Walker Holly: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Walker Holly: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Sitting date: 29 January 2013. Volume:687;Page:7537. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
HOLLY WALKER (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Acting Speaker. Tena koutou e te Whare. The year 2013 has begun and it started with the Green Party putting a set of bold new initiatives on the table to tackle what is likely to be one of the defining political issues in this House this year—the issue of housing affordability. Make no mistake—we have a housing crisis in New Zealand right now. It is a crisis of affordability with homeownership increasingly out of reach for ordinary New Zealanders and rents skyrocketing and it is a crisis of quality with hundreds of thousands of children growing up in cold damp overcrowded substandard homes that are making them sick. This housing crisis is locking families out of homeownership and it is locking children into poverty. It is putting pressure on our biggest city Auckland and it is all too real for the residents of earthquake-affected Christchurch. All over the country but especially in those two cities people are living in cars in garages in the backyards of family members in campervans in caravan parks and increasingly on the street and that is because of a lack of Government investment action and leadership to address this housing crisis. 
We on the Opposition side of the House have been talking about a housing crisis for quite a long time but the Government seems to have been pretending that it does not exist. So while we on this side of the House have been advocating for a greater commitment to State and social housing the Government has been selling and knocking down State houses. While we on the Opposition side of the House have been coming up with solutions to the housing crisis the Government—now that it has finally realised that there is a problem and that it probably has to say something about it—has simply pointed the finger at local councils and said it is their problem. Apparently the market would solve the housing crisis if only those pesky councils would allow more sprawl. 
Well I have news for the Government. It is your problem. The housing crisis is your problem. The more New Zealanders who are locked out of homeownership or who live in poor-quality substandard or overcrowded rental accommodation the more it is going to cost the Government. Having our population securely and safely housed is a public good and it is something that we all benefit from. So if the market is failing as Bill English has admitted it is we all pay the price. There is a real case for Government leadership and Government investment in the housing sector. 
We actually have a proud history of Governments taking the lead on housing going right back to the big State house builds of the early 20th century to the old State Advances Corporation loans that allowed families to build their own homes to the ability to capitalise on the family benefit to buy your own home. But somewhere along the line Governments lost sight of it. They gave up on housing and none worse than this one. This Government’s approach to housing is not hands-on. It is sitting on its hands. 
By contrast I am very pleased to be part of a party that is prepared to put bold innovative solutions on the table. Last week we released a package of housing solutions that would put homeownership back within reach of thousands of low to middle income New Zealand families and modernise tenancy laws to protect the rights of the increasing number of New Zealanders who are renting their homes. Our progressive ownership model would see low and middle income families living in affordable efficient and accessible Government-built homes and gradually purchasing equity in those homes. It is very simple and it takes advantage of the Government’s low sovereign lending rate. It would make a huge difference to the lives of tens of thousands of New Zealanders. Our progressive ownership policy could also complement the Labour Party’s KiwiBuild programme which is a good policy but one that has some challenges namely that families would still have to be able to save a deposit and qualify for a bank mortgage to be able to purchase one of the homes built under the KiwiBuild programme. Setting some of these homes aside for progressive ownership would improve this policy for low and middle income New Zealanders many of whom are perfectly capable of meeting their weekly housing costs and budgeting their weekly expenses but who struggle to save for a deposit on a new home because the cost of rent and the cost of living is so high. 
Our progressive ownership policy makes economic sense as well. The investment the Government would make to build the homes would be offset by the asset created in the form of the homes so there would be a zero impact on net Government debt and there would be a revenue stream created from the rentals of the houses. It would keep wealth in New Zealand instead of funnelling it into the coffers of Australian banks through mortgages and it would create jobs and employment in the construction industry as well as flow-on economic benefits. So can we build these affordable efficient and accessible homes and make them truly affordable? Absolutely we can. 
Last week I visited The Trusts EcoHouse in Waitakere—the first eco-house built by Beacon Pathway in Auckland in 2005. It is a basic three-bedroom home that is well oriented with solar water-heating rainwater collection and passive heating through its concrete floor—it requires absolutely no heating even in winter. How much did it cost? It cost $220000. We can absolutely make these homes affordable. With good design it is possible to build affordable efficient and accessible homes. The problem is not land supply as the Government would have you believe. We do not have to sprawl out of the urban limits and into our productive farmland to build enough homes for the families who need them right now with all the hidden transport and infrastructure costs that that sprawl would entail. There are enough sections to build 15000 homes within the Auckland City limits right now and I wish the Government had listened to Len Brown on the radio this morning explaining that exact point. 
There are exciting medium-density designs that can produce comfortable homes in livable neighbourhoods. We just need a Government that is willing to get on with it. When the Greens are part of the Government that is exactly what we will do. A Green Government would also protect people like me who rent our homes. Homeownership rates have plummeted in the last 20 years particularly amongst middle-income families and more and more of us are living in rented houses whether by choice or necessity. In the Green Party we believe that everybody should be able to have a secure safe and warm home whether they are renting or buying. Too many families live in cold damp overcrowded homes and most of these are private rentals. Many of them unfortunately are State rentals although at least the number of those is getting smaller as the Government bowls them all down. What we need is a warrant of fitness for rental properties and this really is an idea whose time has come. You need a warrant of fitness for your car—although perhaps not for that much longer under this Government—and we rightly expect that all kinds of goods and services meet minimum health and safety standards in order to be able to be marketable. So what could be more important than making sure we have adequate housing given the huge role that it plays in our daily lives? 
Finally we think renters have the right to more secure tenure in their homes. Many of the benefits of homeownership are about staying in one place being able to put down roots having an incentive to take care of your house not having to move your kids around all the time and making connections with your community. But it is increasingly difficult for renters to do this. If we gave tenants the first right to renew a fixed-term tenancy when it expires and restricted rent increases to once per year it would increase security for renters and deliver tangible improvements to their lives and their homes. Of course alongside these changes in progressive ownership and modern tenancy law we still need an increased investment in State and social housing to help those in the very greatest need and on the lowest incomes and to offset the incredibly damaging policies of this Government in the State housing sector during the last year. The Green Party will continue to advocate for decent investment in social housing and a halt to the Draconian demolition and removal policies this Government has had towards State house tenants. 
The year has just started and the Green Party has already put these innovative proposals on the table to address the housing crisis in 2013. Unlike the Government we spent our holidays thinking about solutions and we came back and put these new proposals on the table. By contrast this Government is bereft of ideas. It has chosen instead to sit on its hands and when it finally does get them out from under there all it uses them for is to point the finger at the Auckland Council. It is not good enough. New Zealanders will not fall for it and neither will we. Kia ora.