Bishop ChrisHon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. There are a few things that the member Kieran McAnulty—who I realise is new to the housing portfolio—needs to realise about Kāinga Ora and the financial situation that this Government has inherited. The first is that it is true to say that in December last year when the Government came to office a report landed on our desk that was pursuant to the funding—Hon Dr Megan Woods: It was commissioned by the Minister of Finance.Hon CHRIS BISHOP: No no no—no no no. Hon Dr Megan Woods: Yes yes yes.Hon CHRIS BISHOP: The member who is interjecting herself alongside the Minister of Finance at the time started the Kāinga Ora funding and financing review in the first place. The previous Government was donkey-deep in the situation that this Government has inherited because even the profligate previous Government realised that what was going on at Kāinga Ora was not acceptable. That's why they started the funding and financing review by Treasury and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development in the first place. One of the outcomes of that review was a report that landed on the new Government's desk in December 2023 that said on the budget approved by the board in December 2023 that Kāinga Ora was forecast to sell over the next four years 10200 houses—that is fact. So that is the situation that the Government has inherited. Now as I said yesterday in the post-Cabinet press conference that will not be happening under this Government's watch and one of the ways it will not be happening is that we have commissioned this review and have started the turn-around job of Kāinga Ora.Kāinga Ora is an extremely important organisation. It's a $45 billion company. It spends over $2.5 billion per year. Over the last few years its financial situation has been deteriorating. In 2022-23 it ran at a loss of $520 million that is forecast on the current track to increase to $700 million by 2026-27. It has added 2000 staff since 2017-18.One of the consequences of the previous Government's enormous remit that it gave to Kāinga Ora is that it has taken its eye off the ball on doing its job of being fundamentally a public housing landlord. It's an extremely important organisation that houses over 185000 people owns over 70000 houses alongside many other things that it does. One of the things that the Government will be considering is to reduce the remit of the things that it does so that it can focus on its core responsibilities. So it's very important fiscally for the Government but it's also very important for the people who actually live in those houses.The review that we are responding to in this urgent debate finds that the cash cost over the next four years is $21 billion for Kāinga Ora. That is money that comes from taxpayers that comes from the rest of the Crown. Now as I say it is very important that Kāinga Ora is an efficient and effective organisation. That is why we commissioned the review and the review was thorough and it was engaged comprehensively with Kāinga Ora and the communities that are part of the Kāinga Ora family or at least the sector around the country.One of the things that's interesting is that Kāinga Ora's social licence has really been put at risk and this is the issue that the current Government has had to grapple with in that I think public housing and State housing and social housing has in some communities had a bad name that is undeserved partly because of Kāinga Ora. I want to restore the social licence for State public and social housing in our communities because it is extremely important that we look after people in need and Kāinga Ora plays a very important role in that.We will under this Government build more social houses. We will build more Kāinga Ora houses. We will also facilitate the building of more social houses and never is there more of a bigger divide between the parties than when it comes to the role of the State and social housing because the previous Government's obsession was with building State houses through Kāinga Ora and that was their sole focus. To give you a sense of it they funded 6000 more social houses in Budget 2023 over the next two years. Eighty percent of them were allocated to Kāinga Ora 80 percent of them—4800 houses were allocated only to Kāinga Ora. The community housing sector got the crumbs—about 1200 social houses.On this side of the House we are far more interested in growing the community and social housing sector than we are in focusing resolutely on the gross number of new State houses. So we will fund and build more social houses on this side of the House but we are far more interested in powering up organisations like the Salvation Army like Emerge like the Community of Refuge Trust. We are far more interested in innovative funding and financing formulas that allow those houses to be built. For example we are interested in developments that let ACC and other forms of capital fund—Hon Dr Megan Woods: They've already done it. Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Yeah I know—yes that's true. They've already done it but we want to see what more we can do in that regard. So we will fund and support more social housing places.The member who led off this debate the leader of the—well maybe the leader in the future of the Labour Party but the leader when it comes to housing talked a lot about the 2025 social housing places and how the Government hasn't confirmed funding beyond that. As I said in question time that could equally be true of the previous Government because in 2023 the outgoing Labour Government at the time funded more social housing places to 2025 and stopped it there and we know why they did that. It's because they pretended that after that time there'd be no more additional social housing funding so that the 2025-26 books could look better so that they could pretend that around that time and the year after that they would deliver a surplus. This is one of these fiscal cliffs and the fiction created by the Labour Party that they were on track to surplus.When we got into Government we had to open the books and turn over the rocks and we discovered all of these situations throughout. Pharmac is another one which David Seymour my colleague had to confront as well. School lunches was another one where they just pretended that the money would not continue to be spent—utterly fictional—so that Mr Robertson could go into the election campaign and say Oh don't worry we're on track to surplus." even though the truth was the opposite.So Mr McAnulty sort of cries crocodile tears and says "Oh well you've got to continue the social housing track funding." Well why didn't the last Government do it? We are confronting that situation. He rages against transfers to other organisations. It's utterly hilarious—the idea that the Government might transfer State houses to social housing organisations. The last Government hated the fact that the Government before that—the National Government—transferred social houses from Kāinga Ora or Housing New Zealand as it then was to accessible properties in Tauranga and—Shanan Halbert: Sold them off.Hon CHRIS BISHOP: See this is classic—it's classic. This is what they say all the time. They spent much of their time in Government pretending that the last National Government engaged in a State house sell-off. Well here's the facts. Here's the facts: the last National Government transferred at market rates houses owned by Housing New Zealand to accessible properties. Guess what? They were transferred on the basis that they were social houses and remain social houses. Guess what? The people who live in those houses are largely the same now as they were when they were owned by the Government. Here's the difference: unlike the socialists opposite who care about who owns things on this side of the House we are agnostic as to ownership; we care about the tenants and the services that they are receiving. The Labour Opposition can cry crocodile tears about State and social housing and pretend that the private sector is the enemy of community housing; we know on this side of the House the truth is the opposite.The final thing I'll say in rebuttal to Mr McAnulty is he says "We house people."—"We house people." he says. Well here are the facts: social housing wait-lists quadrupled to 25000 families. The New Zealand Government as of today spends a million dollars a day housing people in emergency housing motels. There are 3000 families living there now. The number of people living in cars—quadrupled. So quite to the contrary of what Mr McAnulty says the last Government's record on social housing as it was on housing more generally is utterly shameful. We are sorting this dreadful situation out and the Kāinga Ora report is just the start of that process."