6. Question No. 6—Housing and Urban DevelopmentHon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing and Urban DevelopmentQuestion No. 6—Housing and Urban Development6. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: Does he stand by the following statements in regards to KiwiBuild Our objective is to deliver quality well-located homes that are inherently affordable" and "it is not a programme aimed at low-income families because they may not be able to service a KiwiBuild mortgage"?Hon Damien O'Connor: When have you ever cared?Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): Yes. KiwiBuild has always been—SPEAKER: Order! Order! Sorry I'm going to interrupt the member. I'm going to ask Damien O'Connor just to—[Interruption] Thank you. Start again please.Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes KiwiBuild has always been a homeownership programme. We are building quality well-located homes that are more affordable by virtue of good design or efficient land use for first-home buyers to buy their first home. Only 5 percent of new builds are in the lower quartile which means there are very few modest starter homes for young families. KiwiBuild changes this. KiwiBuild homes are not subsidised and this means that families will need sufficient household income to sustain a mortgage.Hon Judith Collins: What income segment of families is KiwiBuild aimed at?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: KiwiBuild is aimed at the income segment of the squeezed middle who have suffered for nine years. If you look at the income demographics the bands between household income of $80000 to $180000 have experienced the biggest drop in homeownership in the last decade—more than low-income families and more than high-income families. What's more that income demographic contains half of all families with children.Hon Judith Collins: When he has said that the KiwiBuild homes are inherently affordable are they being sold at market rates?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: What I've always said is that KiwiBuild homes are not being subsidised. We choose to build in the lower quartile—something that that Government refused to do for nine years. They even refused to acknowledge that there was a housing crisis. We are building lower-quartile affordable homes that young Kiwi first-home buyers can actually afford to buy. They are not subsidised and in the process we are changing the market.Hon Judith Collins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question was: are they being sold at market rates? We did not get anywhere near that answer.SPEAKER: I think the Minister can—I mean there was a long answer that got fairly close to addressing it but I'm sure he can be more—Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order Mr Speaker.SPEAKER: No I've made a decision Mr Hipkins. You're not going to argue with it.Hon Chris Hipkins: How is the lower quartile not part of the market rate?SPEAKER: It does depend on the type of house. I'm sure that the Minister is capable of a succinct direct answer.Hon PHIL TWYFORD: We are building KiwiBuild homes so they are being sold at the market rate. They are in the lower-quartile affordable segment of the market.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Regarding the earnings of KiwiBuild applicants can the Minister confirm whether or not one of the young couples who recently bought one of the KiwiBuild homes could in fact afford to visit 204 countries which is some arcane measurement from a member of Parliament?SPEAKER: Order! Order! Again that is not an area that this Minister has responsibility for.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The point that was being made—and it's the subject of the political debate—is that there is an affordability capacity in the applications and that a certain type of person can afford to buy at that quartile level. My point is: is this person who was an applicant successfully being utterly misdescribed or are the rules being ignored by the officials? One of those things has to have happened and that's why I'm asking that question.SPEAKER: If the member had been very direct in asking about the criteria and whether that sort of criteria applied to applications which would be the Minister's responsibility then I would have let the question go but the member didn't.Rt Hon Winston Peters: When applicants come before the process of qualifying for KiwiBuild are all their earnings and income and past looked at in terms of whether or not they are properly declaring their level of wealth?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: We set an income cap for KiwiBuild but we did not set a policy that said that if you've travelled and done your OE then you should be permanently banned from buying a KiwiBuild house. It seems that some members of this House were confused about a romantic message on the personal Instagram page of a young couple—a couple of young New Zealanders who committed the crime of buying—SPEAKER: Order! Order! The Minister has no responsibility for that.Paul Eagle: What responses has he seen to the new KiwiBuild families?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: We've seen some fantastic responses. We've seen commentators who have declared that KiwiBuild is going to have the effect of stabilising the housing market and making housing more affordable for first-home buyers across the market. We've seen families—18 families—who were thrilled on Saturday that they had successfully navigated the ballot and had the opportunity to buy their first homes because they have been locked out of the market by a housing crisis that was allowed to spin out of control over the last nine years.Paul Eagle: How is the Government assisting families who cannot afford homeownership currently?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: There's more good news from the Government: there are more than 1200 more public housing tenancies than there were a year ago. Budget 2018 funded 6400 more public homes over the next four years and Housing New Zealand is currently investing $4 billion in a massive build programme to increase State housing and make the existing State houses warm and dry. Our Government is reforming and modernising the tenancy laws discouraging housing speculation and putting more resource than ever before into tackling homelessness.Hon James Shaw: As the Minister responsible for KiwiBuild will he speak to his colleague the Minister of Justice about whether KiwiBuild families should be protected under the Harmful Digital Communications Act from the actions of Opposition MPs?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well I think that's an excellent decision because I think almost everybody in this House believes that cyberbullying particularly of private citizens has no place in—SPEAKER: Order!Hon Judith Collins: What has happened to change his mind so that instead of waiting five years to be able to sell a KiwiBuild house the owners can now sell after only three years?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: We listened to expert opinion. We weighed up all of the competing factors and tried to settle on the best and most wise policy that we could.Hon Judith Collins: What steps has he taken to securitise against these certificates of title any deed requiring a payment of capital gain in the event that the house is sold within three years?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: That's not part of our policy but we have got provisions in place under KiwiBuild to ensure that people understand that they are required to live in that house and not to sell it within three years. If they do choose to sell it within three years they have to have a conversation with KiwiBuild and there'll be a case by case decision made on whether it's justifiable for them to sell within those three years. That's a practical and perfectly reasonable response to that situation.Hon Grant Robertson: Was it the Minister's expectation that the first families who would move into KiwiBuild homes would be the subject of a disgraceful cyberbullying campaign and would he expect anyone who did that to apologise?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes I would. This young couple did nothing more than take advantage of—SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. The first part of the question was the Minister's responsibility; the second part wasn't. He can answer the first part only. Don't start answering the second again.Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I never expected that the first KiwiBuild homebuyers would be the subject of a disgraceful online bullying—SPEAKER: Order! The member's answered the question.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I seek to table the UN list of countries and associated countries which tells the world that there aren't 204 countries on this planet.SPEAKER: I'm going to ask the member: is it a publicly available document?Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well apparently not. We've got a member of Parliament who thinks there are 204 countries.SPEAKER: I'm not going to put it. I'm working on the basis from the lack of direct reply that it is publicly available."