Jones Shane: Housing Corporation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Jones Shane: Housing Corporation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:671;Page:17934] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koe e te Kaihautu o te Whare. Taku mihi ki a koe i runga i nga kupu ataahua i puta i a Honore Simon Power i tenei rangi mou. Na reira nga mihi ki a koe me to hapai i to tatou reo Maori. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Assistant Speaker of the House. I acknowledge you on the basis of the pleasant words that the Hon Simon Power expressed today about you. So congratulations on that and on your efforts to raise the profile of our Maori language 
.] 
Greetings Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. I would like to endorse some of what the Hon Simon Power had to say about you and I too look forward to seeing the speech that was delivered in 1996 during the time when the actual housing estate owned by the Crown was destroyed by the Government of that time. However I will not hold you responsible for what you may or may not have done during that period of time as a highly effective Opposition MP no doubt in 1996. 
I want to say that Labour members do support the referral of the Housing Corporation Amendment Bill to a select committee. It is a relatively insubstantial piece of legislation. It endeavours to pick up on the report by the Housing Shareholders’ Advisory Group. That report pointed out that about $2 billion at this point in time is spent by the State in the pursuit of social housing. That figure is expected to rise within another 6 or 7 years to close to $4 billion. 
We also know as a consequence of that report that over 20000 houses or units of residence—they may not be houses—are required to deal with the geometric pressures of growth in Tamaki-makau-rau Auckland. Unfortunately many of the people needing that level of assistance come from our tangata whenua Maori community and they will not all receive the handsome $2 million gift that was given to a narrow caste of favoured individuals from one hapu who presumably are aspiring candidates for the Maori Party. But there will be more on that at another stage. The broad membership of the Maori community and the Pacific Island community does require quality access to social housing and it is disappointing that this bill does not deal with the challenges that the housing shareholder body put before Minister Heatley. 
Now we may not necessarily agree that private capital should be involved in the provision of social housing but let us put the proposal on the table. It is a legitimate and positive public policy point to debate. I tell the Minister not to hide behind stories about the last 4 or 5 years. That man over there is the Minister of Housing now and I point out to him in case he has not noticed that we are no longer in control of the Treasury benches. We will do a far better job after 26 November but unfortunately for the tenants and people in “Strugglers’ Gully” who desire better housing outcomes they are stuck with that crowd there. 
If the Government wants to use private capital and come up with a model of a public-private partnership or whatever model it has in mind let that idea be put on the table so it can be a point of grand debate. There is no innovative solution being brought forward by the Minister of Housing and if the Government is going to release Crown land if it is going to make more of the current housing stock available to third parties to third-sector providers then it should crystallise a proposal put it before the public bring it to the House and then we can debate something of merit and substance. 
No one is incredibly hot and bothered about where the departmental advisory capacity rests—whether it rests in Housing New Zealand Corporation or in the Department of Building and Housing. What we are really bothered by is that over 20000 units of residence are needed every year to deal with internal migration and migration from overseas into our largest city a city that comprises one-third of the country’s GDP a city that has one-third of the country’s population and a city whose housing conditions are approaching those of a Third World country. 
It is sad that too many members on that side of the House are prepared to hide these issues under ideology. The reality is that we will have ongoing social problems amongst our youth predominantly brown in character. We will see those young people going in the wrong direction with eventually too many of them going into incarceration. The Minister of Housing should put the money into housing now and if he needs to use private money as well then he should bring the proposal forward. He should not be fearful to pursue what he thinks are his best instincts. If the Minister finds that what he learns in Australia ought to put forward then he should do so or have we harassed this Minister so much that he has lost the ability to bring even a rather harmless proposal forward? No. 
There is a lack of viable alternatives to State housing at the moment. We think that there is a great deal of worth in enabling those in the third sector to generate solutions. But in order for that to happen the Crown has to stand behind them. The Crown has to stand beside them so that they can amass the capital and deliver those services. It may come to pass that taking a swath of the houses currently owned by the Crown and entrusting them to entities such as the Salvation Army Maori housing providers Women’s Refuge housing providers or other options are worthy of us debating them possibly embracing them or dismissing them. 
That is the stuff we want to see in this policy and political debate not these phantoms and shadows—whether that be the people from the Housing New Zealand Corporation constantly wandering around the country and telling needy families that they have no options or the Department of Building and Housing with Katrina Bach and others offering perhaps a better job. 
What can be done to innovate the delivery of housing services? What exactly is the Minister of Housing offering to do? Unfortunately all that we are being told will happen is that more bureaucrats will sit their butts in chairs in another part of the Government. But where is the evidence that this Minister is prepared to bring forward alternatives to deal with the situation of poor equity and deal with the situation of an absence of innovation? There are houses located in the wrong location. There are people who are unwilling to move out into the provinces—perhaps for example Dunedin—where there are surplus houses. We want to see an innovative Minister-led solution for Auckland. 
This Government set up the super-city that it wanted. It has the structure. It has the unified group of representatives. It did not get the mayor that it wanted. It did not get a majority of the councillors who might have ideologically suited it but it got the structure and it got the institution. It is crying out for assistance and leadership from this Minister. I will not be as unkind as a colleague was earlier and describe the Minister as something of a boy scout. I think that he is genuinely interested in improving the provision of houses—I do believe that about him. [ 
Interruption 
] No no I do. 
The only things he has failed on are how he can afford it; where the houses would be; and how he would deliver in it an innovative fashion with the support of the third sector or with the support of the private sector. As a consequence of that failure he has lost the confidence of the Minister of Finance and he has lost the confidence of the actual force that runs the Government when John Key is riding around in the limousine: Steven Joyce. No he has lost the confidence of those particular senior members. Poor people have to bumble along while this Minister is hemmed in. 
The Minister should use his creative energies. He should not serve us up the trite narrow irrelevant little changes we see in this bill although they are probably a part of providing a smoother basis a primrose road for the Housing New Zealand Corporation to be sold. We look forward to a more substantial contribution from this Minister although we fear that our desires are inversely related to his capacity. Kia ora tatou.