Guy Nathan: Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Guy Nathan: Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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NATHAN GUY (National) 
: 
 It is interesting to listen to this debate as we go through the Committee stage this evening. I guess I have to raise the question about the relationship we want to forge with the Housing New Zealand Corporation and the Ministry of Social Development. When we look at the triangle we need to look at the relationship with the Labour Party during the last election campaign when eviction notices went out to all those State housing tenants. We have to ask ourselves how that information got out. Was it through the Housing New Zealand Corporation? 
Paula Bennett 
: We’ve asked the question. 
NATHAN GUY 
: We have asked the question. It would be great for the Minister to take a call this evening to let us and the listeners know so we can clear that up once and for all because the information has come to a bit of a dead end. It is very hard to find out the answer to that question that everyone has asked. All those thousands of eviction notices went out to tenants during the campaign and we do not know who did it. So here we are forging ahead with this bill this evening and trying to open up the transparency between the Housing New Zealand Corporation and the Ministry of Social Development and I think that is a fundamentally correct action. This was a National initiative back in 1999. So it is great that the Government has decided to bring it to everyone’s attention now. I think it is wonderful. It has taken a fair while to get here though. 
I need to acknowledge the hard work my colleague Phil Heatley is doing in this portfolio; it is outstanding. He is exposing the rorts that many speakers this evening have alluded to. I need to touch on a few of them. We have had illegal immigrants living in State houses. I believe we have had tenants growing dope in their backyards. We have had families earning over $70000 who have been able to live in a State house. I believe that the information-matching measures in this bill will tidy up some of that. 
It is interesting also to look at the minority view of the Green Party which is opposed to this bill because it has concerns mainly around intrusion into people’s personal lives. But I believe we have to work through that because so many rorts are happening with Housing New Zealand that need to be sorted out. So I think it is important to acknowledge the Green Party’s view but this bill will actually go on to address further the people who are ripping the system off. 
That fundamentally is what this bill will do. It will protect people’s privacy rights but also allow the Housing Corporation and the Ministry of Social Development to work closely together to work out who is entitled to what who is getting what and who is ripping off the system. The good member for Whangarei has worked very very hard in exposing all of the rorts that are happening in State houses throughout New Zealand and that is the biggest issue. 
Also we need to look at the debts the Crown is not currently recovering—thousands and thousands of dollars in debts. I think the collection agency needs to have a ruddy bullet fired in its direction to make sure it is actually collecting the debts. We have a whole lot of issues around back-rent and around damage done to homes. 
So I would like the Minister to take another call and iron out this question that I and many New Zealanders have about how the Labour Party was able to get information out in the election campaign—to send out a false eviction notice to all the tenants in Housing Corporation houses throughout New Zealand. Now the Government is working on a little triangle fostering a better relationship between the Housing New Zealand Corporation the Ministry of Social Development and Labour. Let us hear the Minister take a call and iron out that issue once and for all—the issue of who supplied the information where the Government got it from and whether it will happen again.