Twyford PhilPHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): The reason that this Budget misses the mark so badly is that it gives MPs $1000 a year extra in their pocket but it does nothing for the housing crisis. It does nothing for overcrowded classrooms. It does nothing for the gridlock on the roads in Auckland. It does nothing for mental health services that are stretched to breaking point. All it is is a very badly targeted election bribe. Out of the $2 billion tax cut $400 million goes to the top 10 percent of earners—$400 million. The wealthiest earners get the equivalent of $35 a week from this tax cut but people on the lowest incomes get only $5 a week. That says it all. That is why Labour is opposed to this tax package—because it will increase inequality. It will make inequality worse. That is why we do not support it.For about the fifth year in a row the National Government's Budget has totally missed the bus when it comes to housing. Perhaps the biggest challenge the country faces is the housing crisis and what is in the Budget for housing? There is $100 million for Nick Smith's old vacant Crown land programme which he promised 2 years ago would generate 500 hectares of land and about 10000 houses. Well in the last 2 years not a single house has been built as a result of that policy—not a single new house. It has cost $100 million already. The Government is now chucking another hundred mil at it but it is a policy that has been a total failure. What else is in the Budget for housing? There is another $155 million for operating funding for emergency housing. This was already announced last year after the winter of misery when we saw people sleeping out on the side of the road in South Auckland and families living in cars. This was already announced back then and the Government made all sorts of big promises about extra emergency housing but in the 6 months to 31 March it delivered only an additional five extra beds of emergency housing—in 6 months after all those promises. That is just typical of the way this Government has not delivered when it comes to housing.The biggest item to address the housing crisis is the accommodation supplement in the Budget. I think everybody would agree that an increase in the accommodation supplement will provide some short-term relief for the half of the population of this country who are renters. It will provide some short-term relief but surely it is a total capitulation and it is the ultimate evidence of the failure of this Government's housing policy that in the 9 years it has been in Government there has been a half-billion-dollar increase in rent subsidies to private sector landlords—half a billion dollars extra on the accommodation supplement. The Budget puts an extra $300 million a year into the accommodation supplement. Everybody knows that a fair chunk of that will end up in the pockets of landlords. That is what will happen. That is what Treasury advised the Government 2 years ago when it was considering this policy. That is what Treasury advised—that landlord capture was a real risk and actually the risk of putting up the accommodation supplement in the absence of any real initiatives to address the supply shortage and the excess of demand would mean that it risked driving rents even higher.I want to quote the independent economist Shamubeel Eaqub. He said this about the Budget: There was more money for the accommodation supplement and emergency housing. Both bottom of cliff stuff. There is no material and aspirational investment in significantly boosting housing supply." I think the Government thought it would get off the hook on housing by Amy Adams announcing a so-called 34000 extra houses to be built in Auckland. She announced this the week before the Budget and it is no coincidence that she waited until Bill English was out of the country. Frankly if I was making this announcement it is so embarrassing that I too probably would have waited until the PM was out of the country.In fact if you unpick this claim of 34000 houses—actually it is 26000 because they were going to demolish 8000 State houses to get there—about 6000 are supposed to be State and community housing leaving 20000 homes to be market or affordable. Well the Minister confirmed today that she is only prepared to guarantee that 20 percent of those will be what she calls affordable. That means 4000—well she had already announced half of those already so in effect her big Budget housing announcement was 2000 extra affordable houses. No wonder they waited till the Prime Minister was out of the country.This Government is completely in denial about the housing crisis. There is a 40000 shortfall of homes in Auckland that has built up on National's watch. Last year Auckland Council confirmed that only 7000 new homes were built and we know that only 5 percent of them are affordable. It is getting worse every year under National. This Government has had 9 years to get to grips with the housing crisis. It has shown that it is simply not up to it. It still denies there is a housing crisis. It has delivered a long line of policies designed to make it look as if it is doing something but actually deliver as little as possible.Last Budget Steven Joyce announced a $1 billion line of credit for councils to borrow money so they could invest in the infrastructure to enable new housing. Not a single dollar of that fund has been expended in 12 months—not a single dollar. Not a single new house has been built as a result of it. The Crown Land Development Programme that Nick Smith announced 2 years ago—not a single house has been built as a result of that policy. The special housing areas were the centrepiece of this Government's housing policy for the last few years. It promised 39000 extra houses in Auckland; less than 3000 have been built 3 years later.The Government promised to reform the Resource Management Act (RMA) but all Nick Smith's incessant tinkering has done is make the RMA more complicated more bureaucratic and more expensive. Now the Minister is reduced to stealing parkland from communities in Auckland to build houses on. That is how far this Government's policy has fallen. I am talking about the Point England debacle where National has taken 12 hectares of publicly owned urban parkland to build houses on.The Government has had its turn. It is time for a fresh approach when it comes to the housing crisis and that is what Labour will bring. Instead of 4000 affordable houses in Auckland over a decade Labour will build 50000 affordable homes for first-home buyers. We will stop the State house sell-off. National has presided over a reduction—a net reduction—in the number of State houses in the last 8½ years of 2500 in the middle of a housing crisis. It has taken $1.8 billion out of Housing New Zealand in taxes and dividends and interest payments. That would have been enough to build 5000 extra State houses. Is it any wonder that this Government is spending $100000 a day paying moteliers to put homeless families up? That is an admission of total failure.We will not just redevelop State housing land. Amy Adams' State house redevelopment plans lack ambition. We need to build houses. We need to get serious about it. So not only will Labour deliver 100000 affordable homes for first-home buyers; we are going to set up an affordable housing authority to cut through the red tape to build whole new communities—on the scale of a Hobsonville or a Tāmaki—with a mix of all kinds of different housing styles that people want and need and a range of different affordable price brackets. We will genuinely reform the planning rules not the kind of tinkering that we have seen from Nick Smith. Labour will abolish the urban growth boundary that chokes off the supply of available land and drives up the price of sections and housing. We are going to get rid of it. We are going to replace it with a smarter approach—a long-run spatial-planning approach that will protect the natural environment foster good urban design but bring down the artificially inflated cost of urban land. We are going to reform the broken system for financing infrastructure by bringing in infrastructure bonds paid back by a targeted rate.Unlike this Government which has its head in the sand in relation to the demand forces that are driving up house prices we are going to ban foreign buyers from buying existing homes. We are going to tax speculators and we will cut back on the immigration in Auckland that is such a massive demand pressure on housing because we believe that it is time that Auckland had a breather while infrastructure catches up. That is why we will cut back on immigration.Finally we will deliver $1.2 billion of insulation subsidies because we think that it makes sense to make sure that all rental properties are warm and dry."