Logie Jan: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 18 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5909. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. The Green Party is opposing the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill. This bill is part of a much wider agenda to reduce the function of the Government while increasing the power of the executive and providing more opportunities for property developers and business.This bill is part of the sell-off of our State homes and the Green Party believes in opposition to this bill that housing should be treated as core infrastructure in this country. We need to have a plan to ensure we have enough houses that those houses that we have are warm and dry and keeping us well and that they are connected to public transport and able to support community well-being. That is what we stand for—we stand for State housing and community housing alongside each other as part of a plan of having housing as core infrastructure.The Government though has decided to run down our State houses to leave the market to continue delivering damp unsafe houses to leave it to the market to deliver unaffordable new houses to make it harder to get into a State house and to kick out the families if they start earning too much. We have heard from members on that side of the House tonight about how you cannot expect a house for life—that that is just being entitled. I would like to see them say that to the faces of the veterans who were promised a house for life at the end of the Second World War and have been kicked out. I would like to see you have that conversation with them to their faces and tell them that they are being entitled in expecting the delivery of that promise.The Government has said that this is all about supporting community social housing and that we are being communists for resisting this measure despite the fact that it has sold 472 houses since September last year I understand and not one of those houses has gone to a community housing provider. Tell me how that is about supporting community housing. Tell me how putting Government policy on to community housing providers is about supporting the role of a vibrant community housing sector. It is not. That is actually about turning them into a cheaper arm of the State so that you can abdicate your responsibility put more pressure on to them and reduce your own costs. That is not delivering for New Zealanders. That is not delivering for the most vulnerable or actually giving credit or any respect to the absolute power of innovation in our community. It is not giving respect to any of those things that you are giving lip service to.What this bill actually does is give two Ministers special authority to direct the sales and leases of Housing New Zealand property. Under existing rules Ministers are able to direct the Housing New Zealand board to implement Government policy but they cannot dictate specific acts or sales. This bill overrides that. This is an overriding of the core function of the public sector. This is not only about reducing the role of the State in terms of State housing and our ability as a country to have some democratic control. Although the Government says—we have heard four times tonight I think—that it is a communist plot to suggest that we have State housing the point of State housing is that if the Government is running down the houses and people are upset about it they can vote and tell it that they are unhappy about that. When we put State housing out to property developers or even community organisations it is at a one arm’s length remove from our democratic control. The point of State housing is to enable New Zealanders to have some say over what is delivered and to have a direct interaction with that. We do not get that in this model when you are selling things off to property developers.It is not in the best interests of the country. For the Government to say that two Ministers can be responsible for 60000 families and a billion-dollar portfolio and that they have to report to this House only to tell us what they have sold off and to whom but with no other control—overriding all of the free and frank advice that might be provided from the Public Service—is frankly extraordinary. We want no part of this bill.