Goff Phil: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 02 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11654. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): I think that I have spoken to more and more diverse audiences across Auckland over the last 3 or 4 months than I have in 30-odd years in a political career. I have spoken at meetings organised by the National Party the ACT Party the Labour Party the Green Party and New Zealand First. I have spoken to business groups I have spoken to Rotary groups I have talked to ethnic communities and to Māori and Pasifika. I am saying this because what I have found in talking to those audiences is an amazing unanimity amongst 35 percent of New Zealand’s population about what they expected from the Budget and what Auckland needed.I have got to say—and I say this with some regret because I thought that with the massive debate around housing need and around transport congestion this would have been a Budget that delivered some relief from the problems of housing and transport gridlock—not only was I disappointed in the Budget for failing to deliver in these areas but so too wasa broad cross-section of Aucklanders who were looking for something better. The argument generally goes like this: the Government wants to increase the population of the country. And maybe that is OK; immigration is good for a county. But we are now seeing migration at the highest level in decades: 70000 more people coming into New Zealand. How is that impacting Auckland? Auckland is growing by 800 people a week. People say: “Well that would be OK if the Government was providing the infrastructure needed to cope with that growth the transport system to stop the roads being gridlocked and the housing so that New Zealand’s first-home buyers could still afford to buy a home in their own city.”The Budget offered no relief at all in either of those areas. I even read the press statements of the Minister of Building and Housing and the Minister of Transport and they are usually skite sheets saying: “This is what we are doing.” I read it line by line and the word “Auckland” did not exist there—it just did not exist. The truth of the matter is that those are really serious problems. They are not only holding Auckland back but also holding New Zealand back. We now have a situation where our roads and our motorways—not only at peak hour but also even outside peak hour—are becoming gridlocked. We have got the Productivity Commission and the New Zealand Council for Infrastructure Development saying that congestion in Auckland is costing $3 billion a year—$3 billion. Aucklanders say to me: “Well aren’t we just pouring that money down the drain?”. That is money in lost productivity and other costs and we are getting absolutely nothing for it. If we were investing $3 billion a year in a congestion-free transport network we would have something to show for it and Auckland could move forward. But we are not and there was not a dollar in capital investment in Auckland to relieve that congestion.Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: So what would Phil Goff do if he was mayor?Hon PHIL GOFF: Then it comes to housing affordability. Now if the Minister of Health listens—you listen through your ears not your mouth Dr Coleman—I will tell him what some of the problems are including those in his own electorate. The problem is that housing prices in Auckland went up by over 15 percent in the last year on top of the 15 percent the year before. Do you know what the average cost of a house in Auckland is now? It is $955000. God damn it—I bought my first house in Mt Roskill for $64000; it was 1½ times my annual salary. Today my kids are paying 6 or 7 times their annual household income to live out in places like Papakura and Pukekohe because they cannot afford to live closer to town than that.I have got to say that I have heard all sorts of blame being attributed to why people cannot get into homes of their own. You know it’s their own fault; if you chose your parents wrong and your parents cannot pay your deposit to get into a home then you cannot buy a home in Auckland today. That is the truth of it. That is why we will have growing inequality in our city because those who come from reasonably privileged backgrounds can be on the housing ladder and those that do not will miss out. That is not the New Zealand and that is not the Auckland that I want Dr Coleman. I want a New Zealand where the Kiwi Dream of owning your own home can survive and people can have that stability and security and they can have a chance in life.I am telling those members that there is nothing in this Budget that helps those young people towards the dream of homeownership. I am saying to those members that each year in Auckland with the population growth we are falling 4000 houses further behind what we need. That means that 4000 people lose out on getting any form of what we would call reasonable housing. It means that people are sleeping in garages and cars and are doubling up in homes. And that is not the New Zealand that I want Dr Coleman. That is not the Auckland I want and nothing in this Budget will alleviate that. People who are renting their homes have seen their rents go up at seven times the overall rate of inflation. These are massive problems and there is nothing in this Budget that addresses those problems.I want to say that it is not good enough just to blame the council—that seems to have been what some members of the Government have been doing recently. The council does have its responsibility. It must make sure that sufficient land is available for the growth that is happening in the city. If the council does not accept that the city needs to go up and out it will not be doing its job. I do not have a problem with the national policy statement other than this: the problem that I have with it is that it deals with one aspect of the problem but not the others. I want to know: where is the policy that will see affordable homes being built? Do you know that affordable homes are about 5 percent of the homes being built at the moment? It used to be about 50 percent. We will not get affordable homes unless the Government is prepared to partner with the private sector to make sure that homes are developed that are affordable. That is the time-honoured way in New Zealand of providing for people to have decent warm and healthy homes.I am saying this too that you can make the land available through your planning but if the council does not have the capital to provide the infrastructure needed to build homes on it then the homes will not be built. Dr Coleman as a member of Cabinet will know that Treasury reported to Cabinet that Auckland Council can neither use the rates base nor borrow to provide the infrastructure. So I am saying to the Government why not have infrastructure bonds? Why not have either the Government raise the money itself and on-lend it to Auckland or allow Auckland itself to raise that money so it can provide the infrastructure? If you do not do that how is that infrastructure going to be provided if you cannot borrow to pay for it or rate to pay for it? And I do not want to push the rates through the ceiling.I want to know from the Government why there is not some sort of restraint on demand when 40 to 50 percent of the houses are currently being bought in Auckland by investors and one house in the paper the other day was onsold five times in a year. Each person clipped the ticket for $30000 did not add anything except to the price and the price goes up and it becomes unaffordable. I want to know why we do not do what the Aussies do and say to foreign investors: “If you want to buy property in New Zealand build a new house. Add something to New Zealand. Don’t just push the price up on existing houses.”There is a lot that can be done. I look forward interestingly to working with the Government not squabbling with it but it needs to be a Government and a council that puts Auckland first and is determined to do something to address those pressing problems. I want to say it again and I want to say it very clearly: if Auckland cannot succeed then at 35 percent of the country’s population and productivity New Zealand is not going to succeed. The Government cannot close its eyes to those problems; it needs to be prepared to work with the elected members of the Auckland Council after October to do something that will really make a difference for a better future for Auckland and a better future for New Zealand.