Foster AndyANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Thank you Madam Speaker. Like the previous speaker I was staggered to see this request for this debate and also staggered by what I thought was the presentation of an alternative reality there because actually you don't have to look too hard to undermine Kāinga Ora (KO) which is what we on this side of the House were being accused of doing. Actually you don't have to look very hard. You look at the financial track record and that doesn't look particularly spectacular. You look at the cost of building houses that they were doing and that doesn't look particularly spectacular. If you look at their record as a neighbour that doesn't look very good either. So it's not particularly hard to undermine KO which we were being accused of because they simply are not performing.This really is what that report by Sir Bill English and others was all about. I thought that Kieran McAnulty in starting this debate also started on the approach that they're saying Let's shoot the messenger"—let's shoot the messenger. You look through the report and I think actually it's a pretty good report. Actually it's pretty generous in some places in saying "Look the last Government did try very hard to try and build more houses" and it acknowledges that. It also says that it was well intentioned in doing that as well. So I think actually it's a pretty balanced approach. So shooting the messenger to me was quite the wrong thing and an unfair thing to do.Look well there are a number of messages which I see in this report. The first of them is the lack of financial discipline. You have to ask the question—I mean KO basically were operating on the basis of saying "If it costs more for us to deliver houses we can just go to the Government we can go to the Government for more money and they'll help to bail us out". Well I wonder how many other places within the previous Government administration that was being done not just KO but right across the board. Of course that has come home to roost.What that does is that has increased our cost of debt so our cost of debt now is what close to—servicing debt is close to $9 billion. Gosh we could spend $9 billion and do something else much more useful than paying for debt that's been run up and has been grown at such a great rate. Secondly it's pushed interest rates up much higher than they were so everybody that is paying a mortgage everybody that is paying a debt on a business they are paying for that profligacy as well. Then of course there is the impact that that has on employment and the economy. So these choices this lack of discipline is not cost-free and we are bearing that cost as a nation at the moment.The report talks about saying that the average KO house costs $35 million—sorry $35000. It's not $35 million—that would be getting a bit excessive. But it costs $35000 more than the equivalent average that was built by somebody else. So they're costing more and we've all heard the stories of KO going and outbidding other bidders for land or for buildings. That is profligacy. That is them just saying "Look we know we can have more money. All we want to do is we want to build more houses". That's a good thing. That's a good thing to do but not at any price not with a blank cheque book and that's the approach that they were taking. So they did build more houses but they were deliberately going out and outbidding other people for doing that.What we see in the report too is that the expectation is that they will be spending $23 billion more over the next four years—$23 billion more. We heard over the last 24 hours or so that that equates—because most people will look at $23 billion and say "Well that sounds like a lot of money but I can't quite envisage that". That is $4000 for every man woman and child in this country. That is the cost of the way that KO was doing business and that is why something needed to change.The second thing is that KO became a landlord to be feared and that was because of their "no consequences" approach to their own tenants. Look we all heard those stories and they were appalling. Look we have in the report here a great quote in the foreword from a social housing tenant: "Having a permanent place to call home changes everything about life."—absolutely—"It gives stability and helps with your health. You can plan for the future. For me it means I can have my grandkids wherever I want to". But I want to talk to you about security because how can you have security when you have the neighbours from hell and their landlord won't do something about it and they didn't do something about it on the instructions—the explicit instructions—of the previous Government. I spoke to a KO manager when I was out and about in fact in your area Grant and what he said—Grant McCallum: Mighty Northland—mighty Northland.ANDY FOSTER: What he said in the mighty Northland was simply that the change of approach that this Government has taken to that has changed some of those bad tenant behaviours and that is a great thing. So not only have we got to deal with bad tenant behaviour but we've also got to make sure we deal with bad commercial practices. In the last couple of seconds we've got there the last thing I want to say is that KO was also a submitter from hell to deal with when it came to district planning because they brought all their lawyers. It was a horrendous process for the poor communities and they need to do a much better job than that too."