Twyford Phil: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3533. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): At least the Minister for Social Housing got to her feet and stayed on her feet for what all of 3 or 4 minutes? That is more than we can say for all of those 1-minute johnnies on the Government benches—all those Government backbenchers—who are so proud of this policy of selling off State houses that they could not summon up more than half a minute’s speech to explain and promote their Government’s policies which raises I have to say the question of why this bill is being rammed through under urgency. What is it about this bill that means it has to be passed by tomorrow? Are the members opposite in such a hurry to flog off billions of dollars’ worth of State houses to their property-developer mates that the bill cannot go to select committee and the public cannot be given the opportunity to have a say and come along and make submissions? Is the bill so urgent that it has to be rammed through under Budget urgency? I would like to hear an explanation from the Minister or from other members on the Government side for why this bill has to be rammed through under urgency because I cannot see for the life of me what is so worthwhile or so urgent that it has to be pushed through under urgency.This bill is about flexible purchasing. It puts extraordinary discretionary powers into the hands of the Minister to do sweetheart deals with the people he wants to sell these State houses to. He can ramp up the subsidies if he wants to—if it is a particular deal with a private landlord or a property developer whom the Minister is desperate to do a deal with—or he can turn down the subsidies. That kind of flexibility is exactly what National members want in order to be able to do the sweetheart deals they need to flick off these State houses because they are desperate to offload them to anybody who will take them. The Salvation Army walked away the Methodist Mission walked away and the other community housing providers are basically saying “The only way we could make this work is if you not only gave them to us at rock-bottom prices but you also heavily subsidised us into the bargain.”This Government has been a bystander while the housing crisis has got worse and worse and worse. House prices in Auckland have gone up $100000 in the past year—$100000 in the past year. They have gone up by 87 percent in Auckland in the past 6 years but Government members are deep in denial because they believe that there is no housing crisis that there is no problem and that speculators are not a problem. Oh actually I think they just admitted on the weekend that speculators are a problem because they were so embarrassed by the Governor of the Reserve Bank saying publicly that they had not done enough to tackle the housing crisis and that they should do something about the rampant property speculation that is driving house prices higher and higher in Auckland. People desperately wanted this Budget to do something about the housing crisis but there are so many gaps in this Budget. It does nothing for the regions it does nothing to diversify our economy and it does nothing to plan for future economic growth for New Zealand. But probably the biggest disappointment is that it contains nothing of any substance to fix the housing crisis.Today the Government announced that it is going to make Government land in Auckland available for housing developments and I think everybody agrees that that is a good idea. The shame is that this Government did not do it 7 years ago when it came to office. Instead what did it do? Government members derided and ridiculed the Helen Clark Government’s work on providing an inventory of Government land available. They knocked that work on the head as soon as they took office and they have sat on their hands for nearly 7 years. They have done nothing with it and it was only as they were scrambling around in a panic to find something to present to the public that would show they were doing something about the housing crisis that they dusted off the work that was done 7 years ago by the former Labour Government.What is really telling if you watch Nick Smith the Minister for Building and Housing on the TV news tonight or if you go to the Stuff website and see the story about him is that he was asked by a journalist how many of the houses they are going to build in Auckland on vacant Government land will be affordable. Nick Smith gave a sly little smile and said: “I think they’ll be affordable to somebody because somebody will buy them.” That says it all.Hon Annette King: Cynical.PHIL TWYFORD: It is absolutely cynical. They do not care about the thousands and thousands of frustrated New Zealand families—Kiwi first-home buyers—who are desperate simply to get a roof over their heads and a home that they can call their own. This Government acted cynically with this announcement today—as has been the case with the special housing areas where fewer than 10 percent of the houses built are actually affordable and the Government’s definition of affordable is anything under $550000. That shows the cynicism of this Government. They were not prepared to take up Andrew Little’s challenge. They were not prepared to promise to the public of New Zealand that all the houses built will be affordable. All we got was Nick Smith with his sly little smile saying that they will be affordable to somebody.All this Government has done is tinker around the edges with half-baked policies that have not made the slightest bit of difference to a housing crisis that has been getting worse and worse under National’s watch. The special housing areas which are the centrepiece of the Government’s attempt to deliver to the lack of supply of houses in Auckland have been an abysmal failure. In 1½ years 170 houses have been built in Nick Smith’s special housing areas—170. Auckland needs 13000 houses every year just to keep up with population growth. Under National a deficit of 20000 houses has built up over the past 6 years. That is the Reserve Bank’s number. Twenty thousand houses short we need 13000 a year just to keep up with population growth and how many are being consented under National? Fewer than 8000 a year. That is why the shortage is getting worse and worse every year. Every day the shortage is getting worse and that is why Auckland house prices are going up by $1000 a day. Is it any wonder that it now takes 50 years on average to pay off the average home in Auckland? Is it any wonder that homeownership rates under this National Government are the lowest in 60 years—60 years? And John Key says there is not a housing crisis.Other than the spectacularly unsuccessful special housing areas what else has National done about the housing crisis? Well 12 months ago it unveiled another great policy of the National Party and that was to remove tariffs and anti-dumping duties from varnish nails and various building materials. Nick Smith stood in this House and promised that it would knock $3500 off the cost of a new home. His own officials advised that it would save a little over $1000 and that that money would be pocketed by developers. That is the kind of policy that this National Party specialises in. Since 2006 National members have been blaming the Resource Management Act for expensive houses; since they were in Opposition they have been saying that the Resource Management Act is the problem. And what have they done? Paul Goldsmith what have they done about the Resource Management Act reform in 6 years in Government? Absolutely zilch. National has done nothing to reform the Resource Management Act in 6 years in Government and Bill English has got the cheek to stand up in this House and blame the Resource Management Act. What audacity.National’s other bright idea was to throw subsidies at first-home buyers through the Welcome Home Loan scheme and yet the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment Treasury and the Reserve Bank all told it that it would make no difference—that it would drive up house prices and make the unaffordability crisis even worse than it isalready. And now the National Government thinks that selling off State houses to property developers is some kind of answer to the fact that people are living in cars and garages all around New Zealand and that people are rotting in cold damp substandard private rentals because there are simply not enough houses. But National thinks that the solution to that problem rather than building more houses is to change the ownership of the few houses that we have that are there as a dedicated pool of housing for the most vulnerable and the poorest New Zealanders—that somehow selling them off to private developers is an answer to that problem. I just do not understand it. I do not understand what makes this National Government tick and I do not know where its members lost their moral compass.