Mackey Moana: Infrastructure Bill — In Committee 
Mackey Moana: Infrastructure Bill — In Committee 
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MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 When the Committee was last debating Part 4 the Minister for Infrastructure was making a number of comments that I believe members on this side of the Chamber want to address. The Minister in his comments on affordable housing in New Zealand and what the solutions might be showed the very problem that we have with this Government not taking the issue of affordable housing seriously. The Minister in the chair when he stood on his feet when we debated this simply engaged in a vitriolic attack on members on this side of the Chamber. 
Simon Bridges 
: That was Pete Hodgson just now; what a disgrace! 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Not once did he talk about affordable housing I say to Mr Bridges. 
Simon Bridges 
: What an absolute disgrace from Pete Hodgson. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: It is funny is it not? Simon Bridges over there did not care about the personal attacks coming from his own side of the Chamber but when this Opposition asks a question to a transparent and responsible Government suddenly Mr Bridges is outraged. Well I think he might like to take a long hard look in the mirror because the Opposition does require transparency and does require accountability— 
Simon Bridges 
: I will and I like what I see. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: —I say to Mr Bridges. When we come back to Part 4— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Let us just have a little more decorum. This is the first speech of the afternoon of the House in Committee. There will be opportunities for members who want to make a point to take a call. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Thank you Mr Chairperson. I advise Mr Bridges that he might want to scream at me from his own chair if he is going to barrack across the Chamber like that. 
The issue of affordable housing is incredibly important. The Minister in the chair took a call towards the end of the last debate that showed the very problems New Zealanders are having with this Government in terms of whether it is taking the issue seriously. As I was saying all he was interested in doing was piling vitriol on members of this side of the Chamber for daring to suggest firstly that the repeal of the Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Act should not have been hidden away in the Infrastructure Bill; and secondly that it should have gone to a select committee so that we could have had a discussion about how perhaps the legislation could be improved. I do not think that Labour did everything right in the area of affordable housing; there was a lot more that we could have done and there was a lot more that we wanted to do and we would have been very supportive of this legislation going back to the select committee in order for it to try to work on it. 
This type of approach to affordable housing and the Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Act that is being repealed in Part 4 of the Infrastructure Bill works very well overseas. Yes the economy in New Zealand has changed and yes this type of mechanism works better in the type of situation that we had a few years ago when we had high levels of development activity and difficulty in finding the available land to do that but we will one day get back into that situation. I will tell the Committee what we are doing. Let me be clear: this was not a requirement on local authorities. They did not have to use this if they did not want to. It was another tool in the tool box if you like to deal with affordable housing. Again as I said it was a tool that we would have been happy to see go back to the select committee for further work if that is what the Government felt should be done but it was not compulsory. Because the economy has changed and because development activity has changed the Government has now said that it will holus bolus throw it away and get rid of it. 
When we go back into a situation of high development activity councils will wish that they had this mechanism to use. It will take us for ever to get it through Parliament even with this Government’s approach to hurrying legislation through without sending it to a select committee. It still takes time. We will be in a situation again of trying to pass legislation when there was no reason why it could not have been left in place and that is why one of the amendments in my name is to remove Part 4 from this bill. It should not have been there in the first place. It should not have been hidden away in this bill. But more important there is no reason why it could not stay in the legislation. 
Let us be honest: local authorities have to be part of the solution when it comes to affordable housing because they are absolutely integral in the supply of land. If we look at Maori land we see that it is zoned rurally and it is very difficult for Maori to be able to get the kind of development on it that they want. Local authorities have to be part of the solution. We cannot do it without them. Providing mechanisms like this allows them the flexibility and more than that the certainty to know that they cannot be legally challenged when they do this. They will know that they cannot be taken to court by developers who say that the local authorities do not have the powers to require the developers to provide affordable housing to pay a levy that gets put towards affordable housing or to provide a certain number of houses for affordable housing. Retaining this mechanism would provide the legal certainty that yes they do have the power to be able to do that and that they would be able to then go forward knowing that they are not putting their ratepayers at some kind of risk of being taken to court and being challenged by developers who have very deep pockets and who do not want to see this kind of affordable housing become part of their developments. 
I do not know who has got to the Government on this issue. I do not who has been in its ear. I do not know which big donators that go through the trusts of National members said to them that they do not like it and they do not want to have to provide for this mechanism and that they are worried that they will have to reduce the overall profit that they make on their developments. But the fact is that it does not matter which local authority we talk to; it will tell us that affordable housing is an enormous issue. From the smallest council like Opotiki District Council up to the biggest councils like Auckland City Council Christchurch City Council and Wellington City Council councils will tell us that affordable housing is a major issue. They know that they will be pivotal in any Government response to addressing affordable housing. Yet here we are in Part 4 of this legislation taking away one of those tools. Could that tool be made better? Possibly—probably. We would be willing to work with the Government to go back to the select committee to find out what we could do to allay any of the concerns. 
I notice that when I go through the Housing New Zealand Corporation report that we were given at the select committee which outlines the reasons why this was done the word “may” was used a lot but the word “will” was not. The report said: “It may do this.” “It may do that.” and “We do not know.” Clearly even the officials were not certain that it was going to have the negative outcomes that the Government seems so certain it will have. So a lot more work could have been done in this area. It is tragic that at a time when housing affordability continues to be one of the biggest issues in the country we are here repealing affordable housing legislation. We should put that on top of the fact that we have lost shared equity. We had a 2-year pilot where 20 months of the 24 months of that pilot were under this National Government and what did it do? National told Housing New Zealand Corporation to stop promoting it. Then the Government complained about the low level of uptake and used that as an excuse to ditch the entire programme altogether despite the fact that shared equity like legislation that empowers local authorities is an integral part of the housing affordability mix in every single other country around the world. It has worked. 
In the United States ironically this kind of stuff is considered par for the course in many states. If there is a big development like a shopping mall it is seen as just a natural requirement that the developer will be made to for example provide workers’ housing to provide the infrastructure around that workers’ housing and to provide affordable housing. The citizens who live in those areas think that it is absolutely fair that if someone is going to use the land and a lot of public resources the developers should put something back in as well. We do not want to get to the situation where no one wants to develop but that has not happened in other countries where this type of legislation has been used. Of course developers are going to say that they do not want this mechanism. They will not want to do anything like this that might impinge on the bottom line. Of course they will say that. I absolutely expect it and it is absolutely their right to say it but a Government has to take a more critical approach than the one that we have seen here. I noticed that the Minister of Housing is always saying that no one took it up. Well I look at the advice from his own department Housing New Zealand Corporation. It says that since the Act was enacted in 2002 there has not been an opportunity for territorial authorities to implement it. The reason that the Government had not implemented it was not that it did not like it; it was that it was gotten rid of so quickly after the election. The Government had made it clear that it would be going after the election. The Government did not implement it because it was not going to be there any more. 
This is like that shared equity argument all over again: do not tell anyone that it exists and then act surprised when no one takes it up. It is the same thing here. The Government tells people that the mechanism is going and then says that the reason it is going is that no one is using it. The Minister’s own officials told him that the reason people were not using it was that they did not have the opportunity. The fact still remains that this kind of approach is used everywhere in the world. Could we have done it better? Maybe. I ask the Minster whether he should we have sent it back to a select committee. Yes. Should it have been hidden away in the Infrastructure Bill? Absolutely not. I commend the select committee clerk and all the select committee staff for the work they did in trying to make sure that people knew this was happening. They made sure they got in touch with as many people as possible. We were on a quick report-back time. It was hidden in the Infrastructure Bill. 
Housing affordability is becoming more and more of an issue. I strongly believe we would have had a larger number of submitters on this bill if they had had the opportunity to know about it.