Sepuloni Carmel: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSepuloni Carmel: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:9099. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I am going to speak to Part 1 and the fact that this does give the Minister the ability to sell off land to private providers. I just want to reflect a little bit because the power in Part 1 of this bill is all going to as we know the Minister for Social Housing Paula Bennett and the Minister responsible for HNZC Bill English.I just want to reflect on some of the things that have been happening in the Housing New Zealand space over the last year at least because it really does cause us to have to stop and think whether or not the Government is making the right decision in terms of whether or not those Ministers have the competence to be able to make decisions on behalf of New Zealand with regards to these sales.I was just saying to my colleague Phil Twyford that I just had another constituent case come through where a couple with major health problems who are not able to find a private rental made an appointment with Housing New Zealand and at the Work and Income office. They got there there was a mix up and they were told: “Sorry no one can see you about your housing right now.” They are very upset. They have 1 week to get out of their house. They said to Work and Income “What will happen if we can’t find a private rental by next week?” and Work and Income said to them: “Well we can help you with emergency accommodation. We can put you up in this motel for the week. It will cost $168 per night but Work and Income will pay for it.” What Work and Income never seems to tell these people is that actually they have to pay that money back.Why are we in this position anyway? We are in this position because we have a major housing demand going on in places like Auckland. These people cannot get into private rentals Housing New Zealand is not responding to their needs and so Work and Income are saying: “Go to a motel for $168 per night.” This family who cannot even afford a private rental are being told to pay $168—but they are not being paid that actually; they are going to have to pay it back. They are being told that Work and Income will pay it.But the issue here is that in front of us is this piece of legislation where we are looking at the fact that the Government is going to sell off Housing New Zealand houses and yet coming through our office doors are people who need access to Housing New Zealand houses. We listened to Nick Smith saying that this is the Government’s attempt to do something about the housing crisis. Well it is not building on the stock that we currently have and it is not increasing the stock it is shifting the stock over to the community housing providers. I think Mr Nick Smith fails to recognise that that is the case.I have got a question for the Minister in the chair. I want to know from the Minister what happens if the social housing provider goes bust and all of a sudden those houses are going to be sold. Does the Government or does Housing New Zealand have the first opportunity to buy that back? I am asking that question but I am also going to say with that that I have got concerns even if that is the case because we are seeing with projects like the Waterview Connection project—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): That is not in Part 1 which you are talking about now. That is not in Part 1.CARMEL SEPULONI: OK well I will talk about it in Part 2 then. Going back to what I was saying before about the way in which we are seeing Housing New Zealand being run into the ground it does mean that for many of us we have questions in our mind about the competence of the Minister to be able to make decisions around land sales to make decisions around housing sales.In the Social Services Committee we had it made very known to us that the Minister yes would have all the power when it comes to selling these houses but it is concerning because the Minister has none of the responsibility if anything goes wrong in the transaction. All of the responsibility is going to fall back on Housing New Zealand despite the fact that it does not get to make the decisions. It does not have the power to make decisions about the sales. It makes no sense to us on this side of the Chamber. In fact it seems incredibly unfair.If the Minister is going to have this power—which of course we disapprove of but the Government is pushing for—the Minister should also be held accountable if anything goes wrong in the transaction. So I am concerned that that does not seem to be the case. In fact in many of the submissions that were made during the select committee that was raised as a real issue for those making the submissions as well because they could see the unfairness in the way in which this was panning out.So going back to what we are seeing here in Part 1 this is about the power that is being passed on to the Ministers and we have never seen anything like this before. As many of my colleagues have said—