Ngaro Alfred: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNgaro Alfred: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 11 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:8965. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ALFRED NGARO (National): As this is my first speech in the House this year Mr Assistant Speaker and to all the members of the House can I also say kia orana to you as well. As my grandmother would say to me “kia orana” and the essence of the word “ora” means well-being so that actually can also be interpreted as “May you live long and may you live well”. And to you Mr Assistant Speaker you have longevity in this House and you have also done well in this House. So kia orana to you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Kia orana.ALFRED NGARO: Christmas is a great time to stop and reflect on the year that has passed—what we have seen and even what we have done. I am sure that Mr Twyford who has just spoken may not have had enough reflection especially possibly in regard to this bill as the spokesperson for housing for Labour. Because if he had reflected he might have remembered some of the words that he spoke in 2014 at the Community Housing Aotearoa Impact Conference in which he said—these are his words on reflection that actually go to the heart of this policy—“Tenants with high and complex needs may be better off being transferred to a community housing provider.” The regulatory impact report clearly states that there are 3650 tenants who are looking for and need assistance into social housing provision and that is exactly what we are doing. Mr Twyford by his own words has supported what we are doing. So I am a little bit confused about it being the wrong policy now.He also said this: “Our vision for that is to have Housing [New Zealand] … and a bigger stronger community housing sector working in partnership to deliver more social housing more diverse types of housing and a broad range of services.” We are doing all those things—this policy actually is being confirmed by Mr Twyford by his own words and in fact he said in the speech he made last year: “We are committed to your members having access to the income-related rent subsidy to capital grants and to stock transfer.” Thisgoes exactly to the heart of this bill. This bill deals with the fact that we are transferring stock. In other words it gives a statutory transactional mandate to the Ministers to be able to transfer that stock. That is exactly what Mr Twyford has disagreed with.The essence of his disagreement is this: wrong policy wrong time. In other words really it is only the wrong policy and only the wrong time because it is not in Mr Twyford’s time. It is not in the time that he has talked about. He talked about multitudes of submissions. There were only 11 written submissions and eight oral submissions. There was not in a sense the outcry from the sector to say that this was all wrong. There were areas that we needed to tweak there were concerns that we needed to take into consideration and that is exactly what we were doing.Can I say that at the heart of this legislation it is dealing with the very complex needs that we know exist in our sector—at the heart of this. Mr Twyford himself has confirmed the fact that Housing New Zealand in its ability to provide for those needs is unable to do so. Therefore it needs the partnership. The transactional mandate allows for the transfer of this stock to the partnership with the community housing providers who have the ability to be able to provide for the complex needs and services. They may be the areas of disability mental health—there are a variety of different needs. In fact as we speak there are currently 1300 State housing tenants who also made applications because of their high and complex needs for transfer into a social housing provider. This is not dreamt out of thin air. This is not because we think it is just an idea that maybe we could pursue. It is the right idea. It is evidence-based.Currently one of the concerns that is raised is that maybe we were starting off the great State house sell-off. Let us talk about what the stock is. The commitment by this Prime Minister was to increase the State housing stock.Over 8 years 62000 is what the current stock is—Phil Twyford: It’s gone down in the last 7 years.ALFRED NGARO: And Mr Twyford was there at the annual review where Mr Sowry through his report said this. Mr Twyford knows: there are 67000 houses—an increase of 5000 houses—that currently exist and 190000 people are living in State houses. That is what is being provided by this Government. Not only is it increasing the stock where it is needed but most important it is about wanting to ensure that we have the ability to transfer that stock to social housing providers who have the ability to meet the high and complex needs of our tenants who are there.We believe that this bill is important. We believe that it is heading in the right direction. It is meeting those needs that are there. Most important it actually is reconfirmed. I want to finish off with again a confirmation by Mr Twyford in his own words from a speech in this House around the income-related rents. This is from the Hansard from the words of Mr Twyford. Here is what he says: “We are not opposed in fact to the Minister’s intention to shift housing stock across to the community housing providers. That makes sense”.Mr Assistant Speaker I do not know what you would say—I do not want to breach anything around the Standing Orders. But it just sounds a little bit complicated a little bit confused because on the one hand Mr Twyford is saying this is the wrong policy at the wrong time—I would contend that this is the right policy. It is at the right time. Most important it is not just about bricks and mortar. It is not just about houses. It is about the people of those communities who absolutely need our support and our help. I commend this second reading of the bill to the House.