Twyford Phil: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 15 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:13834. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]6.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—TeAtatū) to theMinister of Housing: When he carried furniture into a Housing New Zealand tenant’s house was he consciously comparing himself to Michael Joseph Savage?Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister of Housing): No I leave such grandiose comparisons to the Leader of the Opposition. But it was a very useful opportunity to highlight our social housing policy of expanding 3-bedroom houses from that era to make them suitable for larger families through Budget 2013’s Project 324&5—our programme of insulating every possible State house to make them warmer and safer—and the priority that we are now giving to families on the waiting list with a risk of rheumatic fever through changes to the social allocation system.Phil Twyford: How does his performance as Minister echo Savage’s housing legacy given that the chief executive of the country’s biggest real estate firm said a couple of days ago that “Due toLVRs it’s a property investor’s dream at the moment becauseLVRs are keeping homebuyers out of the market and reducing competition for the properties investors want to buy.” and does the Minister agree with that statement?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: One of the most important factors for affordability in housing is interest rates and the step by the independent Reserve Bank has made plain that without loan-to-value ratios interest rates would go up higher earlier and that would make the dream of homeownership so much more difficult—albeit I note that interest rates went up dramatically during the last Government by over 10 percent. That would be the worst thing for housing and homeownership.Phil Twyford: How many of his rundown surplus-to-requirement State houses in provincial New Zealand has he so far been able to unload on to unsuspecting first-home buyers or was this just another stunt in his desperate attempt to cover up his broken housing policy?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I would point out that the change is simply this: every year—Phil Twyford: How many?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I will get to that. Every year over the last decade 130 State houses a year have been sold. Labour sold them to speculators. What we are doing is changing the policy and giving preference for the sale of those surplus State houses to first-home buyers. I thought that was what Phil Twyford wanted us to do—Phil Twyford: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I asked the Minister how many he had sold. That is all I asked him—how many.Mr SPEAKER: And the answer given to the member was 130 per year.Phil Twyford: No no no. That is how many are sold regularly. I asked how many under his newly announced policy and he has not answered it.Mr SPEAKER: I invite the member to ask the question again. I may have misheard it.Phil Twyford: How many of his rundown surplus-to-requirement State houses in provincial New Zealand has he so far been able to unload on to unsuspecting first-home buyers or was this just another stunt in his desperate attempt to cover up a broken housing policy?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: That question was full of false assertions. What the Government—[Interruption] I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Standing Orders require that questions are not loaded with a whole lot of unnecessary extra verbiage.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The question was certainly loaded. Most questions and certainly most supplementary questions are. The Minister can choose whether to answer it.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The policy has been going for—the properties came on to the market only about 10 days ago. Housing New Zealand Corporation reported to me today that there has been a high—Grant Robertson: None.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No there would not be any yet. I will tell you why—Grant Robertson: Right so none. That’s the answer isn’t it?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well—Grant Robertson: None. Sit down.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Actually if you want to be a Minister you need to be on this side Grant.Mr SPEAKER: Order! We will move on.Phil Twyford: Does he agree with theNew Zealand Herald which said of his plan to sell old State houses in parts of the country where there is no housing crisis that it looks like “a Government struggling to find anything like the right answers” over housing policy and that the Government is clearly “on the back foot over the issue of housing affordability.”?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: TheFirstHome initiative of providing the opportunity for Kiwi families in provincial New Zealand to have a free gift of a 10 percent deposit from the Government is a good initiative in just the same way that the Government’s policy of 39000 houses in the accord for Auckland is a good initiative and just as the Government’s expansion of KiwiSaver is a good initiative. The problem for the member opposite is that when I announce something in Auckland he says I am ignoring the provinces; when I announce something in the provinces he says I am ignoring the big city. The simple answer is that you cannot please the members opposite.Phil Twyford: Given that interest rates are heading north of 8 percent the Government is sending people to live in camp grounds Auckland house prices have reached record median prices rents in Christchurch are skyrocketing first-home buyers are shut out of the market and property speculators are making a killing will he be following the advice of National Party insider MatthewHooton who said that not even Bill English would support the Minister now and that he should be looking for a new career?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It is news to me that MatthewHooton is an insider but I would say more widely that more has taken place around housing under this Government than during 9 long years under Labour when house prices doubled interest rates doubled and the Labour Government spent less than half per year of what we are spending on rundown cold State houses. I am incredibly proud of the action record this Government has on housing.