Twyford Phil: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 31 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:12153. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—TeAtatū):Housing has definitely become a political headache for the Government but it is a nightmare for most New Zealanders who all around the country are saying: “Why don’t we have a Government that actually does something? Why doesn’t the Government that was elected in 2011 actually roll up its sleeves and build some affordable houses? Why doesn’t it actually protect the interests of New Zealand citizens?”. People are wondering why that is happening. We have after 4½ years of inaction by this National Government some of the most unaffordable housing in the world. Generation X and Y are locked out of homeownership. The most vulnerable people in this country are about to be booted off State house tenancies by this Government as a deliberate matter of policy. In Christchurch by the Government’s own reckoning up to 7500 people are officially homeless because this Government has taken a hands-off do-nothing approach to the post-quake housing crisis in Christchurch.What is National’s response to the housing crisis? What is its response? It has set a target of 39000 consents in Auckland and it has set up a mechanism to fast track new greenfields land in Auckland. Every single credible submitter who came to the Social Services Committee on the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill said to the select committee that this bill would not result in any more affordable housing being built. What a failure. What an absolute loss of credibility.National’s response such that it is is based on a trickle-down theory of housing. It thinks that if it simply encourages the building of more housing no matter what price those houses are somehow that will make housing more affordable. Well it is a pipedream. We do not buy it. All of the Opposition parties do not buy it. The Government’s approach to housing its philosophy to this housing crisis is basically to blame councils and trust the market. Well I think people see through that. People can see that that is simply not a credible response to a crisis on which New Zealanders are desperately wanting some bold and decisive action.It just does not have to be this way. It does not have to be the case that we have the most unaffordable housing in the world. It does not have to be the case that in Christchurch people are facing another winter of whole families sleeping in uninsulatedsleepouts or paying hundreds of dollars a week to rent a caravan in someone’s backyard. It does not have to be that way. We have choices. We have a choice between a do-nothing Government that wants to trust a failed housing market or an alternative Government that will actually roll up its sleeves and build affordable houses a Government that will change the economic settings that got us into this crazy housing mess that we are in now. The National Government refuses to contemplate adjusting the very economic settings that it has presided over for the last 4½ years. It refuses to tax speculators through a capital gains tax in a way that would take much of the speculative heat out of the housing market.We have an alternative. With ourKiwiBuild policy we will build 100000 affordable starter homes over 10 years with fine New Zealand building companies like Fletcher Building likeStonewood Homes and I could rattle off half a dozen others. We will build homes that people will be proud to live in for generations to come not as Bill English said yesterday in the House slandering the work of some of our construction companies describing their houses as being like the back end of Moscow.Labour in Government will tax the speculators. A capital gains tax that excludes the family home will go a long way to channelling investment into more productive economic development and away from overheating the housing market. We will restrict offshore speculators and stop them driving up the prices of New Zealand homes and outbidding New Zealand’s first-home buyers at auction. We will put a stop to it because unlike this National Government which stands on the side of speculators we stand for ordinary Kiwi home buyers and especially first-home buyers. We are determined to do something about the declining rates of homeownership in this country because we believe that homeownership is a good thing. We will adopt policies and we will change the economic settings that will make a difference and get Kiwi first-home buyers into their first homes. Singapore Hong Kong the UK and Switzerland have all recently adopted policies that restrict the activities of offshore speculators and Australia has had the very same policy in place since 1987. It is a good policy and it puts the interests of New Zealanders first.The Government has got itself into a terrible mess with the housing crisis. The controversy around loan-to-value ratio limits on home mortgage lending is a perfect illustration of this. John Key negotiated only a few months ago a memorandum of understanding with the Reserve Bank that gave the Reserve Bank the power to implement these limits on home mortgage lending. He gave the Reserve Bank those powers and now he stands there and cries crocodile tears for first-home buyers pretending to be surprised that the Reserve Bank actually wants to do something about the overheating of the Auckland housing market which is a risk to the macro economy.That is because this Government has refused to do anything about the forces that are overheating the Auckland housing market. The Reserve Bank quite correctly says that they are a threat to financial stability. It does not want homeowners to lose their shirts when the housing bubble bursts so of course it is going to use these loan-to-value ratio limits. If the Government was actually willing to do something serious about the housing crisis then these so-called loan-to-value ratio limits would not have such a huge impact on first-home buyers. That is why Labour is calling for a temporary exemption for first-home buyers while the capital gains tax kicks in and whileKiwiBuild delivers the affordable homes that will ease the supply crisis.National has mismanaged and run down Housing New Zealand—it has. Its restructuring of Housing New Zealand has been a fiasco. It has closed 24 offices. It has sacked 121 full-time workers. It changed the eligibility criteria so at the stroke of a pen thousands and thousands of the poorest New Zealanders suddenly became ineligible for a State house. In places like Gisborne on the East Coast and in Napier there are dozens and dozens of perfectly good Housing New Zealand houses lying vacant—lying vacant—while people who would have been eligible for a State house have been forced into the private rental market into overcrowded and substandard accommodation. That is a disaster. Housing New Zealand under this Government’s watch has botched the redevelopment in MaraenuiPōmare and northern Glen Innes. The Government has been running Housing New Zealand into the ground.Today at the Social Services Committee the internationally acclaimed team of researchers from Otago University’s health and housing research programme came along and told the select committee that the Government’s plan to impose reviewabletenancies on all 69000 Housing New Zealand tenants will create a public health risk. They have the data to prove it unlike this Government which has no evidence base for its policy of imposing reviewable tenancies on Housing New Zealand tenants.The Otago University academics made that point. Dr Michael Baker made an excellent submission showing the data and saying that Housing New Zealand tenants are some of the most vulnerable people in our society. They have very high health needs. State housing and social housing have a demonstrated positive impact on those people. They reduce hospitalisation rates. The children of families who live in Housing New Zealand houses are healthier and safer and better off than kids in families who are not in Housing New Zealand houses. Their research clearly shows that. By creating insecurity for some of the most vulnerable people in our society National is creating a public health risk. It will lead to increased hospitalisation. It will undoubtedly cause unnecessary deaths. This thoughtless negligent policy by National forcing reviewable tenancies on Housing New Zealand tenants will create social harm and social damage. It is forcing people out of State houses into the private rental market in the middle of the worst housing shortage in a generation.Otago University academics came along to the select committee today and they said that they could not see any evidence base for the Government’s Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill. Actually those very academics came along and presented an evidence base for the opposite of the Government’s policy of making Housing New Zealand tenants even more vulnerable and more insecure. I think that was a huge wake-up call and an indictment of this Government’s housing policy.