King Annette: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3531. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): I may have misheard the Minister when she started her speech this evening but it sounded to me like she said that the Government has started on a vicious programme of reforms. I thought: “She’s right—she’s absolutely right.” She is not denying it so I presume that is exactly what she said when she opened her speech on this new piece of legislation tonight. A vicious programme of reforms—that is what we have seen in Housing New Zealand under this Government.What we have seen in the last 7 years in housing policy has been a series of ideological burps. In other words nothing but a lot of hot air and gas wrapped up in the biased and unbalanced philosophy of the National Party. The greatest exponents of this ideological burping are Dr Nick Smith and Paula Bennett. The latter Paula Bennett is the architect of this latest iteration of dopey policy. That is what this policy is. This bill is another piece of National Party tripe. It is meant to give the Minister the flexibility to negotiate contracts with organisations that purchase State houses. What it is is code for the great State house sell-off Mark II. It is a continuation of an attack on State homes in New Zealand the sell-off of them by this National Party and the breaking of a solemn promise made before the last election that there would be no more asset sales. There can be no bigger asset for an individual in New Zealand than the home that they live in. This Government is prepared to sell off thousands and thousands of State houses and the Government says it is not an asset sale. The Government says it is not a broken promise. Well I would say there is a name for that but perhaps I will not use it today. That was a solemn promise—no more asset sales.This is part of the continuation of selling assets in this country. It has followed a pattern. What this Government has done to soften up the people of New Zealand those who perhaps are not in State houses is to first of all remove people from the State houses. You saw that—those of you who come from the Hawke’s Bay. You need only to go into Flaxmere and places like that. The Government cleaned the people out of the State houses. It left them empty. Then the Government would say “Nobody wants to live in those houses.” even though there were people who could not get a house and were on a waiting list—and the houses were empty. The Government said that no one wants to live in those houses.Then it says that these houses must be in the wrong place and the wrong size because nobody wants to live in them. The Government lets them stay empty. They lie empty and then the vandals come along and break the windows and graffiti the walls. The Government says it gets complaints about the security of these properties and the cost of this security. Then the Government says that there is a great necessity to sell them off because we do not need these houses any more. It is a pattern. It is a pattern that we have seen many times over.Now we have got as I said the great State house sell-off. They were all going to be sold to those very willing community groups. The poster people of this great State house sell-off were the Salvation Army. According to Bill English the Salvation Army was going to take all these houses. Well I have met with the Salvation Army and so have many others in this House and I have to say they were played as fools. They did not know the real effort that was going into this. They did not know the real agenda. When the Salvation Army people went away and did their figures and looked at their books they said: “There is no way we can buy these houses. We will be in debt for 10 years if we buy these houses. We cannot do it.” But we were told that the Salvation Army was a very willing buyer of community housing. Backbenchers might not know that. Go out and talk to your Salvation Army. Speak to those who run the Salvation Army. They will tell you the truth. You were sold a pup by the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister—you were sold a pup because the Government does not have any intention to provide houses to buy up houses for community housing in New Zealand.Then I had a look at the regulatory impact statement that goes with this bill. There are a number of questions. I always read these with interest because they usually tell you a little bit about what goes on in policy making. The regulatory statement asks the questions: “Are there any publicly available inquiry review or evaluation reports that have informed or are relevant to the policy to be given effect by this Bill?”. What would you think the answer to that would be? Do you think there has been any evaluation of this policy? What will be the effect on people? Would you expect the Government to know that before it brought some legislation into this House to pass through every stage tonight without the scrutiny of a select committee? Would you not want to know that before you did it? Well what does the regulatory impact statement say? “No”—there has been no evaluation report to inform or is relevant to the policy. So we are going blind into this. We have no idea what the outcome is going to be.Then we are asked: “Were any regulatory impact statements provided to inform the policy decisions that led to this bill?”. We were told the Ministry used the regulatory impact statement that was done in March and that was before the community housing groups knew what the real story was and before the Salvation Army pulled out of this whole approach. It also asks: “did the [regulatory impact] team in the Treasury provide an independent opinion on the quality of any of these regulatory impact statements?”. What would you think the answer to that would be to the members opposite? We are passing the bill through all stages tonight. We are going to put it into legislation without any scrutiny other than what is happening now. Did Treasury have a look at this? Did Treasury provide any independent opinion on the quality of this? The answer to that is no. It has not happened. Why do we not learn? There is no need to rush this bill through tonight. What is the urgency in passing this legislation tonight without the scrutiny the impact and the input from New Zealanders on this bill? So Treasury has not had anything to say on this bill either.Has any further analysis become available since this policy has been given effect by this bill? What do you think the answer to that would be? It is another big fat no. I think the members opposite who are going to speak on this bill might want to go and pick up the regulatory impact statement and then ask questions of your Minister. Backbenchers are so pleased and proud to praise her but maybe they might want to ask a few questions as to why this bill has not had the scrutiny I believe it deserves.Then I want to know and maybe the Minister will answer this when we get to the Committee stage—she is going to have the power under this legislation to make delegated legislation with ministerial direction. That does not come to the House either. All she has to do is gazette it and present a copy to this House having done some consultation. I want to know why the extension of this power is going to be needed Minister. Why is this going to be needed when we know there already exists in the Act powers that you can use? I would like an answer to that question when the Minister gets into the chair.We then get to what has really been happening to Housing New Zealand and why I do not trust this latest measure. Any members who are constituency members of this House would have seen what has happened to Housing New Zealand over the last few years. The Government has stripped away its functions. It has sold houses up and down New Zealand. It has milked the dividends out of Housing New Zealand. It has closed offices and it has sacked tenancy managers. That is what has happened. That is the legacy of the National Party State house policy.I have to give the latest story I heard and the Minister might like to answer this. There are two-storey Housing New Zealand houses in Dunedin. They have just been renovated in some way and they had fire escape ladders because if you are on the second floor you might need to get out in the event of a fire. Those ladders have been removed and Housing New Zealand said no that it was not going to replace them. That is a very good indication of what has happened to Housing New Zealand and State houses in this country. It is a mean vicious nasty approach because many members opposite but not all of them think that those people who end up in State houses deserve it. They got themselves there and they are getting what they deserve and the sort of housing that Housing New Zealand is prepared to provide.