Turei Metiria: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: General Debate[Sitting date: 22 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5201. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I think Auckland families on very low incomes will feel so inspired by John Key telling everybody in the country that he believes that low-income families can buy a home. What an aspirational goal he has for the country.Denis O’Rourke: How would he know?METIRIA TUREI: He believes that low-income families can buy a home—and my colleague over here asks how he would know. Well that is a very good question because not only does he believe; it is a conditional belief as he set out today. It depends on how much money you earn the interest rates where you want to live the cost of the mortgage and how much deposit you need. It is a conditional belief so let us not get ahead of ourselves on this. I think Auckland families who are on very low incomes who are part locked into Generation Rent who are struggling to put food on the table who are struggling to make sure their houses are warm and dry enough to keep their kids well—I am sure they are terribly inspired by John Key’s belief. Because the reality for these families is that they are locked out.John Key proves over and over again just how entirely out of touch he is with the real lives of New Zealanders because although John Key might believe Auckland families know that they are locked out of the housing market. Eighty percent of the homes sold in June this year cost more than $500000—half a million dollars—in Auckland. There are suggestions that it could get to a million dollars in a year or so the average price. Values are rising by a thousand dollars a week. Wages are nothing like that so families simply cannot keep up. They are locked out and John Key is totally out of touch.Low-income families from the research that we have been able to get from the Parliamentary Library have an income of around about less than $700 a week—about half the median income. They simply cannot afford to save the $90000 that is needed for a deposit let alone then repay the mortgage payments of more than half their income. Those people are locked out. They are the abandoned generation. They are Generation Rent.Rather than sitting here and saying that he believes they can do better and they should all feel aspirational about that what we need from John Key is action. Phil Twyford just said today that there have been only 300 homes built in the special housing areas. It is an inadequate response given this Government has known since 2010 that this country then had 70000 too few homes for the population here. What is the Government doing? It is not bothering to really invest in a State house building programme to increase supply; what it is focused on is selling off those State houses. It is selling off those State houses desperately. It will sell them to anybody including to anyone from Australia including to UK agencies—desperate to sell them off. What the Government needs to be doing is making sure that those homes are available to the families who need them—first and foremost the most vulnerable families who have the lowest incomes and who need to be housed securely and warmly and dryly.But also if the Government does want to see New Zealanders owning their own homes particularly low-income families who struggle to save for a deposit and get access to a mortgage there is an alternative. It is called progressive ownership. The Green Party has long been proposing progressive ownership as a rent-to-own scheme for low-income families to buy the house that they live in—the State-built house that they live in. Do not sell the State houses to an Australian agency. Sell them to New Zealand families—low-income families who desperately need them. If you want to sell off the homes sell them to the families who need them.Progressive ownership means that a family does not have to get a mortgage so they do not have to save for a deposit. They do not have a debt. They have a relationship with Housing New Zealand with the State and with the Crown that enables them to pay off that home over time just like you would with a mortgage but without all of the stress of debt and the deposit saving and it means those families have a safe secure home to live in.But no this Government does not want New Zealanders to have access to their own homes. It wants to sell off the State houses to other agencies so it can wash its hands of the needs of vulnerable families. There are Auckland families—New Zealand families do not need John Key’s belief; they need him to act as a Prime Minister for everyone and not be so totally out of touch. Thank you.