Twyford Phil: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Twyford Phil: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Sitting date: 30 January 2013. Volume:687;Page:7649. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 It is a bit strange to follow a valedictory speech by the erstwhile Minister of Consumer Affairs Simon Bridges. He will go down in history as the great friend of the wheel-clamping industry and that is a fantastic political epitaph. As David Shearer said in Wainuiomata on the weekend we should thank the focus groups for making the Prime Minister aware of major problems facing this country like youth unemployment and the housing affordability crisis. Otherwise if it was not for market research if it was not for the focus groups how would the Prime Minister know that there is a housing affordability crisis? When you live in a mansion in Parnell it is probably not immediately obvious to you that there are people living five or six in an uninsulated Skyline garage in places like Henderson and Massey. You would not know when you live in a mansion in Parnell that there are people dozens of people in west Auckland living in their cars because they have been turfed out of their accommodation and cannot find a private rental. You would not know if you lived in a mansion in Parnell that there are thousands and thousands and thousands of people on the Housing New Zealand Corporation waiting lists who are eligible for houses with the Housing New Zealand Corporation but stand no prospect at all of ever getting a Housing New Zealand Corporation house because there are not enough houses. There is a whole generation of young people in Auckland who are watching the dream of homeownership slip further and further out of grasp. 
We know now that the Prime Minister is aware that this is a problem. He is aware of it now but what is he doing? What is this Government doing about the housing affordability crisis? It is blaming Auckland Council because apparently the housing affordability crisis—the fact that in Auckland we have some of the most unaffordable housing in the Western World—apparently according to this Government is the fault of Auckland Council. We have seen the unedifying spectacle in the last couple of weeks of the Minister of Finance waging a war of words with the Deputy Mayor of Auckland and trying to blame Auckland Council for the fact that we have unaffordable homes. Never mind the fact that we need to be building 10000 new homes a year in Auckland. We are currently building only about 4000 homes a year. Well 5 years ago when the economy was humming we were building 10000 homes every year. There was not a shortage. But for some reason this Government thinks that the whole problem of housing affordability in Auckland is caused by problems with the Resource Management Act even though 5 years ago we did not have the acute shortage of affordable housing that we do now. 
There is in this Government’s response on this issue a terrible double standard. Only just before Christmas National blocked Auckland Council’s request to make the Auckland Unitary Plan come into effect at the end of this year. What does the Auckland Unitary Plan do? Auckland Council’s new mega amalgamated district plan? Well it has got a whole lot of provisions that will go a long way towards delivering affordable housing. It changes the rules so that developers can get one resource consent for a bulk lot of homes. It makes it easier to mix up different styles—flats apartments bungalows and terraces—on one lot. It makes it easier for developers to amalgamate sections so they can do residential developments. Most important the Auckland Unitary Plan programmes land release over 30 years to guarantee a supply of new land for affordable housing. That is exactly what Bill English is threatening to do by legislating if Auckland Council does not step up to the mark. Well this is absolute hypocrisy from this Government. It is stopping Auckland Council from doing the very thing that Bill English is now threatening to intervene with if Auckland Council does not do it. This Government blames the global financial crisis for unemployment. It blames the Christchurch earthquake for slow economic growth and now it is blaming Auckland Council for a housing crisis that this Government will not lift a hammer to solve. 
It is interesting to ask why the Government is flailing around blaming everybody else for its problems. The reason is that it has been caught napping. Labour introduced a policy at the end of last year and David Shearer unveiled it at our party conference: a pledge to build 100000 affordable homes over the next 10 years. Labour will build the affordable homes. We will intervene in the market. We will intervene to make that market work. We will guarantee a generation of young people in Auckland that they will be able to get into the housing market and that there will be affordable homes built. 
What this Government does not like and what has got it really rattled and defensive— 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: Fabian socialist nonsense that’s what we don’t like. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: —and angry is that 70 percent Simon Bridges the  
Herald 
-DigiPoll says that 70 percent of people support Labour’s policy. That is why this Government is on the ropes. That is why its members are rattled. That is why they have come to Parliament this term nasty and defensive and attacking every other party in this House but utterly failing to come up with any kind of practical response that offers a real solution to the housing crisis. They are rattled. They have looked at the polls. Steven Joyce has said to the Cabinet: “Look the polls are against us on this. The public really like Labour’s policy. We had better start doing something.” They are rattled. 
I predict that this issue the housing affordability issue will be a nail in the coffin of this National Government and the reason is this—this Government cannot will not act to intervene in the housing market. Government members cannot do it because it is not in their DNA. This housing crisis is a result of market failure. The house-building and construction industries are currently delivering only about 4000 new dwellings a year in Auckland. They should be building about 10000. Very few of those 4000 new homes are in the affordable range. It is that deficit year on year compounding that is delivering the scarcity which is driving up the prices out of the reach of ordinary people. 
But only a Labour Government—only a Labour-led Government—will intervene in the market. It is only Labour that believes in active Government and hands-on Government. National members—all they have to offer all they bring to the House is that they are going to tinker with the Resource Management Act. They have been in Government for 4 years. They have brought several Resource Management Act reform bills to this House. They have had 4 years. They have done nothing—they have done nothing—about changing the Resource Management Act to make it easier for affordable homes to be built in our country’s largest city. It is only now that Labour’s KiwiBuild policy—a pledge to deliver 100000 affordable homes—has got them rattled that they are now talking about tinkering with the Resource Management Act yet again. 
Housing is not the only issue that is troubling Aucklanders. It is not the only issue on which the National Government is out of step with people in our biggest city. Transport is recognised by almost all Aucklanders as the single biggest problem that the city must confront and solve. Decades of under-investment in public transport have left the city facing gridlock. Just before Christmas Auckland Council and Government officials produced the City Centre Future Access Study which was commissioned by Auckland Council. It was a direct response to the then Minister of Transport Steven Joyce who asked for more detailed analysis about the case for the construction of the city rail link. So officials from the New Zealand Transport Agency and the Ministry of Transport—the Minister’s very own officials mandated by him and his office to do this work—went away and produced an impressive and substantive report on the transport options for stopping gridlock in Auckland central city. They came back and they recommended that the city rail link should be built as a matter of priority. They said that by 2041 unless the city rail link is built traffic will grind to a halt—well to a walking pace to 5 kilometres an hour. 
What did Gerry Brownlee the Minister of Transport say? He rubbished it even though he mandated his officials to do much of the work on that project. Because this Government is so hostile to public transport and because of its entrenched hostility to Len Brown and the Auckland Council Gerry Brownlee could not help himself but pour contempt on the work of his own officials in the week before Christmas. Yet the last two opinion surveys have shown that between 63 and 64 percent of Aucklanders want to see the city rail link built. This Government is out of step with Aucklanders on the two big issues housing and transport and it is because of its ideological bias against Government intervention and against public investment. Who else but the National Party would have such a bone-headed idea that you can let the sprawl run and expect that a dysfunctional housing market will deliver affordable homes?