Heatley Phil: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHeatley Phil: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 05 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13342. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei): People watching and listening to this debate on the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill will wonder why the member for New Zealand First Denis O’Rourke was using notes so much—essentially a read speech from a paper presented to him. You know if you do not know the facts or know the portfolio well or know the sector well you cannot speak to it well. So what I thought I would do is give just a brief history of time and cover the range of housing issues that people out there face—[Interruption]—people whom list MPs in New Zealand First do not need to face.First of all when it comes to buying a house—and even renting because you are essentially paying the landlord’s mortgage—interest rates are the most important issue. So if you have a $300000—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!Hon PHIL HEATLEY: New Zealand First will need to concentrate; if you have got a calculator grab it. If you have got a $300000 mortgage and interest rates go up by 1 percent you have got to find an extra three grand a year.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Do not bring me into it.Hon PHIL HEATLEY: If the interest rate goes up 2 percent you have got to find six grand a year. If it goes up 3 percent you have got to find another $9000 a year. Interest rates in recent years have been around 5 or 6 percent. Under Labour they were 8 9 and 10 percent. That is how Labour managed the economy. Under Labour people had to find an extra $3000 $6000 or $9000 a year just to service a mortgage.What about social housing? Under our policy we have seen social housing providers supported through the Social Housing Unit. Labour never gave them income-related rents. We are looking at that at the moment. In Hobsonville the Labour Government owned the land for 5 years and never built a single house. Labour members talk about what Hobsonville could have been—State houses and all the rest. In 5 years Labour never built one house—one house—and it is the same inTāmaki.We have also upgraded State housing. You will know that 7000 or 8000 State houses across New Zealand were not even insulated—tens of thousands of State houses across New Zealand were not even insulated. They are all going to be insulated by the end of this term and so they should be. Old cold and mouldy houses under Labour are not what we support.The Resource Management Act and the Building Act—more regulation under the Labour Government and we have cut back on that. Of course this bill which solves the last of the holistic problems covers the suite of projects that we have put forward which I listed—one of which is land supply. It is very very important to supply land for housing. The Labour Party opposes new land for housing. Labour members call that sprawl. They oppose density. You cannot squeeze in housing together and go up. So they are against more land for housing and they are against using land better by increasing density. I do not know where they are but this bill shows clearly that we are looking at the suite of options.We understand that there is no silver bullet no quick fix. You have to look at regulation you have to look at interest rates you have to support social housing you have got to upgrade those State houses and you have to increase the land available for housing to be built on. I support this bill.