Maharey Steve: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations  and State Enterprises — In Committee 
Maharey Steve: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations  and State Enterprises — In Committee 
[Volume:631;Page:3059] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on behalf of the Minister of Housing Mr Chris Carter and to follow on from I think the former spokesperson on finance for the National Party who is the former spokesperson on housing but I am afraid I have no idea what he does now. I assume he does nothing these days. 
The previous speaker canvassed broadly the issues of the housing policies we have but let me say to him that in 1999 we inherited the virtual destruction of State housing by his National Government in the 1990s. And it did that intentionally. National introduced the accommodation supplement earlier in the 1990s for the express reason of allowing it to destroy the tradition of State housing in this country and it set about it with alacrity. It was I think near a crime for National members to have done what they did but let me tell members what they did. They sold 13000 State houses they built none they had no stock developing around the country but on top of that they sold the most desirable houses to people who were largely speculators who were able to on-sell those houses. They put people who were paying above-market rents into those houses because anybody under that Government could get into those houses. They did not have to be poor or needy. Mr Heatley comes into the Chamber and accuses us of all kinds of things. He forgets that the only people who ever got into a State house when they did not need it financially got there under the National Party. That is why those members are sitting over there. 
The National Government’s policy left us at the end of the 1990s with 13000 good houses sold. Stock that was hard to rent and often unhealthy was kept in stock because the Government could not sell it. Speculators owned the houses. The accommodation supplement rose towards something like $1 billion being paid out as a kind of supplementary minimum price to ensure that the landlords of the country were able to rent their houses. That is what the genius David Carter tells us was a housing policy in the 1990s and somehow that allows him to come in here and criticise a Government that has rebuilt those houses and that has had to try to find houses in places like Auckland where National allowed for none to be built. 
In Northland we were watching people burn down their houses and children die because of the policies of that man. Yet he has the cheek to come in here and tell us about housing! I think the best thing David Carter could do is leave the House and go and do whatever he used to do formerly because he is wasting his time trying to make a contribution to this debate. 
I thank Housing New Zealand which I was the Minister of for a short period of time. It has I think formed itself from being what was essentially a rental agency under the National Government into an organisation now that has public service as its goal; that has what is called social housing—that means that people who are needy get houses—as its goal. The Housing New Zealand people care intensely about that. They now have a housing strategy that covers the building of houses of trying to be innovative in those houses of trying to make sure the rents are right and of being innovative and working with third-party organisations. They have great policy building up and they have a real sense of dedication to the task before them. 
If that is called politicisation as the previous speaker likes to say then I guess one could tell progressive people anywhere in the country that they are being politicised. Housing New Zealand believes in the project of housing New Zealanders not quitting the stock to rich speculators who on-sell it so that they can make a few dollars off the back of the National Party’s policy. Housing New Zealand has a true commitment to housing people in this country to being innovative to doing things differently and to making sure we have people in good healthy houses so that they can live good decent lives. That is a mission worth being part of. 
I thank Housing New Zealand for that and all the people who have supported this kind of policy and I thank David Carter for going back to doing whatever it is he does. 
Report noted.