Twyford Phil: Housing Corporation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Twyford Phil: Housing Corporation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:671;Page:17931] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
: 
 Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson I take this opportunity to congratulate you on your elevation. 
I feel sorry for this Minister of Housing; being the Minister of Housing in a National Government is like the graveyard shift. It is like being the “Minister of Coalmines” in a Green-led Government or the Minister for State Owned Enterprises in an ACT-led Government; their heart is just not in it. This National Government is ideologically predisposed against the State intervening in the housing market to help New Zealanders get a secure roof over their heads to get people out of living in caravan parks and cars and to get them into safe healthy affordable homes. We support this light slight incidental Housing Corporation Amendment Bill. It can go off to the select committee where we can debate the pros and cons of whether the policy advice should be split between Housing New Zealand Corporation and the Department of Building and Housing or whether it should all be consolidated in the Department of Building and Housing. That is an interesting diversion but it is utterly irrelevant to the tens of thousands of New Zealanders who are on the sharp end of the housing crisis in New Zealand today. 
I am going to give the House some facts. They are readily available on television and in newspapers; in fact many New Zealanders talk of little else other than the housing crisis but this Minister of Housing does not seem to know them because if he did if he was not so out of touch with the concerns of ordinary New Zealanders he would surely have come up with something better than this pathetic bill. There are 9000 people on the waiting list for a Housing New Zealand Corporation home. The waiting list is not really a waiting list because people can wait and wait and wait for years and nothing ever happens. It is not a list they wait on when they want to get a house; it is a list where they just sit and sit and nothing happens because the fact is there are simply not enough houses for the people who need them. 
In Auckland the average price of a new home is reported this week as hitting $580000. National’s recession has slowed down the increase in housing prices but still particularly in Auckland we have some of the most unaffordable housing in the world. We have a crisis in rental housing. An ordinary three-bedroom house in central Auckland recently advertised for rent attracted 300 applicants. As if this were not bad enough the Government is doing precious little to help New Zealanders get a roof over their heads. The latest estimates from the Government’s Housing Shareholders’ Advisory Group says there is a shortage of 70000 dwellings—70000. The Department of Building and Housing has warned of an additional 25000 shortfall coming down the pipeline over the next decade. 
And what is the best this Minister can do? What is the best answer he has for this crisis? If there ever was an example of how bereft this Government is of ideas of a plan to get New Zealand moving this bill is it. It is a bill to consolidate policy-making in the Department of Building and Housing. John Key has done a remake of the classic Blam Blam Blam song “There is No Depression in New Zealand” 
 
 and it is “There is No Housing Crisis in New Zealand”. That is what he said. He probably thinks that people who are forced to live in caravan parks and cars are making a lifestyle choice. This is the Prime Minister the former State house kid who intervened personally to block the building of Housing New Zealand Corporation houses in the Hobsonville development in his electorate because he thought giving low-income Kiwis a sea view was economic vandalism. That says it all about this Government. 
This bill is tinkering around the edges because tinkering is what this Minister does best. Under his watch 87 properties have been added to the State housing stock in 2 years. Under the fifth Labour Government we averaged nearly 1000 new houses a year for 9 years and the best this Minister can do is 87 in 2 years. He has introduced an options and advisory service. Is that designed to help get more New Zealanders into their own homes? No it is a mechanism for keeping people off the waiting list. The main strategy of this Government seems to be to get people into leased private rentals. It seems to be oblivious to the fact that simply moving people from the public side of the ledger to the private does absolutely nothing to increase the stock of social or affordable housing. What is the Minister’s big contribution to solving the housing crisis? It is reviewable tenancies which will create stress and uncertainty for Kiwi families while doing nothing to increase the stock of affordable housing. That is this Minister’s stock-in-trade. 
In my community of Te Atatu people are on the sharp end of the housing affordability crisis. Things are tough in west Auckland; there are about 1000 people on the waiting list in west Auckland. That is more than any other area in New Zealand outside of South Auckland. More often than not they have been kicked out by the landlord who is selling the house; they do not have the money for a bond—it is about a thousand bucks to pay the bond for an average-priced rental in West Auckland—and Housing New Zealand Corporation cannot do a damn thing for them. Those people are often desperate; they have run out of options. 
One poor man we saw recently had custody of his four children two teenagers and two little ones and they were surviving on his sickness benefit and living in a one-bedroom unit. Is it any wonder that he was depressed? In another case we saw recently a husband and wife and five kids were living in Te Atatu North. He lost his job they could not pay the rent and they were evicted by the landlord. Housing New Zealand could do nothing for them. The only option was to go and live in the emergency shelter in Airedale Street in the central business district in Auckland which is run by the Methodist Mission. The family were classed as priority A by Housing New Zealand—the highest priority—but were told that they had no chance of getting a house. Another couple who came in looking for help recently and who had a 4-month-old baby were living in their car. 
Why is this important? It is important because housing unaffordability drives people into poverty. It blights the life chances of a generation. We remember the impact of market rents in State housing in the 1990s. Under the National Government of the day market rents were introduced for State housing. That was one of the most powerful forces that increased extreme poverty in this country and we are suffering the social consequences of that policy today. The housing crisis is a nail in the coffin of the Kiwi dream. A generation of New Zealanders have no realistic prospect of ever owning their own home. The high cost of housing denies them the opportunity that their parents and grandparents had to have a safe quality house that would give them the opportunity to live good decent lives build their capital and improve their prospects. [ 
Interruption 
] This Government has no— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Interjections between members who do not have the floor are not permitted. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: I have a memo for the Government: “Get a housing policy.” That is what I say. It must get a housing policy and I have some ideas to start with. It should use the recession as an opportunity to rebuild our housing stock. Provide work and opportunities for tradespeople and apprentices and do something to stimulate our dying construction industry. Invest resources in emergency housing so people do not have to live in the back of a car. Simply build more public housing. Work with local government to ensure that social housing and affordable housing are included in every new major housing development. Find ways to encourage high-quality medium-density housing developments in our biggest cities. For God’s sake close the tax loopholes that drive the housing bubble that makes housing unaffordable. 
We support this bill going to the select committee but we do so feeling disgusted at this Government’s total lack of interest in doing anything serious about the housing affordability crisis. It refuses to even acknowledge that there is a problem. The best of former New Zealand Governments knew how important housing was. They had a vision for this country’s future. They were nation-builders and they built stuff. They knew from the experience of the Great Depression and the Second World War that having a roof over one’s head was one of the most important factors in living a good life. The fact that Mr Heatley would bring this pathetic bill to the House says it all.