Walker Holly: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWalker Holly: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 04 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10662. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]HOLLY WALKER (Green): I would like to focus my attention in this short call in the Budget debate on the issue of housing which is indeed an issue that has dominated much of the coverage and debate of this year’s Budget. I guess to start on a positive note the Government does deserve to be congratulated—in the sense that it has finally cottoned on to the fact that we do have an affordable housing crisis in New Zealand. I must say it took it long enough. As we know this affordable housing crisis is absolutely the worst in Auckland where the average house price last year was $735000. That isthe average price to buy a new home in Auckland and that increased 12 percent in the last calendar year alone. So any time you hear the Minister of Housing crowing about low interest rates and how affordable housing is I would just remind you of that figure. Not only that but in Auckland it takes a staggering 71 percent of the average take-home pay to service the mortgage on a house that is priced in the first quartile. That is this house is one of the cheapest quarter of houses in Auckland and it takes 71 percent of the average income to service the mortgage on that house. When we talk about housing affordability anything over 30 percent of your income spent on housing is considered to put you in housing stress and for that house to be severely unaffordable. We have a situation in Auckland where it takes 71 percent of the average take-home pay to service the mortgage on one of the cheapest houses in the market. So that is your crisis for you and it is a pretty severe one.Well the problem is supply and demand right? We know that in Auckland we need about 13000 new dwellings to be consented each year. We have been averaging only about 3000 so it is no surprise that we have a severe housing crisis in Auckland. It is worst in Auckland but it is actually bad everywhere. That equivalent figure for the national average in New Zealand is that it takes 49 percent of the average take-home income to service a mortgage on a lower-quartile house. So again remembering that anything over 30 percent is severely unaffordable and puts a household in housing stress we have got a problem across the whole of the country. In places like the Central Otago lakes Nelson and Marlborough Wellington and Waikato that problem is elevated above the national average so we have a major problem.What we have seen from the Government in terms of solutions is the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill which I look forward to beginning to hear the submissions on in the Social Services Committee tomorrow. In recognition of the fact that the housing crisis is worst in Auckland this bill is effectively giving effect to the Auckland Housing Accord that the Government reached with Auckland Council earlier this year. That might be all right if that was all that it did. Clearly it has spoken with the council in Auckland it has identified the problem there it believes it has identified a solution to it and it has brought some legislation to the House to deal with it. Unfortunately the legislation does not deal with the issue just in Auckland it actually applies to the whole country. Not only that but Auckland Council itself because it was not consulted on the drafting of the legislation once it saw it actually found that there were inconsistencies between the legislation and the accord that it thought it had signed up to with the Government.But there are serious problems with the models that are proposed in the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill. First of all it is based on the idea that the development at Hobsonville Point is the answer to affordable housing in Auckland. Given that the so-called affordable houses at Hobsonville Point cost either just over $400000 or $485000 which is not affordable for most people that is not a great model to base it on. There is also no guaranteed percentage of affordable homes in the new special housing areas that are going to be created and they override local democracy. Those other regions that I mentioned where housing affordability is also a problem had better watch out because the Government is coming to create special housing areas in their region whether they like it or not. All the power is with the Minister and if they cannot negotiate an accord with the Minister he can just put a special housing area in place regardless of whether the local council actually agrees overriding both the Resource Management Act and the local democracy for that area. And remember at the end of all of that there is absolutely no guarantee in that special housing area that a percentage of those houses that will be provided will actually be affordable for the New Zealanders who are in severe housing stress at the moment. So congratulations to theGovernment on identifying a problem—it is a shame that none of the measures do anything at all to address it.