Twyford Phil: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 03 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13186. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—TeAtatū): A longer call is fine Mr Chairman—it is fine.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I have got my watch.PHIL TWYFORD: OK. Now we are getting to the nub of the problem. Now we are getting down to brass tacks because on that side of the Chamber the view represented by the Hon Nick Smith is basically to trust a failed market and blame the councils. That is the National Government’s housing policy: trust a failed and failing market and blame the council. That is all—that is all—that the National Government is willing to do. It washes its hands of any responsibility any obligation to actually roll up its sleeves like previous Governments have done over the decades and do something substantial to build affordable houses. As far as Nick Smith is concerned no the Government has no control whatsoever about the price of houses. The Government has no ability to deliver affordable housing to the people of New Zealand. The Government has washed its hands it is putting all its faith in a failed market and it is not prepared to intervene to fix a failed market. That is the difference.We on this side of the Chamber will not stand by while speculators outbid first-home buyers. We will not stand by and watch a failed market drive first-home buyers out of the market. We will not stand by as another generation of New Zealanders is denied the dream of homeownership because all that the National Government is willing to do is tinker with the Resource Management Act and blame local government for a problem that is largely the fault of the economic settings that this Government has refused to tackle. That is hands-off government from National.We do not subscribe to that philosophy. We are willing to use all the powers available to us when we are in Government to build 100000 affordable homes. We will reform the Resource Management Act by producing a national policy statement on affordable housing. We will intervene in the market. We will use Crown land as we would have at Hobsonville to deliver a high-quality new urban development that includes social housing affordable housing for first home owners and open market housing.Minister you and your Prime Minister chose to drive out social housing and affordable housing from the biggest finest opportunity for urban development in decades in Hobsonville Auckland and you bear responsibility for that. It will always be the Minister of Housing and the Prime Minister who will bear the shame of having said that it would be economic vandalism to allow State housing or affordable housing in Hobsonville. Low to middle income New Zealanders according to this National Government should never have houses on land that has a view of the sea. That is the operating principle of the National Party. Well we do not subscribe to that.We believe that it is the role of the Government to improve people’s lives and we will intervene in the housing market. We will use the balance sheet of the Crown which will be fiscally neutral over 10 years to stimulate the building of 100000 affordable homes. We will break the cartel. We will use procurement arrangements to drive down the cost of building supplies. We will use all the powers available to us to do that. Mr Smith people believe us. The public believes us. By two to one they do not believe in the Government’s policies. They understand that this bill the Housing Accords andSpecial Housing Areas Bill is tinkering with local government and the Resource Management Act.I want to go back to the issue of affordability and the failure in this bill to actually deliver any affordability. Mr Smith’s view on this issue and what he told this House is that he notes the complaint that the bill does not specifically refer to the building of affordable houses. He says we are being too cute. His reply is: “The bill specifically mentions the Auckland Housing Accord. The Auckland Housing Accord very specifically”—and I am quoting the Minister—“has provisions for ensuring that the houses that are built include a portion that are in the affordable range.” Let us be very clear about what the Minister told this House. He said that the Auckland Housing Accord has provisions for ensuring that the houses that are built under this accord include a portion built in the affordable range.Well let us talk about the wording that is in the Auckland Housing Accord. This is the best it gets. This is Nick Smith’s idea of requiring affordable housing. The Auckland Housing Accord says: “All Qualifying Developments are … required to give consideration to the provision of affordable housing …”—all qualifying developments are required to give consideration to the provision of affordable housing. That does not mean that they are required to build a share of affordable housing. It says: “Conditions of consent may include requirements for a proportion of the development to include affordable housing ...”—conditions of consent may include requirements for a proportion to include affordable housing. That is the best the Government can do and we know from the reported comments from Auckland Council and from the mayor and the deputy mayor that they tried to negotiate with Nick Smith holding a gun to their heads. They asked for stronger language allowing a proportion of affordable housing to be included in qualifying developments. That Minister and his officials stonewalled and blocked it. They would not allow affordable housing.The Minister is shaking his head but that does not tally with all the reported commentary on this issue and that is why the very party the Minister negotiated the first housing accord with Auckland Council is on record in a news report from Radio New Zealand National from 1 August saying: “Auckland Council says it’s not yet clear that new housing accord legislation will require genuinely affordable homes to be built.” That Minister is from your partner the party you negotiated with for 6 weeks to produce the Auckland Housing Accord and it says that it is not yet clear that the new legislation will require genuinely affordable homes to be built. The council says further that the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill “shows nothing to support the affordability focus.” That Minister is being utterly misleading in this House.There is nothing in this bill and the language in the Auckland Housing Accord is weak. It is diluted from what Auckland Council required and Minister if you were honest and candid with this Committee you would admit to this Committee that you blocked stronger language requiring affordable houses in the negotiation of the Auckland Housing Accord. The Minister cannot come to the House and pretend that his bill includes any kind of requirement for affordable housing because it does not and it would be misleading to suggest otherwise.After 6 weeks of negotiations and in the last 2 months of this bill being before Parliament Auckland Council which was party to the very first housing accord came along to the Social Services Committee and under questioning told the members of the committee that it did not believe that any more affordable housing would be built as a result of this bill. And in only the last 3 weeks it told Radio New Zealand National that it is not clear that this legislation will require genuinely affordable homes to be built. So Minister I invite you to get up and tell us what language there is in the bill and what language there is in the housing accord. Unless I have missed something Minister andunless you have got something better than the language that says that they are required to give consideration to and that qualifying developments may include a share of affordable housing then I challenge you to withdraw the comments that you have made before this House that have given the clear suggestion that this bill could require affordable housing. I do not believe that that is the case.It is a hoax to bring this legislation to the Committee pretending that this Government is doing something substantial about affordable housing when all this Government is doing is bringing in some extra greenfields land and fast tracking consenting—stuff that could have been achieved by fast tracking the Auckland Unitary Plan and giving it legal weight on notification as Auckland Council requested. That could have been achieved and much more. All of the other provisions on affordable housing in the unitary plan could have had legal weight from now but Minister you refused to do that. For some weird political reason because of some hang-up that you and your colleagues Minister have with Auckland Council you refused to do that. You have brought this tinkering bill to the Committee.Let us clarify something else. The Minister asked before how it could be both tinkering and Draconian. Well I will tell you that it can be tinkering and Draconian. It is tinkering in that it achieves very very little to give Aucklanders any assurance that it will increase the supply of affordable housing or make housing generally more affordable. It is Draconian in that it takes democratic rights and freedoms away from local government.