Little Andrew: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 23 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4612. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]3.ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition)to the Prime Minister: Does he have confidence in his Minister for Building and Housing given that since he became responsible for housing the average Auckland house price has risen by $221000 which works out at over $250 a day?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister):Given that he inherited a doubling of New Zealand house prices and an 80 percent jump in Auckland prices under the previous Government yes and here is why. We have signed housing accords with eight councils including Auckland to speed up housing development. Since the Auckland Housing Accord was signed in October 2013 more than 16700 sections and homes have been consented. We are freeing up more land for residential development through 84 special housing areas in Auckland alone capable of providing 43600 extra homes. The Government is providing a $200 million loan to the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company in Auckland to develop around 7500 new homes and we have introduced the new HomeStart package to help around 90000 first-home buyers into houses over the next 5 years.Andrew Little: Does he think that the average house in Auckland is affordable for the average Auckland family?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think it is always a challenge buying a house but one thing that average families will appreciate is the much lower interest rates under a National-led Government.Andrew Little: Given that last year his big housing policy was cheap and nails and since then Auckland house prices have risen by $115000 what effect will this year’s policies have on house prices?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: As the member may have seen from the Productivity Commission and others the right response of course to the issues in relation to housing is around the supply side. As I mentioned the Government is putting more money into the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company special housing areas reform of the Resource Management Act and fast tracking the release of Government-owned land. All of these things are building the supply side and actually were endorsed by the OECD recently.Andrew Little: Has he seen any reports about the impact of building on Crown land on Auckland houses prices; if so have those reports been updated to base their conclusions on 30 conceptual hectares rather than 500 actual hectares?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: What I have seen is the Government’s policy that is going to release between 400 and 500 hectares of Crown-owned land. Given there are 150000 of them in Auckland I am pretty confident you will find that the Government will achieve that.Andrew Little: Given the long list of Nick Smith’s failures on housing in the past few weeks does he still have confidence that Minister Smith will succeed in finding 500 hectares of land that the Crown actually owns and that iwi do not have first dibs on and building a meaningful number of affordable houses on that land; if so why?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Of course he will and that is for the very reason—Hon Members: Ha ha!Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Members laugh but they wanted to build—what was it—a hundred thousand homes. Where were they going to build them? That is right. On a cloud because on the pricing they had done there was no affordability for those sections.Andrew Little: Why is he content to sit on the side lines while his Minister makes a mess of Auckland housing and the Kiwi dream slips out of the reach of more and more families?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: One of the problems with the facts in this debate is that they are very inconvenient for Labour. Labour’s Phil Twyford is on TV moaning and whingeing and complaining but actually he does not want to mention the special housing areas or the Resource Management Act or the extra land that is being released or the Tāmaki redevelopment or the first-home buyers grant. He does not want to mention those because those facts get in the way of the myths and that is why Labour is doing so badly.Phil Twyford: It’s not working John.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No one believes you Phil.