Whaitiri Meka: Housing Amendment Bill Housing Corporation (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (No 2) Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (NO 2) — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWhaitiri Meka: Housing Amendment Bill Housing Corporation (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (No 2) Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (NO 2) — Third Readings[Sitting date: 18 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:9184. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa. I rise to go on record and say this is a sad day for this country when we are passing this legislation. This National Government has failed the people of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. It has failed to build affordable homes. It has failed to keep social housing supply up with social housing demand but instead it has brought this legislation to the House which effectively gives two Ministers the authorisation to sell off $20 billion of our State housing estate.This is a classic unnecessary piece of legislation. It is poorly written and it undermines the role of every public servant who works in the Housing New Zealand Corporation. Last night we debated this legislation for some 5 hours. It was an opportunity to go part by part clause by clause. I am thankful that the co-leader of the Māori Party Marama Fox came up and took a call but when the detail hits the road that is the time when I would have wanted to hear from the Māori Party—to hear why it is backing what is a thin veil of privatisation of social housing.Let us call it what it is: it is a sell-off. It is a sell-off of our heritage that my parents and my grandparents have fought for and worked for and contributed to. On that side of the House they are saying: “Look you Opposition people we are building ’em. We’re going to build them.” Well why have you not built them? Why have you not built them already? You have been in power for 8 years.I want to make it really clear that Labour is going to work with iwi hapū and whānau that want to be in the social housing game. We are. I also know that when that member mentions some housing providing social housing is a very complex undertaking and I want to make really clear that any iwi whānau and hapū are well supported in providing the services that they believe that they want to get involved in. The State has a role in supporting them.In my electorate I have several of the groups that she mentioned and I know every single one of them. I also know the downside of providing social housing for some of my iwi in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and it is the fact that many of their tenants do not pay the rent. So they are in tension around whether they kick them out because they are actually whānau. This just goes to the heart of the complexity of managing social housing but Labour is committed to doing that with iwi. But for us to hear in this House that the Māori Party is supporting the absolute sell-off of our $20 billion social housing estate that is a crime—that is a crime.Jono Naylor: That’s not what she said.MEKA WHAITIRI: No and I am saying it. I am standing up and I am voicing it on behalf of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti which has a social housing shortage. I have over 140 people in Hastings waiting. I have 150 in Gisborne waiting. These people are real and I deal with them on a daily basis.I want to express that I am rather excited and heated about this but I deal with social housing needs almost 90 percent of the time throughout my electorate. There are not the houses there—there are not the houses there. I implore the Government that the solution it brings to this House is not going to build social housing. We are privatising this—we are privatising it. If the Salvation Army says no go if Presbyterian Support New Zealand says it is no go and if some iwi are saying no go then that to me says we are going to get the private sector to deliver social housing.That is why I stand. I stand to be counted. This is a sad day in the history of this House. The very estate that many of our forebears have worked and saved for is going to go at the stroke of a pen and we are left to trust that the private sector is going to deliver social housing. That is why I cannot support this legislation and that is why this side of the House has got heated as I can show. This is not legislation we should be backing. Kia ora tātou.