Sepuloni Carmel: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSepuloni Carmel: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:9116. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): Looking at Part 2 I want to focus particularly on new section 50J “Objectives of Corporation for this Part” inserted by clause 8. It reads: “(1) The Corporation’s principal objectives for this Part are to facilitate the transaction processes and to facilitate and implement social housing transactions. (2) The Corporation’s principal objectives for this Part prevail over the Corporation’s other objectives.”My question to the Minister is whether or not the facilitation of these transactional processes is actually taking precedence now over what Housing New Zealand’s major role has been since the inception of Housing New Zealand—that being to provide warm dry houses to those New Zealanders who are most in need. This clause clearly states that the primary objective of this particular part of the legislation is that the corporation’s objectives are shifting so that the facilitation of the transaction becomes the primary concern. That concerns me as a New Zealander because we have a proud history of what Housing New Zealand has offered New Zealanders.I like many other people in this room at one point in time at the beginning of my life was housed in a Housing New Zealand house. For many of us it was the stepping stone for our parents to then be able to go on and live the Kiwi Dream and purchase the house. But that starting point was that Housing New Zealand house. The primary objective of Housing New Zealand was to provide those warm dry houses. So have we shifted this much now that the primary objective becomes about the transaction or about the sale? Is that what the primary objective is now? Is that what new section 50J in clause 8 is spelling out to us?I have a number of constituent cases in my electorate which actually used to be part of Minister Paula Bennett’s former electorate that highlight why the focus and the primary objective of Housing New Zealand should continue to be providing warm dry homes to those New Zealanders who are most in need—not the primary principal objective being to facilitate the transaction process and to facilitate and implement social housing transactions. It is a huge shift. Let me just talk about a couple of those cases—actually let me start with one not in my electorate; let me start with Emma-Lita Bourne. Housing New Zealand should be focused on providing warm dry healthy homes for New Zealanders—that should be the primary objective—and that particular case illustrates really clearly why that should be the primary objective of Housing New Zealand. There we saw a coroner’s report that told us that this child died because of the fact that she was not living in a warm dry healthy home.We have other incidences in my electorate. One that was in the media recently was parents who have a child with a disability who cannot take that child to school because the mother cannot carry that child in and out of the home every day. But they cannot get access to a home that can be modified through Housing New Zealand because of the shortage of housing. That is not being rectified with this particular bill. In fact it is being made worse because of the fact that the Government is doing nothing to build on the stock. It is actually intending to sell off the stock to social housing providers. As we see here its primary concern is not for that young boy who cannot get in and out of his home every day; its primary concern is for the facilitation of the transaction process and to facilitate and implement social housing transactions. How far we have shifted from the original vision for Housing New Zealand!Let me talk about another example where you would think that the Government would focus on the provision of warm dry homes to New Zealanders. I am talking about another case—a west Auckland case that was in the media recently—a young woman called Sharayne who was pregnant living in her car. The only reason that she was able to get access to a Housing New Zealand house was because the media made a story of it put it out there for the public to see; she had not only the media working on it but she had an MP advocating for her as well. That is the only way that when she got to 9 months and was ready to give birth to that child she had access to a Housing New Zealand home—because of the pressure that we had to put on Housing New Zealand to enable that to happen. So yeah I am really concerned about the direction that this Government is taking Housing New Zealand in; that it is moving away from the focus on Housing New Zealand’s role to provide warm dry homes.