Heatley Phil: Financial Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHeatley Phil: Financial Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 04 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16300. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei): It is probably worthwhile doing a timely comparison between the Labour Party’s record on housing when in Government and what has happened under the current Government. Nothing would be more apt than to remind New Zealanders of interest rates under the Labour Government from 1999 to 2008. People will recall that during those heady years of Helen Clark and that big-spending Government interest rates for first-home buyers were around 8 percent or 9 percent or 10 percent per annum. That is right.Jacqui Dean: Up to 11 percent.Hon PHIL HEATLEY: First-home buyers who are listening to this speech today will sit and wonder how they would ever cope if a Labour Government came in and started running mortgage interest rates at 8 percent or 9 percent. I stand corrected by the member for Waitaki Jacqui Dean who reminds me that actually interest rates hit 11 percent under the Helen Clark Government. I do apologise—under the previous Labour Government mortgage interest rates for first-home buyers were around 9 percent 10 percent  and 11 percent. Under the National Government we have seen interest rates oscillate at around 5 percent and 6 percent. They may go as high as 7 percent but not the dizzying target of the big-spending Labour Government of 11 percent I am sure. So there you have mortgage interest rates—a housing issue for all who borrow to buy a home which is usually everyone.The second comparison would be those houses in Highbury and other parts of the country where the Labour Government allowed gangs and gang members to run rife not just in State housing but in State housing neighbourhoods. It allowed scams to occur such as subletting. It allowed people to undertake violent behaviour—picking up glass and the pickets from the picket fences and beating up their neighbours—and did not do a single thing about it in State housing neighbourhoods. Today we see the statistics where up to 400 State house tenants have been moved on in the last few yearsbecause of their violent dysfunctional and antisocial behaviour in State housing neighbourhoods. The Labour Party members have gone quiet on the other side of the Chamber because they know that they never dealt with those problems in State housing neighbourhoods but the National Government has.The third issue is the insulation of State houses. I would be very proud if I was Nick Smith for being the Minister of Housing who oversaw the insulation of every single State house in New Zealand that could be insulated. How is it that the Labour Party after 9 years of Government left not thousands but tens of thousands of State houses uninsulated? State houses were old cold and mouldy under the previous Labour Government for almost a decade. Why has the barracking stopped? Why are the Labour Party members no longer heckling me in the Chamber? They go quiet in shame. Congratulations to Nick Smith on insulating every single State house across New Zealand that could be insulated.That brings me to the warrant of fitness. Nick Smith is introducing a Housing Warrant of Fitness trial for States houses across New Zealand. The Labour Government never did it. Do you know why? Because its State houses would never pass a warrant of fitness. The idea that the Labour Party would introduce some sort of warrant or housing standard for private sector landlords—because this is what the Labour Party waxes lyrical about: private sector landlords across New Zealand needing to up their game. The fact of the matter is that while in Government the Labour Party could not even insulate or provide State houses of good quality in its own stock let alone in the private sector’s. It never introduced a warrant of fitness because it could not even meet that standard in State housing and it could not do it in the private sector area.Fifthly of course the Labour Party when in Government with its legislation and regulation prevented land being supplied across New Zealand in the provinces and the metropolitan areas so that houses could be built. In fact under that—