Heatley Phil: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Heatley Phil: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 14 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4370. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Housing) 
: 
 I appreciate the comments made by the member Holly Walker and her questions today of course. The invitation from question time still stands: if she would like me to look into those things she should get in contact with me directly and I can put those through to the Housing New Zealand Corporation and we might be able to get some answers for her. I am very happy to do that. 
Generally across the housing portfolio we have got social housing then the private rental markets first-home buyers in their first homes and then other housing where people have bought their second or third home their home for life or whatever it is. So there is sort of a housing continuum there. We are particularly interested as a Government as I know other parties are in the bottom end where people are struggling the most—they might need State housing or they might need housing by another community housing provider that provides other services such as mental health or district nursing services or parole help because they might be recently released from prison or whatever it is—right through to the first-home buyer market. 
 But in that section of State housing we have got a real challenge in the Government. The previous Government had it as well and any future Government of any hue will. That is the fact that many of the State houses were built in the 1940s and 1950s and many are in the wrong towns in this country—at least there are too many in some towns and not enough in others such as Auckland. We can name some other places as well and it will be no surprise to anyone. Also because the houses are so old they are in need of significant repair and also many are the wrong size. They are three-bedroom houses and actually these days people often live alone or they have very very large families so we need one or two-bedroom houses and four five or six-bedroom houses for large families. 
I have talked about this for some time and laid out to this Parliament that that is a big issue. Yes people might like it to be responded to overnight but we are talking about 70000 State houses here many of which are housing the most vulnerable. I would have to say that every time we go to shift someone out of a State house to repair it or to bowl it and rebuild a nicer one the Green Party or the Labour Party oppose that. On the one hand in Tamaki for example we have got almost 3000 State houses up there many on quarter-acre and half-acre sections many very very old and in a serious state of disrepair and many in places where families who are on the waiting list would love to live. But when we go in there to do a massive development like Tamaki and start removing the old houses to rebuild new State houses—houses for the community housing sector houses for first-home buyers and so forth—the Labour Party is upset about it. Well you cannot bowl and rebuild a house without moving a family out to an alternative State house. I must say that in most cases tenants are offered if at all possible an alternative State house where they would like it which is often close to where they are now and sometimes in a completely different neighbourhood. 
What I am laying out for the Committee is that if you want these housing upgrades which we do if you want to spend the money which we do and if you want to build new as much as possible which we do then there needs to be a degree of change. Change is difficult and we need to understand the fact that that is difficult for families and you cannot just do it overnight. But we are doing that in Tamaki we will be doing it in Christchurch and we are doing it in other areas of the country and we have just simply got to move forward. 
It is also important to understand that many of the State houses across the portfolio are not insulated. In fact through the previous Labour Government it did not seem to have a particular focus on insulating State houses. Those members are beating the drum in the Labour Party that we should force landlords and homeowners right across New Zealand now to insulate their houses yet they sat there with thousands of State houses uninsulated during their three 3-year terms—their 9 years. We are saying no: we will insulate every State house in New Zealand that can be insulated. Many you cannot insulate but all the ones that can be insulated we want to insulate. We believe that it is best to put the Government’s housing stock in order before we stand on some sort of moral platform and say that everyone else has to do it. So the Labour Party and the Green Party need to check themselves and ask themselves the question why they never insulated every State house in the country yet under a National Government we are doing it. And we should be finished by the end of next year. We will be insulating State houses we are proud of the fact that we are insulating them and we will be upgrading State houses. 
We support the community housing sector. In fact one of the things we do with the community housing sector is make sure that when it builds a house it is well insulated of course—because the laws say so—but also it is including other things like wide doorways and wide passageways wherever possible so that they are easily adjusted. So we are doing a lot of work in housing. It is taking a lot of work and we would appreciate everyone’s support. 
Vote agreed to.