Beaumont Carol: General Debate 
Beaumont Carol: General Debate 
[Volume:676;Page:21516] 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 I want to talk about a serious matter and that is the issue of housing. This is not an area for great celebration under this National Government. 
Let us talk about housing and why it is important. It is something for which there is a fundamental need; we all as human beings have the need for shelter. There are important health consequences of our having warm safe shelter. If we live as many who are homeless do out on the streets our health suffers. If we live in damp houses our health suffers. Housing also has consequences for education. Ensuring children have a stable home that they can live in means that they will go to the local school and that they will build up their relationships with their teachers and their fellow students and get better educational outcomes. Housing is important from the point of view of people’s standard of living. The cost of housing is one of the most significant costs that a family bears whether that be through rental or mortgage costs. That is an important element too. What is left over is what families can then afford to spend on feeding themselves getting around and clothing themselves. 
But housing is not just about those things; it is about how people have a sense of home and community. Housing is about giving people a place to live a place to stand: somewhere at which to engage with others somewhere that is their own. That is just as important. Housing is not about just the building; it is also about what that symbolises and the connections and relationships that go with it. 
This is well understood by Labour. We have always had a strong commitment to housing. We rebuilt homes for New Zealanders after the actions of the National Government in the 1990s which introduced market rents that put many families in dire financial problems. Thousands of State houses were sold and not replaced so we had less social housing in which to house our population. There was absolutely no modernisation undertaken during the 1990s. It is very rich to hear from that Government across there which seems to make a lot of noise about what Labour did and did not do. We added on the other hand 8000 houses. We added back 8000 Housing New Zealand Corporation homes to its stock. We brought in income-related rents to try to ensure that families could get by. We built Talbot Park a significant urban renewal project in Tamaki. So when we talk about the Tamaki Transformation Programme let us just recollect that that was started under Labour and that we actually did do something despite what the members opposite seem to be spinning. We can see their spin lines; it is almost as though they are written in front of me frankly. 
What is happening now? Well families are struggling to make ends meet the gap between rich and poor is growing in our nation we have children living in poverty—one in five of our children is living in poverty—and they will be living if they are lucky in a house because we have children living in garages and cars. If those children are living in a house it will potentially be overcrowded. Many of them are suffering from Third World diseases caused by overcrowding. This is the picture now under this shiny John Key - led National Government. 
What is National doing now? National’s housing policy is to sell State houses: to get rid of Housing New Zealand Corporation houses and shift the responsibility to others; to move it on to the community sector. Its policy is not to put in new houses or provide the community sector with the ability to create additional houses; it is just to sell them. National will increase the cost to the families that will be housed in the community sector but they will no longer receive income-related rents. The Minister of Housing has made that very clear. That will mean that rents will rise for low-income New Zealand families. 
Let us look at what is happening in Glen Innes. This is the first major housing built under the Tamaki Transformation Programme. There was Talbot Park and the Tamaki Transformation Programme was put in place but very little has been done since that time. Finally National is doing something. What is happening? Long-term residents are being relocated. There is no option for them to return to their community despite weird comments from the Minister about a “whole bundle of options”. A Housing New Zealand Corporation document makes it clear that any transfer will be a permanent one—there is no going back. Housing New Zealand Corporation stock is being significantly reduced. This area potentially is seen by National as being too good for the sorts of people who if they are lucky have a job in Mount Wellington. That is what Lee Mathias the chair of Sam Lotu-Iiga’s electorate committee and chair of the interim Tamaki Transformation Programme board said. The Government is moving housing stock into the community sector as I said where costs will increase.