Collins JudithHon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you Madam Chair. I'd like to acknowledge the chair of the Social Services and Community Committee who is a very nice chair to deal with. I attended the hearing of Housing New Zealand Corporation and some of the other entities in relation to this.Speaking to Housing New Zealand Corporation: it's New Zealand's biggest landlord—it's a big wealthy landlord with $26.7 billion of housing portfolio and a shareholder equity standing at about $22.3 billion—in other words it's got that much in it in terms of net assets. So really I would've thought that Parliament might think that this great big enormous landlord might be trying to do the best it can. Well some of us have got a lot of State houses or Housing New Zealand houses in our electorates and I've got to say that would be the worst landlord we've got in the electorate of Papakura. We would have that as the worst one because many people who go to Housing New Zealand don't have much of a choice. So the report back mentions that in 2015 the corporation announced it was intending to sell social houses to community housing providers over a number of years. It is actually a very good policy because what we've seen in New Zealand is where the community social housing providers have taken those State houses or former Housing New Zealand houses they have done a lot more than just be a landlord; they have put around in places like Masterton where some of us have seen this operating a real wraparound service a social investment-type approach around helping families and people who are having to rent from the community services that help keep them in a really good space and deal with any issues around mental health or addictions or issues around anything else having to do with the poverty that people often find themselves in when they go to either community housing providers or Housing New Zealand.I think it's interesting to hear about some of the work that's gone on around trying to make Housing New Zealand offices and Work and Income offices more friendly and user-friendly to the public. I would say to Parliament: when we are saying how wonderful this is we also have to remember the health and safety obligations towards the staff and the people who work in those offices understanding that they're often dealing with people under stress and that as we've seen in some parts of the country—particularly what happened in the Work and Income office in Ashburton—it is easy to say Let's all have everything open and easier and more accessible" until a tragedy happens and people are murdered which is what has happened in Ashburton.Looking at the supply of housing it's great to hear that Housing New Zealand say that they're increasing the supply of houses. I just hope they're not waiting for KiwiBuild to do it for them because there's not much being built there despite the $2 billion put in—Hon Member: How many have been built now?Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —last year's Budget. Well I think so far we've got about 83 or maybe a hundred; but the 16000 we're expecting in the term—the only term of this Government—has now dropped down to 1535 as announced today by the Minister.One of the things I was quite supportive of is this HUDA—the Housing Urban Development Authority; it's a policy that the National Party certainly had in Government and were going to actually implement. That sounds like an excellent idea doesn't it—except that it is bringing together the Housing New Zealand Corporation and its subsidiary HLC; HLC was Hobsonville Land Company. Many in this House will remember that that was an excellent National Party project out in Hobsonville and of course to take the name out it's now called HLC and it has now been put in charge of the Tāmaki redevelopment—also an excellent National Party project which has been continued under the current Government.Then there's of course KiwiBuild—no definitely not a National Party policy. We'll claim no credit for KiwiBuild and we're very grateful not to have to.So I just wonder what's going on here. We've got Housing New Zealand whose job is to house tenants who otherwise may not be able to get private accommodation; then we have HLC which is a developer of land; and then we have KiwiBuild which is I don't know what—I think it's really just the butt of jokes isn't it? I mean I don't think it's anything much else. I'm just wondering how these three entities are going to manifest. The only reason I can see for putting HLC KiwiBuild and Housing New Zealand Corporation together is to raid the balance sheet of Housing New Zealand Corporation—Priyanca Radhakrishnan: What nonsense.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —there is no other reason to do this. I see a member on the other side calling out to me. Well she can call out all she wants but I will not support her over here. I think the National Party doesn't need her. What I would say to her is this: anyone who doubts this—anyone who doubts it—should just go back to the Budget documents from last year which of course this year's estimates are based on. What that says is pretty clearly that Housing New Zealand Corporation will be allowed to borrow lots of money and its accounts used to borrow money for the Government. I would say that is exactly why this merger is being undertaken because it's not as though Housing New Zealand isn't already big—it has around 66000 houses give or take a thousand. It is not the best landlord in this country. The best landlords are often community housing providers who don't just provide a roof over someone's head or a family's head but help families through often difficult and trying circumstances. I've seen that work going on and I've seen the work that's gone on with the New Zealand Housing Foundation and the Waimahia Peninsula project and all of the people involved in that. That has actually created a community using what was previously Ministry of Justice land which is unused and building not just houses for people to live in as renters but also for people to buy—shared equity kaumātua homes opportunities for people to buy a house and to be part of a community or if they couldn't buy a house at this stage to become able to buy a house once they were able financially to do so. That's where the focus should be: around community housing. That's where the focus should be around the Housing New Zealand Corporation. The Housing New Zealand Corporation is already enormous. If someone is a tenant and they now have a neighbour or a neighbour moves into their neighbourhood and that neighbour is Housing New Zealand's tenant and they create social issues for their neighbour in terms of noise or in terms of dogs or in terms of just general threatening behaviour the answer is apparently now: call the police. That's the only thing they can do. Housing New Zealand no longer evicts anti-social tenants or tenants for anti-social behaviour. What that means is that more people turn up in our electorate offices saying "I have a tenant next door to me. I've been living here for so many years. We've got a good community of other State tenants and we've got this person who's turned up and Housing New Zealand won't do anything about it". Well actually I've been a little bit remiss. I should have said they will do something about it—what they do now is they remove the good tenant and they put in more badly behaved anti-social tenants. So the vast majority of tenants that Housing New Zealand deal with are very good tenants doing their best bringing up their children looking after themselves. They do not deserve to have a rogue landlord who allows its tenants to behave in a way that is awful for other tenants. That is one of the issues around some of the changes made and referred to in this report. We have here "The focus on the needs of tenants"—what a great headline except when one considers: who are the tenants that they're so focused on? Are they focused on the good tenants? Are they focused on the people who are just going about their lives minding their own business and not causing trouble? I don't think so. I think they're focused on any tenant—whether that tenant is a good one or a bad tenant. One of the things that I think this corporation needs to do is to turn up and face the media. The chief executive of Housing New Zealand Corporation refuses to turn up and front for the media on almost every occasion. This is a huge portfolio a huge entity—front up and the Minister could too."