Lees-Galloway Iain: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Lees-Galloway Iain: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 07 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6372. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 That correction from the Minister of Housing just proves how all at sea this Government is when it comes to housing and housing affordability. Every single electorate member of Parliament knows that right now the Housing New Zealand Corporation stock is dwindling not because the buildings are not there but because they are being shut up and people are being locked out of Housing New Zealand Corporation homes all up and down the country. 
In my own electorate we have recently had families shifted out of their homes on frankly spurious grounds. They have been moved into other properties—that is great—but that means that the people who have been desperately waiting for months and months and months to get into a Housing New Zealand Corporation home have been pushed further down the list. There is an entire block of housing that has been empty for more than 2 years. What are the Government members going to do with it? Are they going to leave it there rotting and empty? Are they going to bowl it over? Are they going to redevelop it? Nobody knows. The Government cannot answer that question and meanwhile people go without decent housing. It is an abomination that this situation is allowed to go on. There is another site in Palmerston North—I am talking about only my own city—where houses were removed more than 3 years ago. What is being done to replace that housing stock? Nothing. What is being done to develop that site? Nothing. There are fewer and fewer houses available for New Zealanders up and down this country because this Government has no plan. It cares not for the most vulnerable who need to put a roof over their heads. 
David Shearer was absolutely right today when he said that this Government is ripping away the Kiwi dream of homeownership. It is part of the New Zealand way of life that people can aspire to owning their own homes and this Government is ripping that right away from New Zealanders. The outlook looks extremely bleak because this Government has no plan. For months and months and months we waited in anticipation to see what the Government’s response would be to the housing affordability crisis in New Zealand. We waited to see what its plan was. And what did it turn out to be? Free up some land forge ahead with deregulation and leave it to the market. That is not a plan. That is not good enough. 
More deregulation is not what this country needs right now. Deregulation led to leaky homes the grounding of the  
Rena 
 the global financial crisis and the Pike River disaster—the list goes on and on and on. It is a litany of disaster from deregulation. That is not what we need more of in this country. Do not just take my word for it. Do not take the Labour Party’s word for it. In today’s  
National Business Review 
 Colliers researcher Alan McMahon on the  
National Business Review 
 website today said that “The land supply argument rests on the contention that developers will sell their product more cheaply if the cost to develop is reduced and there is more competition from other developers. Currently the most commonly sold dwelling”—and the most commonly rented dwelling—“… is a three-bedroom stand-alone dwelling. But the predominant type being built for sale is a four-bedroom stand-alone dwelling.” 
Why? Because that is what the developers can make their money out of. And because there is so much demand in Auckland even though the wrong types of buildings to respond to the housing crisis are being built there is enough of a market out there for people to buy them up. So the market has no solution. The market has no solution to the housing crisis or the affordability crisis. “Single-storey construction is cheapest …” says Alan McMahon and that is why we continue to see single-storey building on the outskirts of urban centres far from where people work so that they have to travel long distances every day even though that is not what we need. That is what the market will continue to deliver if we continue to rely solely on the market. And as Alan McMahon said today on the  
National Business Review 
 website “Developers will not reduce their prices unless they have to.” 
It is not for the private sector to respond to the housing affordability crisis. This is something that central government and local government have to work together on and there has to be a plan. But as always from this Government we see no plan no ideas and no desire to deal with the issues that are affecting the most vulnerable people in our country.