Hague Kevin: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHague Kevin: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 10 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2065. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KEVIN HAGUE (Green): I spent yesterday in Christchurch in particular looking at housing issues in that city. It is I believe a national disgrace that people in Christchurch are still living in broken houses years on from the earthquakes that devastated that city. But in relation to this bill we are dealing with people who have been living in broken houses potentially for decades and that also is a national disgrace and an ongoing stain on this Government and its predecessors.We in the Greens have from the word go supported measures to provide justice and a remedial path for those who have been affected by this shocking failure of regulation. It is certainly sobering to hear the accounts of members in the debate today echoing the words that have occurred in every single debate on this issue in the House since the very beginning of the issue. They have been talking about the accounts that we have heard of citizens who have been exposed to these disastrous conditions in their homes with the consequences for their physical health their mental health and their financial health. They have told us their stories about the devastation that this has wreaked on their lives. It is I believe appalling that 9 years on from 2006 when the principal legislation was first enacted we are still having to patch up that legislation and are still hearing those stories.The Green Party will be supporting this bill although I note with interest some of the points that Clayton Cosgrove in particular made in his contribution to the debate and I will be looking at those points in particular during the select committee process. The changes that the bill makes are essentially technical in nature. The change to the built date which effectively the Government has been forced to move on by the Osborne decision is a sensible process and I support the points that Paul Foster-Bell has just made about that issue. I think those are points well made.The other technical change I guess is expanding the definition of the qualifying claimant and in particular this change to acknowledge those who prior to the sunset date in July next year are actively working towards meeting the list of criteria. If I may I will actually read from that list because it is one that I cannot recall and it is a lengthy one. The provisions in the bill currently state that the claimant must obtain an assessor’s report arrange funding sign a homeowner’s agreement commission a repair plan obtain a building consent and obtain quotes before agreeing to a payment plan. The fact that I had to read that probably indicates what a daunting process it actually is for a person who is already subject to the enormous stress of having their home destroyed by this blight. So we support that provision also.I think the third small matter around clarifying the ineligibility for financial assistance for those engaged in civil proceedings against territorial local authorities is on balance something that we support. It reflects the same kind of intent that underpins the accident compensation scheme—that actually we are interested in resolving these disputes. We are interested in making good the wrongs that have been done rather than wasting the time of the courts in a process that—I believe it may have been Scott Simpson who said this—makes lawyers wealthy but actually provides satisfactory solutions for few.We have always said that this legislation ought to have gone further. In 2011 Sue Kedgley referred to some of the issues that Su’a William Sio has raised today—the fact that people whose houses were built in the 1990s are ineligible for this financial assistance yet they have been subject to exactly the same failure of the Government to meet its duty to New Zealand citizens as those who are covered by the bill. It is a discrepancy an inequity that has yet to be resolved.In 2011 in that same debate I gave a speech on behalf of my colleague Gareth Hughes who was then the Green housing spokesperson. I pointed out the fact that it seemed manifestly unfair when this problem has been caused by the failure of that Government led by Jim Bolger in the 1990s for the scheme to provide for the Government to put in 25 percent of the remedial cost but still require the homeowner to meet 50 percent. Where is the justice in that? There is no justice in it. I also pointed out to the House that in our view the sunset provision of 5 years was inadequate. Here we are today coming back to revisit that issue. I point out to the Government that if only it listened to me just a little bit more often we could perhaps save some of this House’s time. [Interruption] I have got some other ideas too.In the light of this bill and the ongoing saga of this House’s time needing to be taken up in trying to find some kind of remediation for those whose lives have been so blighted by this problem of deregulation there is an irony that is just sitting on our Order Paper and coming down the tubes towards us pretty quickly—a bill to amend the Resource Management Act. It will be seeking to deregulate the process of resource management to in the Government’s mind make it easier for houses to be built. It is sometimes said that those who do not learn the lessons of history are sometimes required to repeat them and that appears to be the case here.I want to finish by coming back to something I have mentioned several times in the House in relation to housing and that is to draw on work done by a guy called Maslow on the hierarchy of needs. What are people’s basic needs? Maslow said that in order to function at all in society a person has got some really basic needs that need to be met. They need to be well fed; they need to have a safe physical environment in respect of the air and the water that they consume; and they need warmth and shelter. There is a way of conceptualising the fundamental role of the Government as being to ensure that every person has those basic needs met so that they can actually fulfil their duties as a citizen and enjoy the rights that are recognised in instruments such as the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and in New Zealand law.The State houses that were built in the 1940s and 1950s are now desirable properties because they were built soundly and they were built with the ethic in mind of ensuring that everybody was housed so it is a shocking indictment on successive Governments that we now have an environment where New Zealanders are homeless living in cars and garages or as we see in Christchurch right now living in houses that have not been repaired or living in leaky homes that ensure their health needs will not be met. It is time that the Government stepped up and once again met that basic responsibility to ensure that New Zealanders have their essential rights and needs met. Thank you.