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:18487] 
JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) 
: 
 I recently heard somebody say that this Labour Government had done a lot for health. I thought that was an interesting observation so I asked the person to explain. The reply was: “It has. It has made lots of people sick.” Well I thought the person had probably got it right. 
I heard the Minister in the chair the Hon Maryan Street just say that she wants to do something for people so that they can have more affordable housing. Well the sad thing is that this bill will actually distance people from that objective. That is what is disappointing about this legislation tonight. 
Earlier during the debate on Part 1 we heard a very good dissertation on clause 6 about the fact that what we are doing and what we should be doing is working with industry to see whether we can provide good but small and less costly homes—affordable homes that are not so pretentious but are still secure dry safe warm and healthy though maybe of a smaller size. The Minister in the chair at the time suggested that starter homes be two-bedroom homes. There is nothing wrong with that. In our generation a number of us started that way. 
There are companies around that are prepared to provide those sorts of homes. In fact a company up north is starting off with a house that will have three bedrooms but will not be large. It will have all the facilities and will be warm and dry and it will probably be put on the market for about $120000. By the time the cost of a section is added in it will be somewhere between $180000 and $200000. That is within reach of a lot of people. We heard a very good dissertation on that. 
Then in the debate on Part 2 we heard a very good dissertation on clause 42 and the issue around the word “if”. I know that we had that dissertation because I made it. Both dissertations were very good I have to say. 
But the disappointing thing is that this whole issue is likely to move us further away from the objective rather than achieve the goal the Minister wishes to achieve which is to make housing more affordable. If we could have argued here tonight that this bill in itself would somehow or other allow young families or those who are starting families to get into their first home and if this bill gave them that step then we could support it. We could actually say that yes there is merit in it. 
Remember it is not something that local government has to do; it is an option and so far I think only two have suggested they might take an interest in it. One is led by Bob Harvey the Mayor of Waitakere City who is inclined to support Labour Government legislation. Only two local authorities might get involved—and there are only two that might. That means that nothing will be achieved other than that some people will have their expectations heightened because they will think the Government has put through a bill that will make housing more affordable. 
If this legislation is implemented it will actually put on more cost on; it will not take cost away. We would happily have worked with the Minister and the Minister for Building and Construction to take away compliance costs. We heard tonight that it is estimated that the cost of getting a permit to build a home is now on average about $25000. Just to get a section with all the costs around resource management and other costs is about $50000. That is before starting to build—just in compliance costs. That is a total of $75000. We would happily have worked with the Minister to see how we could reduce that. We would have worked constructively with her and her colleagues to achieve that because $75000 is a lot of money for a lot of young people—for most people actually. 
We would quite happily have worked away with her and local government would have come to the party to see how it could help reduce costs. Already there are ways in which that can be done but unfortunately this bill does not address any of that. All it says is that if local government wants to it can consider affordable housing and if it wants to it can include it in its long-term council community plan. If it wants to it can do an assessment and if it wants to it can talk with developers. Well actually local government has the opportunity to do that already. This bill will not achieve any of that.