Bennett David: Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBennett David: Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 24 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2516. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Are we not lucky to have an academic from Wellington who tells us how the housing market works? That member would have no idea what a house even looks like let alone how to build one and then he wants to be in control of the market.The whole of the speechesof the Labour Party members have been about a large-scale Government building programme. Let us go back to communism let us go back to the 1950s let us go back to the Soviet era and let us have a 5-year plan. Let us make it a 10-year plan. Let us see how they build those houses. I bet you they will be lovely looking houses—will they not—that will all look the same. They will all be on streets named after Grant Robertson or somebody else and they will all have the same number. They might put A B C and D just to make it different so that you can actually put mailboxes on them. With New Zealand First they would need three mailboxes per house. Under the Labour Party the houses would all be the same colour because you cannot have anyone having a different colour. You might be able to paint the garage roof if you are lucky. The houses will all be pointing the same way. They will all have the same car out the front. Everybody will be in the same job and will be doing the same things day by day. That is what the Labour Party’s vision of housing solutions is. That is what it believes in.The Labour members—the 30 members is it of the Labour Party left—who are sitting in this House actually believe that they can determine what the future of the New Zealand economy and the New Zealand housing market will look like. I thought there was one line from Grant Robertson—well there were a couple—where he really showed his true colours. He said that the National Party does not understand the market. That is what he said—that we do not understand the market. Well that may be the case—that may be the case.But one of his other lines was that the Government is the controller of more land that can be released. Well I have never seen a Government development of land like that. Land is developed by the developers. It is not developed by the Government. If anything is in between the developer and the Government it is called a council. And the council has the ability then to dictate how land will be developed. It is not developed by the Government.So we get someone like Grant Robertson who has some amazing plan to build these 30000 houses not telling you where you are going to get the people to build them not telling you where you are going to get the infrastructure to put around them not telling you where you are actually going to get the materials to build them and not telling you where they are actually going to be built. But then he is the controller of the release of land is Grant Robertson. That is great to see because that is not how the market works.Let us look at how a market actually works.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: You tell us.DAVID BENNETT: Yeah I will and you might learn something. In a market there are individuals called purchasers and one of the things that they look for is the interest rates that they have on their house. In New Zealand interest rates are now at 6 percent. Compare that with when the Labour Party was last in Government: interest rates were 10.9 percent. The biggest thing that determines the growth of the New Zealand property market is interest rates because it is your ability to repay that banks look at. They will lend you the money if you can repay. Even if you do not have the equity they will lend you the money if you have the income. Nobody in the Labour Party would understand this because nobody in the Labour Party has actually ever run a business. But if you ever ran a business you would understand that your income-earning ability is the key thing. It is not necessarily the assets you hold; it is your ability to earn income because that is the ability to service debt. Under National the biggest cost for New Zealand households is now 6 percent compared with 9 percent on that side.Stuart Nash: What’s it in Australia?DAVID BENNETT: What is it in Australia? The member wants to know what the interest rates are in Australia. They are a little bit less than New Zealand’s interest rates but that does not matter. We are not dealing with the Australian market are we? That member over there may think he is in the Australian market but he is not; he is in the New Zealand market.If you look at house prices though—house prices under the Labour Government went up 96 percent in 9 years. They went up 96 percent in 9 years under that Government. After the Budget in 2014 they had gone up only 28 percent under National—28 percent compared with 96 percent; 28 percent compared with 96 percent. Those are the numbers.Stuart Nash: That just proves that property’s in the doldrums and Auckland’s housing market’s going through the roof.DAVID BENNETT: The member over there is telling us his economic policy now. It is slightly different from Grant Robertson’s. That was: “We will build 30000 houses.” But then that member is not really part of the Labour Party front bench. I ask the Labour Party members: if they want to see 30000 more houses built in New Zealand why do they not support the Resource Management Act reforms? Why do they not actually support things in this House that will enable that to happen? They do not because they do not care. The only thing they have got is some whimsical promise that they can pluck 30000 houses out of the air in some Stalinist approach of economic management that Grant Robertson thought up on Kelburn Parade. He did not actually go to Auckland—none of them have actually been there and seen the market and what you have to do. This is the KiwiBuild of the Labour Party which I am sure would be the flop of the Labour Party as we all know.This bill is a small bill. Nobody is going to deny that. It is a small bill. It does not make a huge amount of change.Denis O’Rourke: It doesn’t do anything either. It doesn’t do anything.DAVID BENNETT: Does it not do anything? It does do something. The member tax credit is what homebuyers under the KiwiSaver programme can now access. It does not enable them to withdraw their $1000 kick-start contribution but it does enable them to get the member tax credit.Denis O’Rourke: Where’s the Government’s contribution?DAVID BENNETT: Where is the Government’s contribution? Well it would be interesting to see where the Government’s contribution is when you consider New Zealand First a party that does not support the road from Pūhoi to Wellsford a party whose leader in his speech last year in the election campaign said no to that road—said no to the one thing needed in Northland.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You might be able to assist me. I do not believe there is any reference in this bill to a by-election or the Pūhoi road or anything else.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No; you are exactly right. This is about KiwiSaver and that is what we should be focusing on.DAVID BENNETT: Yes thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It has been quite a wide-ranging debate. I notice the Labour Party members never spoke about the bill. They just spoke about Labour’s KiwiBuild programme which has nothing to do with this bill and will have nothing to do with anything that will provide a solution to New Zealand’s housing issues.This bill does support first-home buyers and it honours an election pledge that was made at that time. The HomeStart package that was debated during the election campaign comprised three changes and one of these changes is in regard to helping New Zealanders through their being able to withdraw this tax credit so that new homebuyers can get access to it. There are also some other changes in the legislation that are more subsidiary and relate to other—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Subsidiary?DAVID BENNETT: Subsidiary—that means secondary for the member over there. He would not know what secondary is because he lost his electorate but that is what it means in practical terms for you Mr Cosgrove. In those terms there is that part of the bill as well that deals with issues to do with veterans pensions. It is tidying up some effects that we have seen in the previous legislation in that area.This is a bill that we will have support for from the other parties in this House which is good to see. It is a bill that enables our New Zealand homeowners to access that part of the KiwiSaver HomeStart programme through the ability to get that tax credit back. It is a bill that will be in the best interests of all New Zealanders. It is not a bill that is trying to create some kind of solution to a property market that is not possible under what the Labour Party has said—building 30000 houses through some grand Government programme that would make our housing estates look very one-dimensional and not be effective at all in providing opportunities for New Zealanders to get into their first home or other home. So this is a good bill. It helps New Zealanders on that path. It is practical. It is real. It will work. It is not a dream it is not a fantasy and it is not some vision of the past that will never happen. Thank you.