Sepuloni Carmel: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSepuloni Carmel: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 11 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:8967. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): That member who just spoke Alfred Ngaro can turn a blind eye—along with his colleagues—as much as he likes but the reality is that National has failed New Zealand when it comes to housing. It is clear that National has failed New Zealanders when it comes to housing. In west Auckland the other day—and Alfred Ngaro knows all about west Auckland because he is trying to run for a seat out there—I heard from a—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! [Interruption] Order! Sorry I am going to actually let the member start again but I want to warn Mr Ngaro. He is not allowed to wander around waving his arms in the air and interjecting while he is on his feet when he has not got the call. Carmel Sepuloni starting again.CARMEL SEPULONI: I heard a very disturbing thing from one of our health providers in west Auckland the other day—that is that the Waitematā District Health Board is on the verge of having to release people into homelessness. These are people who are still recovering from illnesses who do not have homes to go into. There is no emergency housing. There is very little or a lack of social housing. And they are on the verge of having to release people—sick people who are still recovering—into homelessness. Is that side of the House still proud of its accomplishments when it comes to housing when that is the case? I cannot imagine why it would be.We heard from Alfred Ngaro that Labour is opposed to building up the community housing providers. I just need to make the point that we are not opposed to building up community housing provision. What we are opposed to is the National Government flicking off Housing New Zealand houses to those social housing providers and not actually building up the stock but just passing the buck when it comes to housing. Actually the Government is flicking off billions of dollars that belong to New Zealanders in terms of assets. That is what we are opposed to. We are not opposed at all to building up the community housing providers.I sat through the select committee process with my colleague Phil Twyford and a number of things came up that were disturbing. I just want to point out one small thing before I get on to the two main reasons why we are not supporting this bill. One of the things that came up which a lot of the submitters were also concerned about is that with this bill all of the decision-making power in respect of the transactions—in terms of passing the Housing New Zealand houses over to the community housing providers—lies with the Minister but all the accountability and responsibility for the success of that transaction lies with Housing New Zealand. So the Minister has all the power to make the decision but will not be held accountable if anything goes wrong in the transaction despite the fact that she is imposing that decision on Housing New Zealand. I cannot see how in any way that is fair and actually a lot of the submitters agreed that that does not seem fair to them. If the Minister is going to have the power to make these decisions then the Minister needs to be liable if anything goes wrong with those transactions.It is not only Labour that opposes this bill. We oppose it along with our Green colleagues and our New Zealand First colleagues and as I said there are two main reasons for our opposition to the bill. The first is that the bill enables a policy as Phil Twyford has already outlined that we disagree with—the sale of a large proportion of the country’s stock of State houses is central to the Government’s policy. Our view is that the housing crisis more than anything demands a substantial increase in the number of houses that are affordable for people on very low incomes. In addition there is an urgent need to improve the quality of State housing—in particular to make it warm and dry.We have heard through the media and through some of the reports that have come out from the Government that there has been a decline in the number of people on the social housing register. I just want to say that there has not been a decline in demand in terms of people trying to get on the register. What is happening is that there is a block right at the beginning when people try to get access to the register in the first place—in order to even be considered for a Housing New Zealand house.We have seen instances where the Government has had the opportunity to build up the stock of Housing New Zealand houses and I want to cite one in my own electorate in respect of the Waterview Connection project. For that project Housing New Zealand sold houses to the New Zealand Transport Agency. They were no longer required for the project. Housing New Zealand had the opportunity to buy those houses back but instead chose not to so those houses went up for private sale. How irresponsible is that? It is irresponsible because of the fact that there are hundreds of families in that particular area who are trying to get into homes. Yet when they had an opportunity to buy back the houses that they had sold for a particular project they decided not to.There is an urgent need to improve the quality of State housing—in particular to make it warm and dry—and we see that in our offices every day with our constituents who come through with health issues that have come about because of the state of the housing they are in.What has been really disappointing is listening to Minister Paula Bennett rave on in the media about the fact that people should be grateful when they are offered a home and that they will be denied the opportunity to take up any home and in fact removed from the list if they turn down a house. There are so many good reasons why people turn down houses. Yet we have Minister Bennett stigmatising these families. Here in the House she talked about two people who had turned down a house because of the fact that they did not like the decor. Two people in the whole country turned down a house for a reason like that. Yet we know of hundreds of families who have turned down houses because of things like they are not in the close vicinity of the schools their kids go to or because of the fact that the house is too far away from the work the job they have so they would not be able to travel there or because it is too close to a former abusive partner whom they cannot be near because it is dangerous for them and their children or because it is not fenced appropriately and it would be dangerous for their small children to live there. More often than not people have good reasons for turning down Housing New Zealand houses.Debate interrupted.