Street Maryan: Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStreet Maryan: Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:14840. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): I want to cover some of the things that may not actually have been covered in the debate on the Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill but I will try to keep to a third reading speech. It is a bit galling to have johnny-come-latelys in the National Government protest that Labour did nothing in housing for 9 years. I would just like to go back a bit because clearly the new members have swallowed hook line and sinker the spin that their seniors have fed them without question. The fact is that Labour came in after 13000 State houses were sold and proceeded to build 8600 State houses. We built or acquired 8600 houses during those 9 years because it does take longer to build and acquire them than it does to get rid of them or to sell them as the previous National Government did. I will not even be bothered traversing all the other ranges of options that we put in place to address housing affordability such as the Welcome Home Loan scheme such as shared equity—all of those programmes that were designed to help people into their first homes. The newcomers in the National Government have been fed a line by their seniors that they have swallowed without question.What we have here as others have noted before me is a Minister with a devastating combination actually—a devastating combination in Dr Smith—of being extraordinarily effective as a Minister and almost always wrong. He is almost always wrong. He is really effective—he knows how to get things done—but he is almost always wrong and this bill is another example.The procedure that is operationalised in this bill will strip back Housing New Zealand. It transfers its needs assessment function over to the Ministry of Social Development. It transfers money to the third sector for housing purposes which we do not oppose but we wish it were sufficient and not simply an abrogation of the Government’s own responsibility to be the leader and the prime provider in affordable housing and social housing in this country. Instead of shovelling that off to an under-resourced third sector the Government should be stepping up and making its own moves taking its own actions to address the needs of those who are unable to enter the private rental market through no fault of their own or to enter homeownership which is an even more remote dream.Labour opposes this bill not because everything in it is wrong but because everything in it is either wrong or inadequate. It is simply not good enough—it is simply not good enough—for this Government to bring in a process of reviewable tenancies so that that shadow will hang over every tenant in a State house—“When are they going to review my tenancy? When am I going to be told that I can’t have this house any more?”. That is not how to build secure communities and that is what social housing ought to be about—about not only providing housing for the poor but also using the State’s leverage and the State’s capacity to build secure contributing communities and not simply considering it an irritation or a monkey on the back of the Government that it would rather dispose of. This is not a good bill.This is a piece of legislation that will be limited in its lifetime. It will be limited in its lifetime because when Labour takes office we will be keen to address affordable housing in the multitude of ways that work not simply the single actions that penalise people who currently use State housing because they need to for the security and the safety of their families. This is a punitive bill and Labour will not support it. Thank you.