King Annette: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 03 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13192. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai): I think it is obvious that the parties on this side of the Chamber believe that there is a problem with the lack of affordable housing but I am unsure as to whether the Government believes that there is a lack of affordable housing because what we have had today is a whole lot of conflicting statements and contradictions in terms. We have actually had that for the last 5 years because we were told year in year out that we did not have a housing problem. And then when the Labour Party came out with a very popular housing policy and more to come suddenly the poor old Minister of Housing Phil Heatley got the heave-ho and theGovernment brought in the new Minister of Housing with a flurry of activity and bills that were going to fix the problem—only they do not.What I cannot get to the bottom of is what the Minister is saying when he says that you cannot set the price of affordable homes. We know from announcements by Government members and things that they have said about Hobsonville that they are telling New Zealanders that the Government is building affordable homes and then it sets the price at between $400000 and $480000 for around a 60-square-metre box. So on one hand the Government says that you cannot set the price for an affordable home and then tells people: “Yes yes we are building affordable homes at Hobsonville. This is the price of them.” So what is it Minister? Can you say what an affordable home is? Can you say that you can set the price? Because that is exactly what the Government is doing with its so-called affordable homes in Hobsonville which is to tell us that they are affordable homes and then set the price of those affordable homes.The Minister also said that the cost of land is over $300000 for a section in Auckland. What is the cost of the land for the affordable houses at Hobsonville? What is the cost of each of those sections? If the Minister was being upfront with this Committee he would tell this Committee—as we learnt from the Social Services Committee—that the land at Hobsonville for the so-called affordable homes is being subsidised. It is being subsidised from the unaffordable homes that most New Zealanders cannot buy. So if it is possible to have cheaper land prices subsidised even though that is hidden by this Government then it is possible for any Government to put up Government land and say that it is affordable and to have prices on that land that are affordable. That is the truth but that is not what we are hearing from this Government about Hobsonville.This Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill does not provide a direct way of providing affordable houses. The Minister stood up and said: “Oh yes it does. There is an Order in Council.” What will that Order in Council say? Tell this Committee tonight. Tell New Zealanders who are listening what the wording of that Order in Council will be. You see the sneaky thing to do is to put in legislation that you are going to have an Order in Council to achieve something that everybody says we need. The poor people of South Auckland whom you heard about fromSu’a William Sio said: “We can’t afford houses at the moment but we are hoping we can.” And the Minister said: “Yes yes there will be affordable housing. I am going to have an Order in Council in this bill.” So tell the people what the wording of that will be. How will it be defined? What will it say? Otherwise it is hot air and false promises. The Minister has stuck in an Order in Council which does not have a date and we do not know when it will be done—this year next year 10 years never. You see it is just a ploy an underhand ploy because that Minister knows that there is real concern about affordable housing in New Zealand. Be upfront Minister. Get to your feet and tell us what that Order in Council will say when it will be brought in how long it will be in place for and how many affordable houses will be arising from your Order in Council which you told us about today. The Minister did not answer one of those questions.You see I find this whole bill rather shonky because I have always been a strong believer in regulatory impact statements. We saw the regulatory impact statement that came out of the last bill the Minister had when he was Minister of Local Government. It was the most appalling regulatory impact statement I have seen because it challenged all the assumptions the Minister had made about local government. There has been only one worse and that was the redacted one that went with the bill for those parents who were trying to look after disabled adults where the Government actually took out most of the information. But let us look at the regulatory impact statement on this Minister’s bill. I read it and I thought: “Wow! The Minister has not mentioned this.” It says:“Insufficient information on land supply restrictions across local authorities to allow precise views to be formed on the urgency of the problem or the extent to which land supply is a problem outside of Auckland”—insufficient information—“Insufficient information on the specific detail and operation of each of the options to allow for a more precise analysis of how each option might impact on the behaviours of commercial decisions of land owners and property developers”.In my last contribution I asked the Minister how he was going to make private landowners and property developers give up their land at an affordable price for houses to be built on it right now because of this bill. They are the ones who have land banked their land waiting for a good deal when it is the right time to put it on the market. The Minister’s own regulatory impact statement says that there is insufficient information on the specific detail and operation for each option to allow precise analysis of how each option might impact on behaviour. So if the Minister knows something more than those from the housing affordability programme and the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment he should get to his feet and tell us why this regulatory impact statement where it says that the ministry never got sufficient information is wrong. He did it on the local government one of course and then was shot down in flames by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research which came out and showed that all his assumptions were based on false assumptions. He made an absolute fool of himself.This regulatory impact also says: “The development of the option under budget secrecy rules which has meant that options have not been consulted on with stakeholders and affected parties outside of government”. That Minister is from your own regulatory impact statement. When he put his bill together he put it together before he spoke to the Auckland Council and he had it set in place in his mind before he ever went to talk to the council. So Auckland Council actually did not really get a fair go at all and that is why it came to the select committee and why it said that it could not see anything in this bill that was going to make housing affordable. That is why it was worried that it was not going to do what the Minister said.So Minister there are some questions that I believe that you must answer in this Committee tonight. He is saying he will not answer them. Did you see that? He said he will not answer them. I give him credit for sitting in the chair which is more than some of his colleagues do. But tell us about the Order in Council Minister. Do not sit there smiling like a crocodile. Tell the people what will be in the Order in Council. When will it be introduced? How long will it be in place? Come on Minister. That is your responsibility. This is the only chance this Parliament has to debate these issues and for the public of New Zealand to know—