Parker David: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParker David: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3639. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Part 2 of this bill at clause 21 continues with this ridiculous notion that Housing New Zealand should not proffer advice to the Government. Clause 21 continues that. We live in a country that is wealthy. We are told every day by the National Party that we are living in a wealthy country and yet increasingly people cannot get houses to live in. We have got more people living in parks. The number of homeless is increasing. We are seeing that in the newspapers and in magazines like North and South. We have got people living in cars. We have got people living in garages. And we have got members of Parliament like Paula Bennett referring people in housing need to the camping ground to live in caravans and huts.We have got house prices that are the highest they have been for ever in New Zealand and some of the least-affordable housing in the world. We have the lowest rate of homeownership in New Zealand since the 1950s and yet the Government says it does not want decent advice about housing. In the social housing sector things have got so bad because of the ridiculous mismanagement by this Government. It does not let Housing New Zealand answer questions about need. It has stopped that already. It has got so bad in Labour Party constituency offices in part because National Party members sometimes quite frequently will not even address the causes of concern of their constituents which means that those people are coming to Labour Party offices in addition to our own constituency voters. It has got so bad that our staff are pulling their hair out.Not only that people out there are so frustrated that they cannot get a roof over their heads for themselves and their people that they are abusing our staff and threatening them. That is never excusable but the level of frustration in society has become so high that we have had cases in South Auckland where people are pulling knives on our staff. They are so frustrated that they cannot get an answer as to where they can get emergency housing and yet we have got less advice coming from the ministries because they do not want to know.I drove to Invercargill a couple of weeks ago. I went down through Ōwaka and came through the southern parts of Invercargill as I came in. The private rental stock the basic level of which will always be held up by the Government rental stock is in an abysmal state. These are cold parts of New Zealand. There are rotten houses with holes in the walls. I was shocked at the number of houses that I went past in these cold areas that just had a sheet draped over the window of a single-glazed house with rotten frames where the glass drops in the frame and where there are holes in the sides of the walls. People have got no alternative and the Government has not got any minimum standard for housing. All of those houses are legally let in this wealthy country where poor people suffer because of the inadequacy of the Government’s housing policy.Paula Bennett rates herself as the next leader of the National Party. This—Hon Paula Bennett: Rubbish!Hon DAVID PARKER: Look—it is promoted on the websites of the National Party. Judith Collins has already thrown herself under a bus and it is a competition between Steven Joyce and Paula Bennett. New Zealanders Ms Bennett hate hypocrisy. They hate hypocrisy and they do not like to see people who get ahead in New Zealand having had access to a State house now ditching the system. This will be the Minister’s bête noire. This will be carried with her until the end of her political career.Bill English when last in Government tried to get rid of income-related rents. He could not. That National Government sold 13000 houses but it lost the income-related rents and it has not even been brave enough to go directly after that this time because it knows that people think that poor people should not have to pay more than they can afford particularly people with mental illness or disability.