Woods Megan: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:9086. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my pleasure to take a call on Part 1 in the Committee stage of the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill. Of course as other speakers have described this is the legislation that puts in place the legislative apparatus for this Government to be able to sell off State houses first of all in Tauranga and Southland but of course that is a preliminary to doing it further throughout the country.I have been listening very closely to a number of the contributions and very sensible contributions they have been from a number of colleagues. There are a number of questions that I would like to put to the Minister in the chair the Hon Maggie Barry and I would like the Minister to answer because these have failed. Denis O’Rourke brought up and asked a very sensible question about some kind of clarification around where it is that the proceeds from the sale of these houses are going to sit. Are they going to go back into the consolidated account? Will they be used exclusively for housing? Where exactly will that money be and where will it be used?One of the other questions that I would like the Minister in the chair to address—if she has got time in between discussing the flag—is who is currently being lined up to purchase these houses. Because I think that cuts very much to the smoke and mirrors that this Government has hidden behind when it comes to this legislation.The policy has been an absolute dog from the word go. The Government changes its mind on it every couple of months and is making it up as it goes along. As the Hon Annette King pointed out this is very much evidenced in the regulatory impact statement—of course those bits of the regulatory impact statement that we can read and have not had great bits of it redacted.Of course people making decisions about legislation are not actually allowed to see the official advice that is being received. But first of all we had National saying that it was about building up local communities and housing groups and that it only wants to sell to large interests that can buy hundreds of properties—effectively eliminating local groups.National said that the Salvation Army and iwi were keen to buy into these houses but the Sallies do not want them—they made that really clear to the Government. So clearly when the Government came out and said that the Sallies were going to buy the houses it had not actually taken the time to talk to them. Iwi said they would take them only if they got them for nothing. This Government is not interested in giving them away for nothing. But then it said that the houses would only go to non-profit groups. However Bill English changed his mind on that one and now he wants banks and property developers to buy these up.So I would like to hear from the Minister in the chair who it is that is currently in the running to buy these houses. Can she give an assurance that it will not be property developers and banks? That is what New Zealanders are afraid of.So we have a very sharp differentiation here. We have on the opposite side of the House a Government that absolutely wants to denigrate what we as New Zealanders collectively across the political spectrum and for many generations have held dear—that is that New Zealanders have a right to housing and that the State should be an active player in New Zealand’s access to housing. From Seddon right through to Savage to Kirk to Lange and to Clark Labour Governments have stood for this. It is absolutely critical to what we believe.I have some members looking very confused about Seddon. I will come back to the Seddon issue in a moment because it was not Labour. Of course the first involvement of a Government in housing in New Zealand was the Liberal Government and it was Seddon. It was the 1905 Workers’ Dwellings Act that gave workers the right to buy houses and the right to rent houses when they did not. The 1905 Act and the 1910 Act were absolutely fundamental in terms of access to housing in this country. In fact far be it from me to correct the Hon Annette King when she claims the first State house in her electorate. It might have been part of the first tranche of the 1930s State houses but one of the first houses built in this country that the State assisted people into was at 23 Mandeville Street in Riccarton which of course is in the Wigram electorate—I would just like to point that out.But this goes back and it cuts very much that Governments throughout our history in this country have believed in the New Zealand dream. They have believed that New Zealanders need access to housing and that they should be part of helping New Zealanders into homes be they homes that they rent or homes that they buy. [Bell rung] Mr Chairman.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am going to call Megan Woods again but I am going to remind her that we are on the Committee stage of this bill debating Part 1. Clause 4 should not be a hard clause to debate but the member has to somehow link her comments to the particular part of the bill.Dr MEGAN WOODS: Thank you Mr Chairman and your direction is appreciated as always. I would like to talk specifically to clause 4 in Part 1 of this legislation with clause 4 being of course the clause that inserts in new section 2A the power for the housing Minister to “exclusively administer land declared subject” under this legislation. This gives extraordinary powers to Ministers to be able to sell off this land.Of course the right of Ministers and the ability of Ministers does not exist without our putting in play this legislation because it was never envisioned by this Parliament or by generations of politicians on either side of this Parliament before that this is something that Ministers should be able to do without some kind of wider mandate than just making the decision themselves. So what we are doing in this part of the legislation is setting up that extraordinary power for Ministers to do that. That is not something that we can tolerate. It is not something that we see as part of the Kiwi Dream. Under this Government that dream is slipping away and nowhere is that more evident than in clause 4 of this piece of legislation. When this is a Government that is having to turn away more than a hundred years of history in this country of both parties’ commitment to housing this is a Government that is absolutely giving up on that Kiwi Dream. It is putting in place special provisions so it can literally sell off that Kiwi Dream and abandon it and that is not something we should tolerate.If you compare clause 4 of this legislation with the actions of members on this side of the House Andrew Little started off the year by setting out a very clear agenda about how it is that New Zealanders can take part in the Kiwi Dream. He did not spend his time talking about how we could put in place special powers for people to sell off part of that dream—that is not acceptable. It is not something we on this side of the House can tolerate.I return to the questions that I have put to the Minister in the chair. We would like to know in terms of what it is that these special powers are providing for what will happen to the money. Where is it going to go? Is it being dedicated to housing? Will we see more housing as a result of it and can she give us that assurance? Who is going to purchase these properties? Is it as the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance initially announced going to be non-governmental organisations and iwi or are there property developers and bankers lining up for their slice of the New Zealand dream and denying ordinary New Zealanders their right to it? So I would like to see the Minister get up on her hind legs wave the flag a little bit and give us some answers. Labour does not support this legislation.