King Annette: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:9082. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): I rise to speak on what I think is a very very important piece of legislation being put through by this Government that affects thousands of New Zealanders and many of them have no idea of this Government’s agenda. I begin by saying that this enables the Minister to be able to sell off State houses when and where they want to.The first State house in New Zealand was built in my electorate at 12 Fife Lane Strathmore. It was built along with quite a number of others to give secure warm dry housing to New Zealanders who could not afford to buy their own home and who probably would never be able to afford to buy their own home but who deserved the security of living in a home that they could call their own for as long as they needed it. That has been the basis of our State housing policy for as long as I can remember.I can remember as a child living in Milton Street Murchison where my parents were able to build a home with a State Advances loan and next door to us was a State house next door to that was a home that somebody owned and next door to that was a State house but there was no distinction amongst the children or the families who lived there. We lived side by side and our houses looked the same. There was no distinction between us. We played together—we were the same.But this Government has made the people who live in State houses scapegoats. They are people who to this Government are worthless people—they got themselves into this trouble. Therefore if they are in this trouble it says we have got to get them out of these houses as soon as we can. So what we are seeing now is a meaner—meaner—approach to New Zealanders a less compassionate approach.It was brought home to me that the selling off of these State houses is going to have a huge impact particularly on people who have lived in them for a number of years. They have brought up their children they have been on low incomes and they have got the knock on the door. They have had Housing New Zealand come and tell them: “Your time’s up. Shift out. Find yourself in the private market.”I had two come to see me on Monday—two men. They were two men who came to see me. They were almost in tears. One has been disabled for many years and is unable to work. He has got a very small two-bedroom little apartment up on Beacon Hill Road in Miramar. He has been told after 17 years of living there: “Your time is up. Move out.” He is still a man who is unable to work because he is sick. He was told: “Move out because we want your two-bedroom little apartment. We’re going to put you in a one-bedroom apartment but we’ve got none.” And I note that one of the issues that Housing New Zealand or the Government says it has is that there are very few one-bedroom houses. So it is going to shift this poor man and his wife out if it finds a one-bedroom place but he has been given 3 months and he has got to leave.His next-door neighbours are migrants who came to this country. They are on a low income with a husband who does not work and a wife who does but who is on not much above the minimum wage. They have been told: “You have to shift because you’ve got a two-bedroom little apartment.” They have been there for 15 years. They have been told that these are no longer their homes. They are to be given away for someone else to live in or to manage or to sell off. That is not the New Zealand that I know or want to live in. That is not the way we treat those who are not as lucky as us who can afford to buy our own homes.I was very very interested in the regulatory impact statement about this particular bill. What it told us was that it was prepared by Treasury in a hurry. It was prepared without impediment or delay because the Government wants to be able to transfer State houses out of State ownership. It said there was a very short time frame for Treasury to prepare the regulatory impact statement. That always annoys me because if it does not take the time to work through a policy properly it ends up making big mistakes. What we find out from this regulatory impact statement is that “the proposals have been prepared in a short time-frame to ensure they are in place to enable the transfer process.” It is not about whether they have been put in place for the good of the people or put in place because it is good policy. They are being put in place to enable the transfer process so the Government can get rid of the houses as fast as possible. The Government says there was very little public consultation on this policy at all. Why? The Government wanted to rush it through. So the consultation was basically with Housing New Zealand. They say that “wide public consultation was not possible within the timeframes of the process.”—of the process. So the process and the transfer were far more important to this Government than the people who live in those houses whose lives are affected by the changes being made in this bill.I think that reflects on Government members. Not all of them—there are some good people across there. I can see one or two over there. But what it does reflect is the prejudice and privilege of some of those who are running this Government. The prejudice and privilege: the prejudice against those who live in State houses because they are not as good as those members and the privilege of their being homeowners themselves. I see a member screwing up her nose. There can be no other explanation for wanting to treat people who are by the very fact they are in these homes our lowest-income earners. These are people who are on benefits people who are unwell people who perhaps have never worked and people who are now older in life. I think we do have a meaner nastier country from a meaner and self-interested Government. I have to say that we should be ashamed of this Parliament if we pass this bill.I agree with Denis O’Rourke. Where is the rationale for this? What is the underlying rationale that we would want to get rid of State houses for New Zealanders? Why are we not building more of them? There is a housing shortage in New Zealand. Homeownership is going down private rental costs are going up and people’s wages are hardly moving. We are saying: “What will we tackle first? Let’s get rid of the houses that people are living in that are State house rentals.” So we are going to get rid of them out in the provinces. The Government says: “Oh well nobody wants them.” Well how come there are people desperate for houses in those provinces who drive past and walk past empty houses and wonder: “Why not me? Why haven’t I been able to get into one of those houses in one of these smaller towns?”. Every town in New Zealand will have a need for houses for people who are finding it very difficult to get one.We should not go down this path. We should not be going down the path of not providing good affordable housing for those who will never be able to go out and buy their own house so we will argue against this bill until it is stopped by the Government. We will argue as long as we can because we do believe in a fairer society—one where the Kiwi Dream can still live one where people can own their own home or rent a home that is affordable and know that when they go home from their jobs or from school theirs is a safe secure home that is not going to be whipped out from under them by a Government that has very little interest in their well-being at all.