Carter John: Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Carter John: Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:649;Page:18478] 
JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) 
: 
 Allow me to beaver away to see whether I can stay within the rules that you have set Madam Chair. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: The rules have been set by the House. 
JOHN CARTER 
: Of course they have Madam Chair and I will do my very best to comply with them. 
I want to talk to clause 42 “Amendment to Local Government Act 2002” and draw to the Committee’s attention that subclause (2) amends schedule 10 by inserting new clause 7A which states: “Affordable housing policy—A long-term council community plan must contain a summary of the local authority’s affordable housing policy if …”. I want to talk about that word “if”. 
Sandra Goudie 
: “Eff”? 
JOHN CARTER 
: Call it what you like. However it is pronounced that is the word I want to focus on. That word is the nub of this whole bill. We are here tonight talking about something that may never happen. This bill and particularly this subclause says to local government: “If you want to then go ahead and do it if you think it’s important and if you think it’s necessary. If you don’t want to do it then it does not matter.” Councils do not have to focus on it or talk about it or put it into their long-term council community plan—only if they want to make the comment. That word “if” is the nub of this whole debate. 
John Hayes 
: “Eff”? 
JOHN CARTER 
: The Committee should be talking about this word “if”—or “eff” or however one wants to say it. To me that one little word makes that clause meaningless. Local government up and down this country is saying to this Parliament and said so in its submissions: “Not interested thank you very much. We aren’t interested because we can’t do what this bill asks us to do.” When the bill says “if you want to” we have had a response from local government right across this nation saying “Nope.”— 
Hon Member 
: “Eff”? 
JOHN CARTER 
: —with rare exceptions; there were one or two. No we are not saying “eff off” but the fact is local government has rejected it. We have to ask ourselves why if we put a bill out before local government and they come back to the select committee and say “No we don’t want to be involved and if you give us the option of not being involved then we’re not going to.” this Parliament would ignore that advice from local government. There does not seem to be any sense in it. 
The problem that local government authorities have up and down this country is that they are met with increasing costs. We are going through another ratepayers’ revolt and one of the issues that local government authorities raised with us is that if this bill gets imposed on them and if they have to follow it and undertake to do the work then that will add more costs to their ratepayers. They were asking collectively why they should have to be responsible for social housing. They said they think it is a Government responsibility generally. Certainly that was the view of the smaller local authorities. They say that if they have the option then they do not want to have to be responsible thank you very much. They say they will not put this sort of thing in their long-term council community plans. 
I say that is the tragedy of what we are debating tonight. Some people will be listening to the debate on their crystal sets thinking that this Parliament is going to address the issue of affordable housing and their expectations will be raised. Unfortunately they will turn to their local authority and ask whether it is going to do that. The local authority will say: “Nope the Government said ‘if’ we want to and we are not going to. We are not interested. You’re not going to get it.” What a shame!