Bridges Simon: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBridges Simon: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3619. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Energy and Resources): If you listened to the Labour Party members you would think this bill was some kind of wildebeest Gene Simmons - like monstrosity coming to get you with tongue flapping in the wind. Well actually Andrew Little might like that and we have heard a lot of rhetoric from Grant Robertson on this bill—rather better actually I might say than his leader yesterday but be that as it may. So what is this monstrosity we have heard about? What is it doing? Where is the secret agenda? Where is the ideology? Well it is just this. We see this in the preface: more flexible and innovative social housing—more flexible and innovative social housing. So for all the talk and all the frankly scaremongering we have got from the deputy leader of the Labour Party that is what this is. I for one think that is a great thing. I was with Paula Bennett and Todd Muller in Tauranga just last week looking at the kind of thing this bill will enable more of. It is really really exciting.Hon Ruth Dyson: Yeah? Tell us.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I will tell the member Ruth Dyson. She wants to know. Two old rundown State houses in a suburb in my electorate are going to become five new brick I think warmer drier houses that will be fit for purpose for people and that people will really want to live in. In that area it will not givejust those people living in those houses a lift but it will give the entire area a lift and that has got to be good for the people in those houses and the people in that suburb and actually in the wider community. Another one we went to on the same day was eight flats—just to give a bit of detail—a little bit behind Tauranga Hospital. Eight flats—they are all right. There was nothing particularly wrong with them. They have become with the help of the Tauranga Housing Community Trust 16 brick and tile homes that the people in those homes are really proud to live in. They are warmer they are drier they are newer—they are just better. And there are more of them.Here is what this bill does. It allows for more of that—for the flexibility and for the innovative approaches to that that ensure that we will see more of that in the Taurangas in the Invercargills and throughout New Zealand. And here is the thing: this is winding the Opposition up. This is winding the Opposition up. Why is that? Because it knows that what I am saying is true. It knows that for 9 years under Labour under Ruth Dyson and under Annette King—I cannot blame Phil Twyford; he was not in Parliament—those houses got older. They got more decrepit. They had problems. And actually we are going to see the solutions here. Annette King asked: “Well who else is going to do this?” and “Who actually wants this?”. Well we have seen on TV already that Accessible Properties says it wants to see it and the old IHC—a really big entity in this space—wants to see this.Grant Robertson says: “Oh this is all ideology. That’s all this is; it is all ideology.” Well if it is it is simply that actually we think there is room for more flexible approaches to this. We think there is room for more innovation. We do not think Wellington has all the answers unlike Grant Robertson representing Wellington Central bureaucrats. We think there is room for warmer drier more fit-for-purpose homes—actually more homes in many cases going from three or four-bedroom homes with one person living in them to what oftentimes they actually want: more homes that sometimes are smaller and sometimes are bigger and that meet the needs on the ground.We know on this side of the House that Wellington does not always have the best answers and that actually in the Taurangas and the Invercargills where we are trialling this sort of approach already it can be done better. There are people on the ground who actually know—it is radical; I know that it is radical—what is best for people there who are on the spot and who know and care about those communities rather than as Annette King used to do it just someone in Wellington sitting at a desktop thinking about this and saying: “Hmm maybe this’ll be nice. No that looks fine.” This approach will see more innovative flexible approaches on the ground throughout the provinces of New Zealand. It is a really good set of solutions for New Zealanders.