Craig LizKĀINGA ORA—HOMES AND COMMUNITIES BILLSecond ReadingDebate resumed from 12 September.Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): I'm proud to be part of a Government that's tackling the long-term issues facing New Zealand and one of the most important is the housing crisis that we've been left with under this Government.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm sorry to interrupt the member I got a bit confused—this is a split call.Dr LIZ CRAIG: Yes that's right. Cool. So down in Invercargill we've been left with an incredible shortage of social housing because under the previous Government a huge number of our State houses were sold off. What that means is that many many people in need of State and social housing are absolutely struggling to find somewhere. Fortunately this Government's put a huge investment into emergency housing but it still is not the best in terms of ensuring that people get access to long-term secure housing.The other issue that's critically important is housing quality. Just thinking back to a documentary that was run by Bryan Bruce under the previous Government called Inside Child Poverty: A Special Report what he did is he took some cameras into a whole series of homes of families that were living with children. What he was showing was just the huge substandard nature of the housing that they were in. So he walked through this whole series of different flats all connected one after the other and just showing the huge amount of black mould that was in the ceiling the curtains waving in the breeze because of the gaps in the joinery and curtains turning black within a period of months just because of the damp substandard nature of the house.So I think this is where this bill is critically important because what Kāinga Ora does is it brings together two core functions: being a world-class public housing landlord and also leading and coordinating urban development projects. I think we're going to need both to make sure that we can build those houses on a scale that is going to get us out of that housing crisis.I think one of the most important things for me looking at this bill is that what the bill does is it enshrines Housing New Zealand's recently introduced social housing objectives into legislation. And what they're talking about is providing decent housing; being a fair compassionate landlord; and helping to sustain tenancies. Those are core principles that I think would have made a big difference to many many children living in State houses over the past decade.So what I want to do is just take you through the operating principles that are laid out for Kāinga Ora in this bill and talking about those that the board will be required to enforce. What they include is providing good quality warm dry and healthy rental housing. Now that sounds really simple but if you contrast that to the lived reality for many children in our State houses over the past decade there's a big difference there in terms of some of their experiences. It also talks about supporting tenants to be well connected in their communities to lead lives with dignity and the greatest degree of independence possible and to sustain tenancies—so talking about secure housing. Again it sounds you know as if that would be just self-explanatory—but again those lived experiences over the past decade and so this is why I think it's incredibly important that we enshrine this in law. It also talks about working with community providers to support tenants and ensure those most in need are supported and housed because again something that has been lacking in the past is providing that crucial wraparound support for those tenants in our social housing. The other operating principles—some of them include looking at supply and making sure that housing supply meets demand. And so just a couple of them: managing its housing stock prudently including upgrading and managing its housing to ensure it remains fit for purpose. Again basically this is some stuff that again hadn't been happening over the past decade. So we end up with rundown State houses deferring the maintenance because they had to take off a profit. So basically putting this back in legislation is really important. Ensuring that housing is developed and is a mix of public affordable and market housing and is of good quality is again really really basic. So for me thinking through what would have been the experience of many of those families living in our State houses if this had been in legislation at the beginning of the last decade—thinking through those hospital admissions for kids with all those respiratory infections—if it was enshrined in law that we had to provide warm decent quality housing? So this bill is incredibly important in that respect. The other thing that it does is it requires the Minister to issue a Government policy statement and that just basically outlines the intended direction and priorities in housing and urban development. And again it sounds self-explanatory but having that broader long-term vision laid out is something that we haven't had for a very very long time. So this is an absolutely critical and important bill and I therefore commend this bill to the House.