O'Rourke Denis: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 16 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:9001. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): This Government is trying to get the State out of social housing in this country. It wants to fob it off to often ill-equipped non-profit organisations and it is selling houses at the very time when more houses need to be built and when the State needs to be involved in that. The Government should be building more houses; it should be upgrading and improving existing State houses. Its concentration is simply for ideological purposes on the sale of State houses and that is wrong.This particular bill empowers Ministers to direct the sale of houses that are in the ownership of Housing New Zealand Corporation. The reason for that is of course the Government actually does not trust the corporation and wants to do the job itself. The Government wants to do it ostensibly for what it calls housing reform objectives but in fact the objective is just ideological—the privatisation of social housing—and the real objective of this particular bill is simply to fast track that process by giving the two Ministers excessive executive powers.The Government in its own disclosure statement was correct when it said: “The transaction mandate is an unusual legal mechanism. It provides Ministers with the ability to effect the transfer of HNZC assets in HNZC’s name without a decision-making role for the HNZC board.” So as I said clearly the Government does not trust the board to do its job and the Government wants to do it for it. In that respect the Government wants to both pay the piper and call the tune. It is yet another example of this Government’s habit of extending executive powers.I have complained many times in this House that this Government is taking on more and more powers to the executive in many of the bills that it brings before the House thus sidelining Parliament and in this case effectively sidelining one of the Government’s most important agencies Housing New Zealand. That is wrong and that sort of thing really does need to stop.Another issue is this: the bill allows the land acquired by Housing New Zealand under the Public Works Act to be transferred without complying with the usual offer-back process. I think I know why that is particularly the case. It is because when Nick Smith was embarrassed a year or so ago over the Government land that was not in fact available in Auckland for housing as he claimed it was available he then made reckless statements about how much land the Government had available and whether in fact it was suitable for housing or not. He got into deep trouble about all of that because he simply did not check first whether the land was actually available for housing or not and if so how much was available.So this bill is really a face-saving device for Nick Smith. It allows the Public Works Act to be bypassed. What the Government is effectively doing is saying: “To hell with people who had rights under the offer-back provisions of that Act because we want to get on with this quickly and we want to save Nick Smith’s neck.” There are at least 2000 houses up for sale by this process so I ask this simple question: who gets the proceeds of them and what are they going to be used for? I have not yet heard any Government member answer that question. I asked it in my first reading speech; I ask it again now.I see that new section 2A(7) inserted by clause 4 says that the proceeds “must be paid to a Crown Bank Account.” That is all it says and that is not answering my question. So what is the mandate for that money? Will it go to new social housing? How many new houses will be built? How many houses will be upgraded or replaced?As I have said fundamentally the Government wants to get the State out of the provision of social housing and the result will be to deepen the housing crisis. As a result no new houses will be built. It does not matter whose ownership they are in. What does matter is how many of them there are. This bill does nothing to assist that problem. Ostensibly the rationale of the bill is the objectives set out in new section 50D in new Part 5A inserted by clause 8 which actually gives no cause for hope whatsoever in terms of more and better State housing.Amongst the objectives is one listed in new section 50D(1) that says: “(c) social housing tenants are helped to independence as appropriate:”. What does that mean? To me it is pretty obvious. It means pushing people out of State houses. People who have been assessed for some reason as being capable of renting in the private market—they will be pushed out of State houses. That is what that means. Another objective says: “(d) there is more diverse ownership or provision of social housing:”. What does that mean? What that means simply is the privatisation of State houses for ideological purposes.Another objective at paragraph (f) states that “the supply of affordable housing is increased especially in Auckland.” Well how on earth is that going to happen because all this bill is going to do is transfer ownership from the State to other providers. So how is that going to increase the number of houses how is that going to improve the quality of houses and how is that going to really help to solve the housing crisis—a crisis that this Government by its gross inaction has actually caused? This Government is doing nothing to solve that problem and in the end this bill is just another nail in the coffin of State housing in New Zealand.The bill will if anything reduce and not increase the supply of more State housing in this country. The sale money will not go to the improvement of social housing nor will it go into more social housing for those New Zealanders who need it.Concerning the reporting requirements of this bill under the Housing Act the committee’s main recommendation appears to be to insert a new section 2A(8) in clause 4. It says that it would not be appropriate for Housing New Zealand to provide such reports because it would no longer have control of the land but instead it should be reported under the responsible ministry’s annual report. Well how does that really help to inform the public about what is going on here—buried in some departmental report that next to nobody ever reads? Effectively the public of this country are having this hidden from their view and this is not really reporting at all. It is just the opposite. In fact the majority of the Social Services Committee was just doing nothing more than toeing the Government line.Finally the Opposition parties I see are united in their opposition to the bill and there are two main reasons for that. The first is that the bill enables the sale of a large proportion of the country’s State housing stock. Although the housing crisis demands a substantial increase in the number of houses for people on low incomes and demands the improvement of those houses simply changing the ownership of those houses addresses that problem not at all.The second objection to the bill is very simple. It confers on the Ministers as I have said extraordinary powers that they should not have. So for all of those reasons New Zealand First will definitely not be supporting this bill. It has not done so and will not do so in the future. The Government needs to rethink it and not pass it as it is.