Cunliffe David: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCunliffe David: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3658. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): This Budget has been labelled by the Government as the “compassionate conservative Budget”. These clauses clauses 20 and 21 of this bill the Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill show that it is a “Cabinet club conservative Budget” because it is taking a Public Service housing provider ripping the guts out of it and in Part 2 of this bill removing from it even the ability to advise the Minister for Social Housing on policy issues. Here is how. Clause 20 says that Housing New Zealand Corporation will give no policy advice. Clause 21 says that when it does research that research will not be on policy issues. In other words no non-commercial function will be performed by Housing New Zealand Corporation. Housing New Zealand Corporation is going from being a provider of houses to vulnerable families who need help to essentially a commercial landlord.Let us look at what would be some of the advantages of an agency like Housing New Zealand continuing to be empowered to give policy advice. First as my colleague Annette King has mentioned is that it has history. It has managed the portfolio for decades. It knows literally where the renovations and the skeletons are buried and it knows what needs doing. There is nobody better placed than the organisation to advise on its portfolio and the needs therein. Secondly up until recent times the corporation had the most contact with its clients. If you had a problem of maintenance or a problem of prioritisation you would go and see the corporation. Because it had the stock and the client contact it was best placed to put the two together come up with a reasonable set of priorities and get the families who most needed the help into the properties that were most suitable for them. The Government has made that more difficult because instead of going to Housing New Zealand Corporation the poor families now have to go to the Ministry of Social Development or Work and Income. They are already overloaded. They are slapping and packing people through those waiting lists every 5 minutes and those are the performance indicators that the poor old Work and Income staff are under. They have to move them through. They do not have the expertise or the time to deal with these critical issues of where a family are going to live.The next thing of course is that Housing New Zealand Corporation has got a local footprint. It has got houses in each area of the country. It knows its stock and it knows the communities the houses are in. Why would you not want the corporation advising on policy issues? Of course if you are not going to have that what happens? Well the first thing is that you do not have contestable policy advice. The Government makes itself more vulnerable to input from the vested commercial interests the banks that are making a crazy killing off house mortgages the property investors and the organisations that represent them. Even the social service providers like the Salvation Army have said: “No thanks we don’t want to play this game because you’re giving us the liability without the assets. We can’t cover it.” The Government cannot get decent advice from them.Let us sum up. By taking away the policy functions from the corporation Minister you have made clients more vulnerable. You are not getting the advice you need to get from the people best placed to give it who have the history in the organisation who are close to the clients who have the deep knowledge of the housing stock that is being managed and who do not have vested interests that are in conflict with the public good. There is no basis in logic for the clauses we are debating in Part 2. Why are they there? And more important why are we here in urgency trying to pass this through all stages without even giving the public the opportunity to make a submission?Hon Annette King: They’ve been waiting for 4 years she said.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: It has been 4 years in the waiting. Why is this happening under urgency? The reason is because the Government knows that reasonable New Zealanders do not like this stuff. They do not like this stuff so the sooner this is wrapped packed under the carpet and out of the public gaze the happier the Government spin doctors will be. The Government does not want to hear from New Zealanders. It does not want New Zealanders having a say because it knows that the average decent Kiwi thinks it is a no-brainer that of course Housing New Zealand Corporation should be able to advise on housing issues. Why on earth would it not? Why are these clauses in the bill? Firstly Minister if you are really honest in your heart of hearts it is because you do not want to hear the advice. It is not good advice because the news is all bad. The waiting list is getting longer and longer. The needs are getting greater and greater. Just like Chris Hipkins Annette King Ruth Dyson and Damien O’Connor I have my office overflowing with hard-up Kiwi families who need help.