Smith Nick: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSmith Nick: Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:9098. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): I want to answer two questions quite crisply. In response to the question from the Opposition the question about transparency is very clearly covered in new section 50L inserted by clause 8 of the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill in that it requires the Minister as soon as possible after a social housing transaction is settled to both publish in the Gazette and table a copy of the report of exactly what the transaction is and that should easily satisfy the concerns about transparency.The member who has just spoken Kevin Hague asked the question as to the intent behind what the Government is doing in Part 2. Yes given that for both that party and the party on the Opposition barely a week has gone by—Kevin Hague: Part 1.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —in Part 1—without them asking “What is the Government doing about building more houses and more affordable houses in Auckland?” when we come along with this bill and we do something that will deliver on it and they are opposed to it. They are opposed to it. Let me tell you—Phil Twyford: Nick you’re just selling houses not building them.Carmel Sepuloni: You’re selling houses.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well the members should just take a breath and listen to exactly what these provisions do and why.Specifically to answer the questions of Mr Hague Moire Road is an area of land that has sat vacant for over a decade. Previously it was held by the Ministry of Education—it is in the Massey area of Auckland. Under the Housing Act we can avoid the normal process of disposal for the Ministry of Education to sell that land off—i.e. the normal process of disposal is that there is offer-back to the previous owners there are processes of it then going for offer to other Government agencies and there are other potential processes for disposal which take some time.The Housing Act enables me or the other Ministers to put their hand up and say: “Well actually we think Auckland has got a housing need—surprise surprise—and we’d like to use that education land for the purposes of housing. But we want to make plain that it might not necessarily be just State housing but that we might be able”—and I think it is most likely; the negotiations are under way—“to partner with iwi to develop housing on that particular site and mixed housing.” What we are able to do under this new section inserted by clause 8 of Part 1 is use that land to then partner with the private sector and build housing on that land.Why would there be a member of the Committee who is opposed to the Crown land programme of using land that has sat around vacant for years—using the powers of the Housing Act to bring forward bringing that land on stream for the development of houses? Whether it be ex-Ministry of Education land whether it be New Zealand Transport Agency land and other land that I am in negotiations for I am not going to have members of the Opposition cry out that we make progress on using that land and then when we bring legislation to the Parliament to enable us to build those houses they block it at every step of the way. That simply shows they actually are not serious about building the houses and building the affordable houses that cities like Auckland need.