3. Question No. 3—Housing and Urban DevelopmentHon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister of Housing and Urban DevelopmentQuestion No. 3—Housing and Urban Development3. Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: Is he confident his KiwiBuild policy will support those most in need of assistance?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): on behalf of the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: Yes because the need is great.Hon Amy Adams: Why is the income cap for KiwiBuild houses set at more than double the average household income given his stated commitment to help younger generations and middle New Zealand?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Because the need is great because the housing crisis has reached so far that those earning a combined household income of $180000 are struggling to buy their first home.Hon Amy Adams: So does he consider it fair then that those on middle and lower household incomes will be competing with people like members of Parliament and senior public servants on an equal footing?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I'm not sure if that would quite work for members of Parliament given where their combined income might reach but the truth is that a ballot is the fairest way of dealing with this. The member and I have both experienced the pain of losing out in a ballot and I can assure her it gets better.Hon Amy Adams: Isn't his announcement of a KiwiBuild income cap of $180000 which makes more than 90 percent of first-home buyers eligible for the 1000 KiwiBuild homes he hopes to build this year nothing more than an admission that he can't deliver affordable houses to lower and middle income families and has had to widen the market to try and ensure KiwiBuild doesn't become KiwiFlop"?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Absolutely not. What it is an admission of is the scale of the housing crisis in New Zealand that has seen even those in the sixth to ninth deciles be shut out of being first-home buyers. This is an ambitious programme. New Zealanders know that we're actually having a go at correcting the first-home buyer market unlike the previous Government. Hon Amy Adams: How can he describe KiwiBuild as a home affordability scheme when a first-home buyer with hundreds of thousands of dollars in other assets or a newly returned citizen who's lived overseas and paid no taxes here for maybe decades qualify for a house on the same basis as a struggling local family?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It is not the policy of this Government to shut New Zealand citizens out from Government programmes.Hon Amy Adams: So in what circumstances will a KiwiBuild house not go through the ballot but be sold directly to an eligible purchaser as the materials released today say despite his press release asserting that every eligible buyer will have an equal chance through the ballot system?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Any houses that go through the ballot will mean that people have an equal say. There is as the member knows the buying off the plans initiative that has been developed and the full details of that will be released in time.Hon Amy Adams: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I'm sorry I did listen carefully. It was quite a specific question I asked of the circumstances in which the direct sales to purchasers set out in material released would apply. We heard about how the ballot works and buying off the plans but not how that particular pathway for sales to individual purchasers would apply. It's in their materials; I just asked for clarification.Mr SPEAKER: I thought I understood but I think if the Minister just repeated the final part of his answer that will help clarify.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes the final part of the answer was with reference to the buying off the plans initiative and I said the final details of that and the overall process will be announced in the near future."