O'Rourke Denis: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:9080. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): If there was ever a bill that truly defined the character of this Government it would be this bill the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill because it is a bill that is based almost entirely on National ideology and its intention to privatise everything it can get its hands on and now that includes social housing—State houses. If there was ever a bill that evidenced the failure of the National Government’s housing policy and programme it is this bill. It demonstrates so clearly the failure to provide opportunity for people to buy their own homes who therefore become dependent on the rental housing market. And it is a bill that shows the Government’s failure of its intention—even its intention—to actually concentrate on the upgrading of State houses and the expansion of the number of State houses in New Zealand to meet the very real needs that exist out there. And of course all it does fundamentally as a bill is to change the ownership of State houses from the State to a number of private providers. That is actually not going to do anything to help solve the housing crisis whatsoever. So there you have it. Fundamentally what we have got is a bill that defines what the programme is all about. It is about ideology and that evidences actually the total failure of the National Government’s housing policy across the board.I have two fundamental questions that I want to ask of the Minister in the chair the Hon Maggie Barry. I have mentioned these in speeches I have already made on this subject and no member opposite has yet answered these questions. The first is this. There are something like 2000 State houses to be sold by this unseemly fast-track method and that means billions of dollars in sale proceeds. So the question is who is going to get those proceeds and what are they going to be used for?All I see in the bill is subsection (7) of new section 2A inserted by clause 4 which says the proceeds “… must be paid to a Crown Bank Account.” That is all it says—we are not informed of anything beyond that. So what is the Government’s mandate for this money? What is it going to do with it? The public of New Zealand want to know and need to know that. How do we know whether the funds will go back into new social housing or indeed into any social housing at all? How do we know whether they are going to improve the number of State houses for which there is such a significant demand at the present time? And will that money or part of it actually go back to the Government as a dividend from Housing New Zealand Corporation? Is that what it will be used for? If that is the case then that would be disgraceful because that corporation should be spending all of its resources on the provision of new and better social housing in New Zealand because that sector is crying out for Government investment.Many commentators have made the point over and over again that New Zealand’s housing crisis will never be solved until the Government realises that it needs to invest in housing in this country because the private sector cannot solve this crisis by itself. That has been said many times and yet to me this bill seems to say just the opposite—let us take Government money out of the social housing sector. If that is not the case I want to hear from those sleepy members opposite exactly what this money is going to be used for. If it is going to be paid into a Crown bank account what happens to it after that? Which Crown bank account? Is it going to Housing New Zealand Corporation; if so is part of it going to become a dividend? If it is not going to be paid into that Crown bank account then which Crown bank account and what is the money going to be used for? Will any of it actually be invested in any way whatsoever to solve housing in New Zealand? And in particular will it be invested in the social housing market in New Zealand for which there is such a massive demand?Following on from that question I want to ask one more and it is this. It concerns the reporting requirements under the Housing Act. What you will see from the committee’s report is that it inserted as its main contribution—like it will really make any difference but it is its main contribution—new section 2A(8) by way of clause 4. That says that because it would not be appropriate—in the committee’s words—for Housing New Zealand to provide reports on these issues because it would no longer have control of the land the report should instead be included in the responsible ministry’s annual report. Well what that will actually mean in practice is that nobody will know because those reports are buried in Government papers and nobody reads them. That is not in any way at all an effective way of communicating with the public on such an important matter—such huge amounts of money—and there will be no information that the public will actually be able to understand at all.So why not actually have the reporting in both the department’s reports and also in the Housing New Zealand Corporation’s reports? Although the housing will not at the time of sale be actually controlled by the corporation those houses are nevertheless even at that time still corporation houses. So the corporation should—must—actually report on what has happened so that we will know the size of the sale proceeds that have been received and we will know to whom the houses have been sold whether they have been sold overseas what the sale prices were what the process of sale itself was on a house-by-house basis which houses were sold and as I have already said where the proceeds are going to go and whether they are going to go back into social housing. It is very important that this issue be answered by the Government via the Minister in the chair so I am asking the Minister these questions. Why not report more effectively and properly on all of those matters that I have referred to so that the public can be fully and fairly informed? This bill will not fairly and fully and properly inform the public on any of those absolutely vital pieces of information which we are all entitled to know.Furthermore as I have already said we do need to be assured by the Minister that these proceeds are not actually going to form in any way just a dividend back to the Government so that it can claim that it has solved the Government’s deficit problem. I want to hear answers to those questions because they are important ones. I have asked the question twice already in my first reading speech and in my second reading speech and now I am asking it again. I want answers to that question and the New Zealand public want answers to that question too. It is simply not good enough for such huge amounts of money to disappear without any explanation about where they are going to or what they are going to be used for.I want to hear those answers today because I have asked the question several times. It is an important issue and I want this Minister in the chair or whichever Minister it is going to be to stand up and give us some information about all of that so that it will be on the record and so that we know what we can hold the Government to in the future.I also particularly want the Government to say why the Housing New Zealand Corporation is not being involved more in this process because that is the body that the Government has set up as an agency for the very purpose of providing the expertise for these particular purposes: the sale and purchase and investment—or whatever it is going to be—of State houses. So why—why—is all the power going just to a couple of Ministers? When you think about all of these provisions you come up with one answer: secrecy.