Bennett Paula: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBennett Paula: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 12 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1550. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister of Local Government):What a fantastic country we live in and what a fantastic bunch of New Zealanders we have got in it. We have just had a fantastic summer. We have got so many things on track. We have more work to do but we are heading in the right direction.Let us look at the fact that we have got one of the highest economic growth rates in the OECD. Employment is growing with 80000 new jobs created last year. Fewer people are dependent on welfare. The 2014 December quarter shows that benefit numbers are at a 6-year low. We have fewer teens having babies than we have had in the last 42 years. We are seeing our roads being upgraded. More New Zealanders are getting the operations they need. We are seeing our construction centre booming. More houses are getting built. That is the reality of the direction this country is going in.However if you listen to the Opposition you would think it is all doom and gloom. It might be in their lives—it might be in their lives. That might be how it is for Labour. I mean if you do not like the person you are sitting next to and if only four of you actually voted for the leader that you have got then it might be that it is a bit doom and gloom. But that is not the reality of the New Zealand that we are living in today. It is not the reality of what we are seeing in the lives that people are living in the optimism they have and in the belief not only that through their own hard work things are getting better but also that the future looks pretty damned bright.This year we have announced though a fundamental policy within the housing and social housing sector so that we can continue to make sure we are addressing the needs of New Zealanders who really need help the most. For years we have seen Labour trying to define whether or not New Zealanders are getting their housing needs met by counting the number of houses that the State owns—full stop. There is no consideration given to the lives that those people are leading and the support services that they might actually need. There is no consideration given to whether or not there might actually be someone better than the State who could do a better job for them. Let us just count the houses tick that box and we have done our job which by the way would get kind of interesting in itself if we did decide to go down that track because Labour had only 59000 houses back in 2004 and we now lease up to 69000—but we will not let the facts get in the way of Labour’s doom and gloom story.So we announced changes that mean fundamentally that New Zealanders will have more choice more availability of social housing and better services wrapped around them as individuals and we are growing a community housing sector that is quite frankly awesome—awesome; absolutely incredible. There is someone in this House who agrees with me. You heard me in question time today. It is quite exciting. Phil Twyford himself—yes Phil Twyford himself—goes out there and says to the community housing sector: “We are committed to your members having access to the income-related rents subsidy to capital grants and to stock transfer.” Well tick tick tick—that is actually Government policy. Thanks for the support Phil Twyford. Good on you! But members you would be mistaken if you thought that he was actually being consistent and that what he said to them is what he actually believed. That is not true.Just this week—in fact just today—we got a crowdfunding email to Labour supporters. It says: “Can you imagine John Key’s face if he opened the newspaper next week and saw a full page ad highlighting how many New Zealanders are against State house sell-offs? He would be straight on the phone to his Ministers. Through the power of crowdfunding we can make that happen. We can put an ad in the paper—if only you can all give us a couple of pennies because we do not even actually have the money to put an ad in the paper.” So poor Labour guys—it is heading for a by-election it cannot afford; it is flip-flopping on policy. It goes out to the community sector saying one thing because it wants them onside but then it actually goes out with its little bucket because it cannot even afford an ad in the newspaper which it thinks is going to make John Key sit up and take notice. What Labour does not get though ladies and gentlemen is that this is actually about people. So it is people who have often been stuck in pretty dysfunctional situations in pretty lousy housing. Let us all remember what Labour has turned around and said repeatedly: “As long as we can tick the box of the number of houses that the State owns then we are doing a good enough job by those people.” We do not think we are.When I look at organisations that take women and their children who have come out of pretty hideous domestic violence circumstances they can put them in a safe house; get them temporarily set up; move them somewhere where they can stay longer term—where they will need to spend quite a bit of time to get through the trauma they have been in; work with them to help them into jobs; keep their kids in school which is what is actually needed to put the sort of safety and security around them they need; give them hope and ambition so they can save and can get our fantastic home loan starts which are coming up very shortly; and then see them actually get into affordable housing. It is called being ambitious. It is called actually believing in people and their ability and more so in those organisations that can wrap that kind of support around them for a long period of time.Do not underestimate the effects of having the income-related rents subsidies going to community housing providers. It gives them a certainty of income for the year. It gives them the ability to partner with others who have equity so that they can borrow off it. It means they can look at homeownership for some of those who are at the tougher end of the scale because they can actually walk them through the housing continuum which can be pretty tough as we know for people who are just trying to get a foot on the property ladder. Having that income-related rent subsidy—which in my opinion was so arrogantly designed only for those in State houses—opened up to a much wider and diverse sector makes a huge difference.Think of those with drug and alcohol addictions who do get into programmes for long periods of time. They leave those rehabilitation programmes and they need somewhere safe and secure to live that will give them the bridge that will then take them through and into their own security whether that be into a rental or actually into buying their own home. It makes sense that they have the support of an organisation that is community-based and that knows them knows the place they live in and is able to work with them over a period of time. And we are in favour of that—we want to support that. I make no apologies. In fact I stand here proudly to say that we will support the community housing sector to grow and we will sell some of our houses to it so that it actually has another kind of base to work from. I think it could do it at the very least as well as the Government—and certainly Housing New Zealand does—and in some cases it could do it a lot better because those providers can really get in and work over a long period of time.The other thing about the income-related rent subsidies is that there will be times—as the Ministry of Social Development now does with that structure of whom they give it to—when they will say: “Here is a mum and her children who have come out of a domestic violence place or with alcohol or drug issues who actually need some certainty of tenure. We want her to be in the same house for a minimum of 12 years and we will go out there and bid accordingly—and actually pay the cost—to ensure that she has certainty of tenure.” Yes? So we will pay extra. We will pay for more support around her to make sure that she is in a home where the kids can get into school. We will put the right kind of social work and services around her and actually see a certainty of tenure.You know these are the kinds of innovative things that we can do in a true partnership with community housing providers not the rubbish we have heard and the lip service of a member who stands up and says one thing to the community housing sector and then turns around and says another thing to the media about what he truly believes its capability is to service people in their own communities which they are the specialists to do.So we back community housing providers. We believe in them. We know that there is a long way to go for us to see them playing a larger part but we will put the money behind them we will back them in both our contracts with them and we will also make sure that they are serviced and can keep an absolute focus on the tenants and the people who need it most.