Heatley Phil: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Heatley Phil: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:665;Page:12797] 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Housing) 
: 
 I will take the opportunity to respond to the good news from the Labour Party. I was intrigued when I read the report back from the Social Services Committee on the estimates for Vote Housing. After many weeks of consideration and hours of work in the committee the report came back and we are debating it now. That report is four considered pages long—four considered pages of wisdom. At the very end there is a statement called the “New Zealand Labour minority view”—the Labour Party minority view which Labour members put a tremendous amount of work into! I think it is worthwhile reading out to New Zealand what they said. Everyone else—ACT the Maori Party the National Party and the Green Party bless them—put in four pages of thoughtful consideration. The New Zealand Labour Party said this: “Labour members are concerned”—not about housing—“that the time allocated for the Estimates hearing did not allow us enough time to adequately scrutinise the appropriation.” That is the depth of thought there! 
I decided to read the transcript of the select committee’s ½-hour interview with me. I can tell members that I spoke for three pages as an introduction and then there were six pages of questions where I was basically drilled. Of those questions 28 came from the Labour member Moana Mackey and the National members got to “mollycoddle” me three times. The question time during the estimates hearing was intense I was held to account as I should have been and Labour members had plenty of time to scrutinise the books. But unfortunately all they can do is criticise put down and produce no policy of their own. 
One of the disappointing things for me when I became the Minister of Housing was that I celebrated the fact that the previous Labour Government had increased the number of State houses. I thought that was a good thing but I discovered that the money it had used to increase the number of State houses had been taken from the depreciation fund which had been several hundred million dollars over a 9-year period. That Government had used the money that was supposed to repair existing houses to purchase new ones so current tenants are now living in houses that are in a serious state of disrepair—not insulated with no heating and falling to pieces—while Labour members are out on the streets bragging that they bought new houses. 
For the National Government John Key has said that that is enough. He has said that we will add to the State housing stock. In fact in the last 2 years as I reported to the select committee we have added about 840 extra State houses and that is net. That is not as many as Labour added but at the same time we have upgraded just under 20000 State houses— 
Hon Member 
: How many? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: Twenty thousand. The very minimum we have done to them is insulate the floor and ceiling and in many cases put in clean heating. We have done a lot more than that in most cases. We have looked after current tenants and we have new State houses for more tenants. We have thought of everyone. It is not easy to balance that. 
Another thing we discovered was that across New Zealand we have several thousand three-bedroomed houses that we do not need. The Labour Government refused to sell those and buy one-bedroomed houses because a lot of people live alone. It also refused to buy five-bedroomed houses; a lot of Pasifika and Maori families in particular need large houses. So we are sitting with a housing stock full of three-bedroomed houses. We are going to divest them and acquire one-bedroomed and five-bedroomed houses. That is only sensible. 
We will also make sure that houses are provided in areas of high need not just in electorates where Labour wants to get voted in—not just in electorates where Labour wants State house tenants to vote for it. We will provide State houses where they are needed for families most in need we will get the size of the house right and the houses will be in a decent condition so that State housing tenants no longer live in squalor. 
Vote agreed to.