9. Crown Land and Building Programme—Affordable HomesPHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) to the Minister for Social HousingCrown Land and Building Programme—Affordable Homes9. PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) to the Minister for Social Housing: What is the minimum number of new affordable houses which will be delivered as part of the Crown Land and Building programme she announced on 16 May 2017 and how is affordable defined?Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for Social Housing): At least 4500 but up to 10000 in addition to the 16000 market homes and 13500 new modern social houses for some of our most vulnerable New Zealanders. As I stated 2 weeks ago and last week again in the House we use the KiwiSaver HomeStart cap of up to $650000 to ensure the policy aligns with the ability to access other Government first-home buyer support. Our experience to date suggests that a number will in fact be priced well below this level.Phil Twyford: Was the reason she did not include the actual number of affordable new homes which is a little more than 4000 over 10 years that she did not know it or that she was so embarrassed that it was such a small number?Hon AMY ADAMS: The member completely mischaracterises what I said which is that we would have a range that we are aiming for which is between 20 and 50 percent. So we have said there will be a minimum of 20 percent which is the 4500 but actually shortly after that announcement I headed out to launch a development with Melissa Lee where in fact 100 percent of them were going to be affordable homes. So to come up with a random number somewhere in the band of 4500 to 10000 was not particularly helpful. The difference is that we know the numbers in our policy. We have costed them we can speak to them and we are more than happy to answer questions on them.Phil Twyford: Why has she proposed such a small number of affordable houses compared with Auckland's needs when the Reserve Bank today said that the rate of house building is insufficient to meet population growth and address housing shortages"? Hon AMY ADAMS: Well this is exactly the point. When we made the announcement we pointed out very clearly that this is about what the Government is doing with the less than 5 percent of land that we own. As a Government our primary responsibility is focusing on building social houses for those in need making sure we have an affordable programme to fund it and making sure there are opportunities for our tenants to transition. By contrast Labour is not building any social houses it cannot fund its project and it is not being up front about where it will be. We have never pretended that this is going to be a new house for every Aucklander nor frankly speaking as a Government should it be. Andrew Bayly: What further information does she have on the Crown building project? Hon AMY ADAMS: The House might be interested to know that when we were setting the affordability criteria for the Crown building project we were very mindful of the fact that of the nearly 1436 homes already sold at Hobsonville Point 28 percent of them have been sold at or under $550000 and these range from one-bedroom apartments to three-bedroom terraced homes. What we are not doing as part of the Crown building project is building dreamt-up numbers at fantasy prices on land that we do not own cannot identify and cannot pay for and that is magically free of any existing properties.Phil Twyford: How is it credible to promise only 4500 affordable homes—only half of which were a new promise—when Auckland has a shortfall of 40000 homes; last year only 7000 new homes were completed according to Auckland Council; and only 5 percent of those were affordable?Hon AMY ADAMS: What we are doing is showing what the Crown will do on its 5 percent of the land in Auckland. We have always said that the largest part of responding to Auckland will come from the 95 percent owned by the market which is why this Government is supporting things like the HomeStart scheme like Resource Management Act reform like the national policy statement on urban development and like Point England which Labour is opposing. What is not credible is to pull numbers out of the air that you cannot fund cannot build and do not know where they are going.Phil Twyford: Why should the public take her press release about building houses seriously 4 months out from an election when after 9 years this Government has presided over a 2500 reduction in the number of State houses and a nationwide shortfall of 60000 homes built up under her and Nick Smith?Hon AMY ADAMS: Well I reject the member's comments. What I would say is that it is because we are a credible Government with a proven track record of doing what we say we will do which is in sharp contrast to the Opposition."