King Annette: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
King Annette: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 28 November 2012. Volume:686;Page:6865. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 That speech reminded me of something that John Key said this week. He said that the National Government’s “100% Pure” marketing plan was not unlike the marketing plan of McDonald’s. Well I think it is probably true because the thing they have in common is that they are both run by clowns. 
 I think I would like to remind the National Party members that they actually opposed the big-film production funding that we in Government put in when they were in Opposition which led to the  
Lord of the Rings 
 films. They were opposed to it then but I noted that they did turn up on the red carpet—not that we said a word about it. We thought that was their position—fair enough. But of course they are making meat of it today the fact that I am proud to go to  
The 
Hobbit 
 because it is made in my electorate. The workers are in my electorate they are proud of their work and they are not making politics of it. But this Government has done everything it can to ingratiate itself into every part of  
The 
Hobbit 
 to get every bit of a vote out of it that it can which I find quite disgusting. 
But I tell you what: we have got the National Party members rattled. They are in a hyper uber-political spin. They are turning out the press releases. They are hitting the airwaves. Look at them! Look at them! They are huffing and they are puffing. Do you know why? It is because Labour has hit a real chord with Kiwis because we are going to build 100000 affordable houses over the next 10 years. We are going to build 100000 houses over the next 10 years building them up in our first term so that we are building 10000 extra houses a year. Can we do it? Yes we can. How many houses were we building in 2004 in this country? Well those members do not know. They make statements about it and they have not got a clue. In this country we were building 32000 houses a year in 2004. How many are we building now? Fifteen thousand. So add 10000 to 15000 and you get 25000 houses a year and you are still short of what we were building in 2004. 
We are going to build them where there is a housing problem. We are going to build them in Auckland in Wellington in Tauranga and in the Bay of Plenty. We are going to build them in Christchurch in Queenstown and in Nelson. They are going to be affordable houses. They are going to be houses that the first home owner can buy—not the 200 square metre houses but houses around 100 or 140 square metres. They will be on smaller lots of land. There will be mixed development. Some will be affordable some will be higher prices some will be social housing—much like the plan that we had for Hobsonville. It was for 3000 houses: 500 were to be State houses 500 were to be affordable and the rest were to be a mixture. 
You know we are not building those affordable houses today. Only 5 percent of houses that are being built are affordable houses. We know that people can buy houses at around $300000 to $350000 right now and that can be done. We got those figures from the Department of Building and Housing. We are going to build them not the Housing New Zealand Corporation but the private sector. We are going to take Bill English’s advice when he said this year that Government land holdings are the key to affordable housing in Auckland—“government land represents the biggest opportunities to [build affordable housing].” said Bill English. Well we are going to use Government land. We are going to use council land. We are going to use greenfields brownfields and private holdings. We are going to develop mixed communities and there will be blind tenure in those communities. You will not know whether people own their own home or they are renting their home or it is social housing. 
You see it has got the Nats in a spin because their response to affordable housing was pathetic—absolutely pathetic. There were words more words a few reports another inquiry a little tinkering with the Resource Management Act more words some blame-shifting and more hot air. Then they tried to throw a bucket over our proposal. They said it cannot be done it is impossible we are dreaming we are out of touch. Hang on—what have they just announced at Hobsonville? They suddenly can build affordable houses at Hobsonville—600 of them 65 metres square subsidised by the other people at Hobsonville.