O'Rourke Denis: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3531. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): This particular amendment bill is one that is typical of National Governments which are always seeking to find ways to reduce spending on social services while at the same time protecting their voter constituencies those on higher incomes and those whom it wishes to protect.Hon Paula Bennett: You’re just wrong Denis.DENIS O’ROURKE: That is not wrong. That is exactly what this Government is doing and most people can see it. This Government does not care whether or not its cost-cutting ways will damage the effectiveness of social policy. This is a bill that is badly researched ill-considered and based fundamentally on National Party dogma. It is a bill that will exacerbate not improve social inequalities and it will degrade the quality of Government services and not improve them. Nobody opposes sensible measures that will make the provision of Government services especially social housing more efficient or will provide the same services at a better cost—but never at the expense of worse outcomes for people. That I am afraid is inevitably what this amendment bill is going to do.There are common themes throughout National’s social housing legislation: firstly to minimise the role of the State; secondly to abdicate to others responsibility for social housing; thirdly to provide as little money as possible and to contract others to take responsibility; fourthly to push as many people out of State housing as it possibly can and to favour non-Government organisations which are not always capable of the function. We can reflect on the Salvation Army and the decision it made not to get involved. Probably the organisation in the country best able to do so chose not to do so and for very good reasons. This legislation allows the Government to pretend that it will provide social housing more cheaply but in fact it will not. It will just push it off to somebody else. It will allow the Government to avoid full accountability for social housing and it will fail to protect people against exploding rents—a huge problem in this country. Lastly the Government does not even try to support local councils in providing public rental housing or elderly persons’ housing in this country thus letting it off the hook too.The amendment bill is just as objectionable as the principal Act in two ways. First of all it relies on the policy of reviewable rents—a bureaucratic assessment of the ability of tenants to move into private accommodation—when the real problem is that rents in places like Auckland and Christchurch due to the simple unavailability of enough homes are the real problem. Secondly it will reduce the role of Housing New Zealand. This amendment actually takes that a step further by preventing Housing New Zealand from giving advice to Ministers thus sidelining that very important organisation. It now reserves that role for the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. That is a mistake because the ministry will only be a contract supervisor essentially and it will not have the institutional knowledge necessary to provide the service at the level we expect. And Ministers will of course be empowered to give directions about what is to be done and it is easy to see where that might lead.The results are likely to be social housing provided at very great arm’s length from the Government and its agencies. It will give more power to Ministers who are inevitably going to take a more political approach—a more dogmatic approach—not aimed at looking at the best interests of the most vulnerable people in the community despite what Government members say over there but aimed at financial results fundamentally. Ultimately that means more housing deprivation State houses being much too hard to get non-government providers imposing their own policies and practices—and we do not know what they may be—and most of all very uncertain outcomes for low-income people who are dependent on the State for their housing needs. That is not the Kiwi tradition and it is not acceptable as a role for the State in this country.The price of suppressing demand which is what this is really all about is much too high in social terms. It will cause reduced health and well-being and increased poverty. It will put more families at risk compromise social cohesion and exacerbate the creation of a disaffected underclass of people in New Zealand. Despite the Government’s aim that it will have a lenient approach when it comes to reassessing State tenancies people will inevitably be nudged out of their homes and effectively bullied out of their homes. The Government will continue to sell those homes but it will build too few of them. You only have to take a quick look at this Budget to come to the conclusion that this Government has no intention of trying to meet the demand that is already there—a demand that is not being met now. That is the real issue. This Government is not actually willing to meet the need and that is really what this legislation is about. It will seek to suppress demand artificially rather than try to meet the genuine housing needs of people in this country.The bill itself may be seen as a relatively minor provision but it is another step in the wrong direction. As others have said what is really needed in this country is a genuine social housing service—not just buildings but a true Public Service with the experience and the resources needed. This bill goes in exactly the opposite direction. The Government will instead transfer large sums of money to community housing organisations through contract payments but these are really still just subsidies so nothing much will have changed. The landlords will of course rub their hands in glee. These organisations will own the housing funded though by the taxpayer. They will profit from it and they will compete from it and as an inevitable result they will try to increase rents and that is not in the best interests of either tenants or the taxpayer—or indeed anybody else in this country. That is actually the most significant flaw of all in this whole new social housing regime of which this bill is just one more minor step in the wrong direction.There will be more diversity and that is potentially a good thing—potentially a good thing—but it is also a very risky thing if it is not doneproperly. I do not trust some of the providers to whom this function will be entrusted to do that properly. For all of those reasons New Zealand First opposes this bill. It is a retrograde step. It emasculates Housing New Zealand. It seeks to reduce Government accountability for housing and it should not be passed.