Woods Megan: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3673. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is good to be able to take a final Committee stage call one of many on this bit on the title and commencement clauses. As you yourself alluded to Mr Chairman this is a piece of legislation that is going through under urgency. It is the job of this Committee to ask questions and it is the job of the Government and the Minister in the chair to answer those questions when those questions are put in this Chamber. That is what we are elected to do and it is what we are paid to do. I would actually like to hear from some Government members and have them get on their legs and actually examine the legislation that is under question.In regard to the title clause of this piece of legislation I have some questions for the Minister in the chair the Hon Jo Goodhew. The legislation is entitled the Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill. Well I would like the Minister to direct me to the parts of this legislation that are going to act in a remedial way for the current housing situation that we face. I have read this legislation. My colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson suggested some reading for members opposite. She suggested they start with the bill because it clearly was not on their reading list of things that they had examined before they came to the Committee for this debate. But I have read this legislation and I cannot see anything that is going to be remediated in terms of the housing situation. My other colleague the Hon Annette King in her earlier contribution on the title clause drew the Committee’s attention to the advice of the Law Commission and that we actually should title bills in plain English ways in that the titles reflect what it is that a bill is doing.I cannot find anything in here that is going to address the very real concern that the Hon David Parker talked about in terms of the trend we are seeing towards camping grounds in New Zealand with the ultimate outcome being like the United States where 6 percent of people are living in camping grounds. In terms of this I would like to know what is in here for Christchurch a city that is facing a very particular set of housing circumstances. What are the remedial measures in this piece of legislation? We actually have a situation in Christchurch where some of the homelessness is caused by the fact that a number of our camping grounds where people were previously being directed have now been converted to workers’ accommodation. Rather than being places where people who are under housing pressures can go they are where our housing rebuild workers are going and that is putting further pressure on housing.I would like to know what clauses in this bill are going to be remedial for the constituents whom I am seeing in my office. I want to know what clauses in this bill are going to be remedial matters in terms of social housing for my constituent who was threatened with eviction from her Housing New Zealand house in Hoon Hay because in the 2 years following the February 2011 earthquakes she had her daughter and her 3-month-old granddaughter living in a caravan on the property of her Housing New Zealand house. Housing New Zealand tried to evict her because it said it was not right for her to have a caravan on that property. It was prepared to see this whole extended family who were under extreme housing pressure be in a situation where housing was something that was simply beyond their reach.I want to know what clauses in this bill the title of which purports to propose remedial matters are going to do for that family. I want to know what remedial matters are in this piece of legislation for a constituent of mine who is currently in emergency temporary accommodation. Because she is classed as being in emergency temporary accommodation the district health board will not proceed with her hip replacement surgery because it does not consider that she has a safe place to go back to once that surgery is completed. I have not seen anything in this legislation that will do anything to remediate those situations.We have had other Ministers who have sat in that chair through earlier stages of this bill who have waxed lyrical about how this is going to be the panacea for housing. But we are still struggling. I would like the Minister to get up on her legs to address these questions and tell the Committee. This is the Committee stage of this bill where it is the job of Parliament to ask questions of the legislation. We would like some answers to those questions. How is it that this Government thinks it can bring a piece of legislation called the Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill to the House when there are no remedial matters in the bill? Many of my colleagues have suggested alternative titles for the legislation. Another one of my colleagues the Hon Ruth Dyson has herself also drawn the attention—