Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSocial Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 11 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:8962. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) BillSecond ReadingHon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Minister for Ethnic Communities): on behalf of theMinister for Social Housing: I move That the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill be now read a second time. This Government is continuing its commitment to improve the social housing system in order to support more vulnerable New Zealanders across our country. I would like to thank the Social Services Committee and particularly the chair Alfred Ngaro for the timely consideration of this particular bill. The committee considered 11 written submissions and it heard from eight of those submitters. The main change recommended by the select committee is to introduce a requirement that the Crown report on its operations for State housing land that is declared to be under exclusive ministerial administration.There are a number of other minor amendments recommended by that committee that have been made. I am grateful also for the efforts of those officials who worked on the bill. The bill essentially achieves three things. First it authorises designated Ministers to enter into social housing transactions in the name of Housing New Zealand Corporation and its subsidiaries. This allows us to transfer homes beginning first in the areas of Tauranga and Invercargill to various community housing providers. Along with transferring some of those properties this bill enables the designated Ministers to enter into contracts to require that Housing New Zealand provides transitional services to those community housing providers to ensure that their tenants’ needs are looked after during that transfer process. It will also ensure that the transaction processes work smoothly for current tenants.The transactions process is new both for the Government and for the community housing providers that it will deal with. The processes are proceeding in a measured way so that potential participants have the opportunity to prepare and the rights of tenants are protected under that process. Officials have received expressions of interest about both the Invercargill and the Tauranga social housing transactions and by mid-March they will announce a short-list of bidders who will be asked to submit a detailed response to a request for proposals issued by the Government. So the Government is pleased with the level of interest shown in these transactions but there are safeguards in place over this process. Following exercise of the transaction mandate Ministers are required to publicly notify the general nature and the purpose of the use by means of a statement published in the Gazette and it is presented to this House of Representatives. This provides transparency and allows for Parliament and New Zealanders to assess whether the exercise is consistent with the purpose outlined in the legislation.The bill also clarifies that the Public Works Act 1981 offer-back provisions do not apply to land held by Housing New Zealand and preserves this treatment for designated Ministers. Just as the offer-back provisions do not apply and have never applied to land held by Housing New Zealand they do not apply to the Ministers acting in Housing New Zealand’s name. It is important to provide certainty on this point to avoid delay to the social housing reform process. This amendment does not alter any existing rights; it merely confirms that the current legal position of the offer-back regime does not apply to Housing New Zealand properties. It is also important to note that this bill does not remove any rights of first refusal that iwi may have in relation to Housing New Zealand properties under the Treaty settlements processes. We have been engaging with affected iwi since last year to ensure that the rights are appropriately recognised.The final aspect of this bill is an amendment to the Housing Act 1955 to clear up a longstanding issue not directly related to the social housing reform programme. This amendment is a technical one that gives a designated Minister the exclusive power to administer State housing land that has been identified by that Minister in a Gazette notice.The bill is an important one but it is a small part of an overall work programme to improve social housing across our country. We are also opening up Crown land in Auckland for social and affordable housing developments providing more emergency housing with a $2.5 million funding boost to the sector we are contracting with community providers to provide more social houses in Auckland and freeing up social houses by reviewing the tenancies of those who can afford private rentals. This Government remains committed to improving the lives of tenants in social housing and this bill supports that objective. I commend this bill to the House.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): This will be a change of styles after the soothing tones of Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga. I am very disappointed that we do not have the pleasure of the Hon Paula Bennett to contribute the Minister for Social Housing’s perspective in this debate—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I think the member knows that he is skirting with trouble.PHIL TWYFORD: Why do we oppose this bill? Because we do oppose this bill with every bone in our body. The first reason is that it enables a policy that we utterly oppose and disagree with the State house sell-off. It will be part of John Key and Bill English’s legacy: the dismantling of a system of housing that for generations has put a decent roof over the heads of struggling Kiwis. Dismantling the very system that gave him a taxpayer-supported start in life in Christchurch in the 1960s will be part of John Key’s legacy—a legacy of shame. It is the wrong policy at the wrong time. It is a bad policy because of the effects that it will have.Secondly the other reason that we oppose this bill is that it opens the door to corruption and I am going to have plenty more to say about the concerns we have about the extraordinary unfettered powers that this legislation will give to Paula Bennett and Bill English to flog off billions of dollars of publicly owned land and housing around this country—land and housing that was paid for by generations of New Zealanders who believed in the Kiwi Dream that if you worked and saved and played by the rules in this country then you could get a roof over your head. If you could afford it you would be able to buy and own your own home with all the security and the benefits that that implies but if you could not make that and you were struggling part of the social contract in this country going back 100 years has been that the State the community the taxpayer will ensure that you and your kids get a decent roof over your heads.This bill is enabling the dismantling of that very system and it is doing it in a way that really puts a question mark over the propriety of the process. By giving unfettered powers to those two Ministers by sweeping away all the legislative safeguards that would normally apply in a situation like this and by allowing Paula Bennett and Bill English all the freedom in the world to do whatever deal they like to keep their sordid policy alive it is a charter for corruption. It should worry all New Zealanders that New Zealand under this National Government is slipping down the international rankings by Transparency International—slipping down because of Oravida because of the Saudi sheep scandal because of Skycity and because of this Government’s congenital secrecy and its inability to maintain a clear line between private profit and public good.We saw that today in the House actually in question time where it was very clear that the Government members could see nothing wrong with the fact that Amy Adams had appointed Bill Francis the chief executive officer of the private Radio Broadcasters Association to the board of Radio New Zealand its chief competitor. They cannot see the problem with breaking down the line between private profit and public good and what this bill does by giving the Ministers carte blanche absolute freedom to negotiate whatever deals they like with whomever they like with no legislative safeguards and accountability—it is a charter for corruption.Why is this the wrong policy at the wrong time? Because we have an acute housing shortage in this country. If people listened to Radio New Zealand the other day and listened to the heartrending report about working families with young children and babies left homeless sleeping in their cars and being turned away by the Ministry of Social Development—they cannot even under this National Government get on the waiting list for a State house. It is an absolute disgrace and what did Paula Bennett the Minister who is responsible for this bill say when asked by Radio New Zealand about families with babies and young children sleeping in their cars? What did she say? This is a classic of this Minister: she said that “There’s recently been a review of the housing register but … in some cases the fault lies with the families themselves.” What a classic. We have got a waiting list of nearly 5000 families in New Zealand who cannot get a State house we have got unprecedented levels of homelessness and families with babies and young children living in cars and the responsible Minister in this National Government Paula Bennett says it is the fault of the families themselves.Another sign of how bad the current housing crisis is which will be made worse by the passage of this bill: today on TradeMe someone is advertising the bottom bunk in an Auckland apartment a 40 square metre apartment in Auckland. It is $170 a week to rent the bottom bunk of an apartment. Is it any wonder that the New Zealand Heraldreports over the summer that students are selling sex in order to try to put a roof over their heads? To find housing that they can afford they are selling themselves for sex. That is what it has come to. That is what National’s housing crisis has done to our country.But the Government’s idea of a solution to the housing crisis is to sell off the very houses that should be used to house our most vulnerable citizens. It does everything—everything but the obvious thing you do in a housing shortage and that is build more houses. So it is the wrong policy at the wrong time. But worse than that this policy will actually make things worse. It is undermining and weakening and dismantling the system of social and State housing put in place over generations to ensure that no matter how your parents might be struggling financially our country will put a roof over your head and make sure that every child in this country at least gets a decent roof over their head. But that is an alien ethos; it is another language which the National Party does not understand.The Kiwi Dream has been part of this country’s culture. It is part of the fabric it is part of our history it goes to the heart of who we are as New Zealanders and it is about ensuring that every kid gets a decent start in life. As I said if you work hard and play by the rules you can if not own your own house at least have decent affordable and accessible housing.But what this policy will do—this policy is about enabling the breakup and the dismantling of State housing. It will weaken that whole system of social support that has been so critical over the decades. Paula Bennett and Bill English have tried to frame this policy as being about improving and modernising the system of State housing and they originally promised that non-profit organisations would be the beneficiaries of this policy because they wanted to grow the community housing sector. But as soon as the Salvation Army came out and said: “We don’t want to buy these houses because we don’t think it’s a good policy.” they immediately opened the door to merchant bankers and property investors. They said that State and social housing would be better administered by local groups who understand their communities better.But we know they are negotiating and talking with Horizon Housing from Australia and any number of other interests that are willing to buy these houses. They held a workshop towards the end of last year and who attended it? The Plenary Group the international infrastructure business John Laing from the UK public-private partnership firm every merchant banker you can imagine—the whole meeting was dominated by lawyers banks consultants and developers. This is not about empowering the community housing sector; it is about flicking off billions of dollars of publicly owned land and housing to their Cabinet club mates.All of the objections that we raised in the first reading of this bill have been ignored by the Government. All of the concerns that were raised by submitters at the select committee have been brushed aside by the Government members on the select committee and by the Minister. It is in the National Party’s DNA to blur the boundaries between private profit and public good. That is what this bill does. Submitters came along to the select committee and raised multiple concerns about the unfettered powers given to Ministers to dispose of these publicly owned assets. We think it is extremely unwise to do that. It raises the perception of corruption and impropriety and we will have a lot more to say about that in this debate.ALFRED NGARO (National): As this is my first speech in the House this year Mr Assistant Speaker and to all the members of the House can I also say kia orana to you as well. As my grandmother would say to me “kia orana” and the essence of the word “ora” means well-being so that actually can also be interpreted as “May you live long and may you live well”. And to you Mr Assistant Speaker you have longevity in this House and you have also done well in this House. So kia orana to you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Kia orana.ALFRED NGARO: Christmas is a great time to stop and reflect on the year that has passed—what we have seen and even what we have done. I am sure that Mr Twyford who has just spoken may not have had enough reflection especially possibly in regard to this bill as the spokesperson for housing for Labour. Because if he had reflected he might have remembered some of the words that he spoke in 2014 at the Community Housing Aotearoa Impact Conference in which he said—these are his words on reflection that actually go to the heart of this policy—“Tenants with high and complex needs may be better off being transferred to a community housing provider.” The regulatory impact report clearly states that there are 3650 tenants who are looking for and need assistance into social housing provision and that is exactly what we are doing. Mr Twyford by his own words has supported what we are doing. So I am a little bit confused about it being the wrong policy now.He also said this: “Our vision for that is to have Housing [New Zealand] … and a bigger stronger community housing sector working in partnership to deliver more social housing more diverse types of housing and a broad range of services.” We are doing all those things—this policy actually is being confirmed by Mr Twyford by his own words and in fact he said in the speech he made last year: “We are committed to your members having access to the income-related rent subsidy to capital grants and to stock transfer.” Thisgoes exactly to the heart of this bill. This bill deals with the fact that we are transferring stock. In other words it gives a statutory transactional mandate to the Ministers to be able to transfer that stock. That is exactly what Mr Twyford has disagreed with.The essence of his disagreement is this: wrong policy wrong time. In other words really it is only the wrong policy and only the wrong time because it is not in Mr Twyford’s time. It is not in the time that he has talked about. He talked about multitudes of submissions. There were only 11 written submissions and eight oral submissions. There was not in a sense the outcry from the sector to say that this was all wrong. There were areas that we needed to tweak there were concerns that we needed to take into consideration and that is exactly what we were doing.Can I say that at the heart of this legislation it is dealing with the very complex needs that we know exist in our sector—at the heart of this. Mr Twyford himself has confirmed the fact that Housing New Zealand in its ability to provide for those needs is unable to do so. Therefore it needs the partnership. The transactional mandate allows for the transfer of this stock to the partnership with the community housing providers who have the ability to be able to provide for the complex needs and services. They may be the areas of disability mental health—there are a variety of different needs. In fact as we speak there are currently 1300 State housing tenants who also made applications because of their high and complex needs for transfer into a social housing provider. This is not dreamt out of thin air. This is not because we think it is just an idea that maybe we could pursue. It is the right idea. It is evidence-based.Currently one of the concerns that is raised is that maybe we were starting off the great State house sell-off. Let us talk about what the stock is. The commitment by this Prime Minister was to increase the State housing stock.Over 8 years 62000 is what the current stock is—Phil Twyford: It’s gone down in the last 7 years.ALFRED NGARO: And Mr Twyford was there at the annual review where Mr Sowry through his report said this. Mr Twyford knows: there are 67000 houses—an increase of 5000 houses—that currently exist and 190000 people are living in State houses. That is what is being provided by this Government. Not only is it increasing the stock where it is needed but most important it is about wanting to ensure that we have the ability to transfer that stock to social housing providers who have the ability to meet the high and complex needs of our tenants who are there.We believe that this bill is important. We believe that it is heading in the right direction. It is meeting those needs that are there. Most important it actually is reconfirmed. I want to finish off with again a confirmation by Mr Twyford in his own words from a speech in this House around the income-related rents. This is from the Hansard from the words of Mr Twyford. Here is what he says: “We are not opposed in fact to the Minister’s intention to shift housing stock across to the community housing providers. That makes sense”.Mr Assistant Speaker I do not know what you would say—I do not want to breach anything around the Standing Orders. But it just sounds a little bit complicated a little bit confused because on the one hand Mr Twyford is saying this is the wrong policy at the wrong time—I would contend that this is the right policy. It is at the right time. Most important it is not just about bricks and mortar. It is not just about houses. It is about the people of those communities who absolutely need our support and our help. I commend this second reading of the bill to the House.CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): That member who just spoke Alfred Ngaro can turn a blind eye—along with his colleagues—as much as he likes but the reality is that National has failed New Zealand when it comes to housing. It is clear that National has failed New Zealanders when it comes to housing. In west Auckland the other day—and Alfred Ngaro knows all about west Auckland because he is trying to run for a seat out there—I heard from a—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! [Interruption] Order! Sorry I am going to actually let the member start again but I want to warn Mr Ngaro. He is not allowed to wander around waving his arms in the air and interjecting while he is on his feet when he has not got the call. Carmel Sepuloni starting again.CARMEL SEPULONI: I heard a very disturbing thing from one of our health providers in west Auckland the other day—that is that the Waitematā District Health Board is on the verge of having to release people into homelessness. These are people who are still recovering from illnesses who do not have homes to go into. There is no emergency housing. There is very little or a lack of social housing. And they are on the verge of having to release people—sick people who are still recovering—into homelessness. Is that side of the House still proud of its accomplishments when it comes to housing when that is the case? I cannot imagine why it would be.We heard from Alfred Ngaro that Labour is opposed to building up the community housing providers. I just need to make the point that we are not opposed to building up community housing provision. What we are opposed to is the National Government flicking off Housing New Zealand houses to those social housing providers and not actually building up the stock but just passing the buck when it comes to housing. Actually the Government is flicking off billions of dollars that belong to New Zealanders in terms of assets. That is what we are opposed to. We are not opposed at all to building up the community housing providers.I sat through the select committee process with my colleague Phil Twyford and a number of things came up that were disturbing. I just want to point out one small thing before I get on to the two main reasons why we are not supporting this bill. One of the things that came up which a lot of the submitters were also concerned about is that with this bill all of the decision-making power in respect of the transactions—in terms of passing the Housing New Zealand houses over to the community housing providers—lies with the Minister but all the accountability and responsibility for the success of that transaction lies with Housing New Zealand. So the Minister has all the power to make the decision but will not be held accountable if anything goes wrong in the transaction despite the fact that she is imposing that decision on Housing New Zealand. I cannot see how in any way that is fair and actually a lot of the submitters agreed that that does not seem fair to them. If the Minister is going to have the power to make these decisions then the Minister needs to be liable if anything goes wrong with those transactions.It is not only Labour that opposes this bill. We oppose it along with our Green colleagues and our New Zealand First colleagues and as I said there are two main reasons for our opposition to the bill. The first is that the bill enables a policy as Phil Twyford has already outlined that we disagree with—the sale of a large proportion of the country’s stock of State houses is central to the Government’s policy. Our view is that the housing crisis more than anything demands a substantial increase in the number of houses that are affordable for people on very low incomes. In addition there is an urgent need to improve the quality of State housing—in particular to make it warm and dry.We have heard through the media and through some of the reports that have come out from the Government that there has been a decline in the number of people on the social housing register. I just want to say that there has not been a decline in demand in terms of people trying to get on the register. What is happening is that there is a block right at the beginning when people try to get access to the register in the first place—in order to even be considered for a Housing New Zealand house.We have seen instances where the Government has had the opportunity to build up the stock of Housing New Zealand houses and I want to cite one in my own electorate in respect of the Waterview Connection project. For that project Housing New Zealand sold houses to the New Zealand Transport Agency. They were no longer required for the project. Housing New Zealand had the opportunity to buy those houses back but instead chose not to so those houses went up for private sale. How irresponsible is that? It is irresponsible because of the fact that there are hundreds of families in that particular area who are trying to get into homes. Yet when they had an opportunity to buy back the houses that they had sold for a particular project they decided not to.There is an urgent need to improve the quality of State housing—in particular to make it warm and dry—and we see that in our offices every day with our constituents who come through with health issues that have come about because of the state of the housing they are in.What has been really disappointing is listening to Minister Paula Bennett rave on in the media about the fact that people should be grateful when they are offered a home and that they will be denied the opportunity to take up any home and in fact removed from the list if they turn down a house. There are so many good reasons why people turn down houses. Yet we have Minister Bennett stigmatising these families. Here in the House she talked about two people who had turned down a house because of the fact that they did not like the decor. Two people in the whole country turned down a house for a reason like that. Yet we know of hundreds of families who have turned down houses because of things like they are not in the close vicinity of the schools their kids go to or because of the fact that the house is too far away from the work the job they have so they would not be able to travel there or because it is too close to a former abusive partner whom they cannot be near because it is dangerous for them and their children or because it is not fenced appropriately and it would be dangerous for their small children to live there. More often than not people have good reasons for turning down Housing New Zealand houses.Debate interrupted.