hipkins Chris: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3663. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am very happy to take a call on the preliminary clauses of the Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill and a very inappropriately named bill it is. What they should really call it is the “Social Housing Reform (Wholesale Privatisation) Bill” because that is exactly what this bill is really about. It is about the Government abrogating its responsibilities when it comes to the provision of affordable quality rental housing to those New Zealanders who are not in a position to buy their own home. It has been a long-held tradition in New Zealand that the State will ensure that its citizens are adequately housed. From the time of the first Labour Government that built so many of the State houses that the National Government is now content to hock off we have had a tradition in New Zealand that the State will be an active player in the housing area so that families have a warm dry home and a roof over their heads. This Government is walking away from that principle.I think of the areas like Pōmare Trentham and Naenae where under this National Government we have seen houses boarded up and abandoned only to then be demolished and that land handed over to private developers. It is not just in my area that that is happening it is happening up and down the country. I have made it very clear from the beginning of that process that the provision of the ultimate number of social houses—that is affordable rental houses for people on low incomes—is not decreased. I think it is good that there should be some redevelopment—that there should be some rebuilding. Some of those houses are past their use-by date and need to be replaced. I would not accommodate people in some of those houses. I do not think they are fit for families and demolishing them and replacing them is good. But it should not be at the expense of the overall number of affordable houses. Reconfiguring those neighbourhoods is the legitimate thing to do but what is the practical reality we are seeing? In Pōmare there is a good redevelopment happening but most of those houses are privately owned. Where did those families go which the National Government booted out?There were some social issues in Pōmare caused by a very small number of people I have to say. There are a large number of people there who were good law-abiding citizens just trying to make their way in the world who got treated very harshly by Housing New Zealand and by the other Government agencies involved in that. But the problems in Pōmare have not gone away just because the houses have been demolished. They have been relocated elsewhere. We are seeing problems emerging in other parts of the electorate in other parts of the Hutt Valley where some of the people who were causing the problems in the first place have simply relocated to. The problems did not go away. The Government’s busting up of the Pōmare community in the way that it did did not deal with the issue and it did not deal with the problem. Wholesale privatisation of that social housing market is not going to make any of the problems go away; in fact it is going to make some of those problems worse.The bill could easily be called the “Social Housing Reform (Increasing Intergenerational Inequality) Bill” because the Government seems to have given up on the notion that future generations of New Zealanders should have the same access to affordable housing to buy or to rent that previous generations had. The Government is giving up on that notion altogether. First-home buyers are being shut out. The only solution to giving first-home buyers a bit of additional assistance is to allow them to cash up their retirement savings—more of their retirement savings—to buy their first home. It could be called the “Practical Reality Bypassing Bill” because the Government is now going to be ignoring advice from Housing New Zealand. It is interesting—we could call it the “Abrogation of Responsibility Bill” because despite the fact that we have now got three Ministers in the Government responsible for social housing none of them seem to be willing to participate actively in the debate.I do have a technical question regarding clause 2 which covers the superannuation provisions coming into effect on or basically being backdated from 1 April 2015. The question I have got is does that mean that people who transferred from a non - KiwiSaver scheme into a KiwiSaver scheme prior to 1 April 2015 will not be eligible or does it mean that basically providing they had done it by that point they would be covered by this provision in the bill? I think it would somewhat thwart the intention given that most people in KiwiSaver would have joined up before 1 April 2015. It somewhat thwarts the intention of what they are trying to achieve—and I am sure the Minister in the chair will be able to answer. It is a pretty simple straightforward question I would hope. It seems to me that the idea behind the backdating is that providing someone had done it by that point they should be eligible. I certainly look forward to having that clarification.