Brownlee Gerry; McAnulty KieranURGENT DEBATESKāinga Ora—Government Response to ReviewSPEAKER: I call on the Hon Kieran McAnulty to move that the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance.Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): I so move. Mr Speaker—[Interruption]SPEAKER: Wait a minute—wait on. Members there's a time on this. Do not have conversations as you're leaving the House. Leave quietly and respectfully. Hon KIERAN McANULTY: Thank you Mr Speaker. When it comes to social housing the National Party are all talk. They've always been all talk and they always will be all talk and there's no better example than the response to the review into Kāinga Ora that occurred yesterday as the Prime Minister and the housing Minister stood there in front of the media and looked for every possible excuse they could to undermine Kāinga Ora and the provision of State houses in this country. There is a reason why I didn't refer to its full name—this so-called independent report—because I do not accept that placing Sir Bill English the man who oversaw the wholesale of our State houses while he was finance Minister is anywhere near independent. The record of the previous National Government speaks for itself. In the nine years that they governed the number of State houses went backwards by 1500 and the bloke that oversaw that was the bloke that oversaw the review that the Prime Minister and the housing Minister used to justify their agenda.Let's have a look at what they said in their response. On numerous occasions the Prime Minister mentioned that debt had gone up from $3 billion to $12 billion. At no point did the Prime Minister mention the asset value that had been accumulated in that time that had gone from roughly $20 billion to roughly $45 billion in six years. Why? Because they are trying to paint a picture. They are trying desperately to undermine an organisation that had to start from scratch.Actually that's inaccurate: they had to start beyond and behind the starting line because when we came in in 2017 and when Kāinga Ora was established in 2018 Housing New Zealand was a shell of an organisation. It existed for one reason and one reason only and that was to sell State houses. It was a shame it was a disgrace and we had to build that up from nothing change the outlook. That is what supposedly was in review yesterday. It was what supposedly is under financial strain. What amazed me was it seemed like the Prime Minister and the housing Minister only realised that it costs money to build houses and a lot of houses—14000 is the number that public houses increased by in the last six years. That is an astronomical number in the context of what Housing New Zealand was and what Kāinga Ora has become. By all means we should always look for efficiencies but the attitude—it was astounding. They've given up—they have given up. They have not even committed to continuing at the same level.I find the actions of those two Ministers yesterday to be disingenuous—disingenuous because throughout the campaign both of them made a promise to New Zealanders. They promised that their Government would build more houses than the Labour Government. So to achieve that that's 14001-plus and what have we seen in the last seven months? Absolutely nothing. We've seen blaming and we've seen dodging around the issues and we've seen claims that I believe to be disingenuous.In the Prime Minister's State of the Nation speech he claimed as we have heard in the House today and was referred to again yesterday that when they came into Government there was advice sitting on their desk that Kāinga Ora was about to sell 10200 houses and they claimed that we knew. We heard it today—it's not true. That advice was commissioned by the Minister of Finance as a result of a conversation she had with the Secretary to the Treasury. That's confirmed in another written question.I'll tell you what also was confirmed: in the annual review hearing at the Social Services and Community Committee both the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and Kāinga Ora confirmed very clearly that that advice was on the preface that this Government will not fund social houses public houses or State houses beyond 2025. They were working on their advice. This is the outcome of this Government's policies and they have the gall to turn around and blame us. If they want to blame us they can blame us for housing people because that's what we did—we housed people. We housed families; we housed disabled people who incidentally make up 70 percent of Kāinga Ora's tenants.What have they done—apart from looking for excuses and looking for distractions? They have reintroduced interest deductibility for landlords a $2.9 billion tax cut. Why was that brought in? It was brought in to incentivise new builds because for years speculators and investors were competing amongst themselves on existing stock driving up house prices. And what did we see once that was changed? Investment went to new builds. New homeowners came into existing stock. That is the result of that policy.So the reverse is true: by them bringing it back there won't be new builds; there will be competition on existing stock house prices will go up new-home buyers will be locked out and rents will go up. And guess what! That doesn't help build houses. We saw them put restrictions and make it harder to get into emergency housing—that doesn't build houses. We saw them announce that it's easier to evict Kāinga Ora tenants without the promise that they would then go back onto the list—that doesn't build houses. And later today we are going to debate a bill at its first reading that makes it easier for landlords to kick tenants out—that doesn't build houses.What does build houses is funding and the glaring omission from yesterday's announcement was another missed opportunity another refusal to confirm funding. Right around the country community housing providers are pausing and cancelling housing developments for one reason: because they won't confirm the funding. And we'll hear it—Chris Bishop's writing down notes now. We'll hear the nonsense that he's been saying for a while; fiscal cliffs and all that sort of stuff. Anything short of this Government announcing funding perpetuity for the rest of time they're going to go into their same trap that they've created; they're going to do what is a total fiscal cliff.It's a disgrace. It's like they think New Zealanders are thick but they're not thick and they know what to expect from this Government when they see their Prime Minister unable this morning on Breakfast to answer a simple question: How many State houses will you sell?" He refused to answer. "Define mass State housing sell-offs." as was referred to by the housing Minister yesterday. He refused to answer. Why is my question—why is that? They could've cleared that up yesterday; they didn't. Instead they took us down a road that wasn't true by claiming that they've got advice on sales of houses that wasn't true. Their own advice their own officials their own answers to written parliamentary questions say it wasn't true.It's actually quite clear and quite evident: they are shaping up Kāinga Ora to perform what happened in the last National Government: a mass transfer of State-owned houses to other organisations be they community housing providers or be they these new associations modelled on what's happening in the UK. Of all the European examples to follow on housing policy the UK is the last one. The number of social houses has gone down; the number of homeless has gone up. It is the very thing we shouldn't be doing. It is the very thing they will do because it's the very thing they did last time. If they don't fund public houses the numbers will go down. The evidence is there for all to see. They can yell they can holler but here's a challenge for them: what's larger 14000 or minus 1500? It's a pretty simple question because if this Government continues on its path and follows to make excuses like they did yesterday in the response to the review and refuses to fund additional funding for State houses and for income-related rent subsidy that's exactly where we're going to go. If the previous National Government funded houses like we did we would be nowhere near the mess that we're in."