1. Housing Affordability and Availability—Commentary and Auckland Homeownership RatesANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime MinisterORAL QUESTIONSQUESTIONS TO MINISTERSHousing Affordability and Availability—Commentary and Auckland Homeownership Rates1. ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he agree with the Hon Alfred Ngaro that some of the media are manufacturing the housing crisis; or does he agree there is a housing crisis given Auckland has a shortage of 40000 homes according to Auckland Council?Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH (Prime Minister): No and no.Andrew Little: Does he not see that threatening and intimidating NGOs falls so far below acceptable standards of ministerial conduct that if he fails to take action against the Minister who made those threats it amounts to tacitly endorsing them?Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: That is a bit rich coming from the Labour Party which invented intimidating and threatening people who do not agree with it. But I will tell you what is below acceptable behaviour. What is below acceptable behaviour is having a policy that says it wants more houses but opposing actual developments including voting against the Point England bill in this House yesterday.Andrew Little: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That was a question that referred to ministerial standards and effectively his position on them. It did not call for a discourse from the Prime Minister on his view about Labour's policies on housing. He has not addressed the question.Mr SPEAKER: When I reflect on the question the suggestion of intimidating NGOs—the Prime Minister certainly took the opportunity to refer to that part in his answer. The latter part of his answer I do accept was probably not helpful to the order of the House.Andrew Little: Who does he blame for the shortage of homes in Auckland? Is it the media's fault the Salvation Army's fault the council's fault Aucklanders' fault or does the buck stop with his Government which has had 9 years to address the housing crisis and it is only growing worse every year?Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: All of those parties have contributed to what is now very significant positive progress building in Auckland. The one party that has not is the Labour Party which has been opposing the Three Kings development and voting against the Point England enabling bill that will allow for thousands of houses to be built in Tāmaki on conditions appropriate to the local tenants. So if there is anyone most directly to blame for stopping developments it is the Labour Party.Andrew Little: Does this Treasury briefing dated September 2016 to him show that the rate of Auckland housebuilding has been less than what is needed to keep up with population growth the whole time he has been in power?Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: There are all sorts of official guesses about how many houses Auckland might need. What we know is that there is the largest construction boom ever going on in Auckland and house prices are flattening out and in some places falling so clearly some demand is being met. But of course there needs to be a lot more build. That is why we have the $1 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund and the Government building programme which will over the next few years continue the very strong growth in building going on in Auckland.Andrew Little: Do Statistics New Zealand reports show that homeownership has fallen in each of his 9 years in power while housing costs have risen more than twice as fast as wages?Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: Statistics New Zealand reports do not cover the fact that the Labour Party's opposition to two of the largest developments in Auckland is driving up costs and rentals. At the same time as in public it is saying it favours more houses in private it is stopping two large developments.Andrew Little: Taking that last answer as yes does he expect to see a lift in homeownership this year?Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: That will depend on whether the Labour Party starts supporting the Point England development which will have an impact on thousands of houses in Tāmaki and whether it withdraws its opposition to the large-scale Three Kings development which would enable well over a thousand affordable homes to be built for constituents who vote for the Labour Party as it happens.Andrew Little: Putting aside the Salvation Army when will he finally apologise to Kiwi families for soaring house prices skyrocketing rents and growing homelessness during his 9 years; or is it someone else's fault?Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: The people who should be apologising are the Labour Party members for two reasons. One is that they gave the Auckland Regional Council the power in the early 2000s to set a rural-urban boundary and from that time new building in Auckland was strangled. It has taken us a number of years to unwind the damage. The other reason they should apologise is that they are opposing large developments in Auckland. So their KiwiBuild policy is in reality a no-build policy.