Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill — Third Reading

KĀINGA ORA—HOMES AND COMMUNITIES BILL

Third Reading

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister for Urban Development): I move, That the Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill be now read a third time.

This Government believes that every New Zealander should have a warm, dry, and secure home. This bill is about delivering on that commitment.

This Government believes in the importance of public and affordable housing—places where generations of young families have had a start in life and the chance to put down roots in their communities. This bill puts public and affordable housing at the heart of our agenda.

This Government believes in rolling up our sleeves and tackling the long-term problems facing the country, in working with the private sector and community organisations to fix problems that have accumulated over many years and were ignored for far too long. This bill is an expression of that commitment.

This Government believes that we need to plan in order to succeed, and that's why this bill creates a Government policy statement on housing and urban development. For the first time, we will have a strategic direction and an overarching plan for housing, and set out expectations and priorities for the whole sector from local authorities to community housing providers, the private sector, Kāinga Ora itself, and iwi.

This Government believes in being a fair and reasonable landlord and treating people with respect, integrity and honesty, and that the Government should support people to lead lives of dignity, to be well connected to their communities, and sustain their tenancies. This bill legislates for that vision.

Under this Government, Housing New Zealand changed their role and the way they work. We've called time on an attitude of doing as little as possible, of extracting greater and greater dividends, and of treating State housing as if it were a commercial property management business. This bill reflects that change. We are repealing the presumption that Housing New Zealand, now Kāinga Ora, will pay a dividend, and we are legislating new operating principles that reflect the importance of State housing for people's wellbeing.

Now Housing New Zealand is focusing on ensuring tenants have stable housing that will enable better life outcomes and healthier communities. The new Greys Ave redevelopment in Auckland is an exemplar of this vision. At Greys Ave, we're building a purpose-built complex designed to best help tenants with wraparound health, addiction, and employment and skills support. This bill implements those changes.

This Government believes the State should provide good quality, warm, dry, and healthy rental housing. This bill reconfirms that commitment and repeals the ability for the Government to sell off State homes. Instead, Housing New Zealand is investing more than ever before in building new homes and renovating existing homes so that they are warm, dry, and healthy. Kāinga Ora will inherit a redevelopment programme that will see 75 percent of their 64,000 properties upgraded over the next 20 years, with thousands of State and affordable homes being built alongside that process. I am personally proud of the work this Government has done over the last two years to reposition public and affordable housing in New Zealand. This work is embodied in that bill.

I want to speak further about Government as an enabler of development, and the reshaping of our towns and cities; partnering with the private sector, with local government, and iwi to build. Now, I know there were concerns raised at the Environment Committee about the Government crowding out community housing providers in the private sector. Rather than crowding out or replacing the private sector, my message to developers is that we want you to grow, we want you to build more, and we understand the constraints on you right now. This bill is about working together to overcome those constraints and helping the private sector to build more and do more.

Kāinga Ora will enable the private sector to get on and build. For a start, it will enable the Government to move to long-term agreements with builders, where we contract a large number of homes a year across the full Government build programme, giving builders certainty and scale so that they can reduce costs, invest in off-site manufacturing, train staff, and build faster. It will also enable us to reduce complexity and to simplify processes. It simply makes no sense for builders to go through separate procurement processes with KiwiBuild, HLC, and Housing New Zealand—as they've been doing—each with different requirements, documents, and criteria. This is exactly what the construction industry has told us they need.

Kāinga Ora is set up so that it can be a joint-venture vehicle for Government to work alongside large developers, iwi, and local government so that they too can benefit from the tool box of development powers that will follow in the urban development bill—shortly to be tabled in the House—while making sure that those powers are exercised appropriately and in an accountable way. Our country is going through an historic shift in how we approach housing and urban development.

Currently, our cities and towns are facing unprecedented pressure from strong population growth, changing demographics and preferences, and an ageing population. There is a terrible shortage not only of homes but of the kinds of homes that people need and can afford. Traditionally, in New Zealand, really, for the last century, our cities have developed by turning neighbouring countryside into suburban streets and homes. This is still important. However, we know that we also need to intensify our urban development.

The problem is that second-generation growth in our cities is often too complex for the private sector to do on its own. Such projects require a lot of work on network infrastructure, fragmented land titles, balancing different interests, and creating high urban design standards. Often all of that together creates too much risk and uncertainty for the private sector to do on its own. We need to change the ways that we develop our urban communities, so that they can thrive and that everyone can have a place to call home.

We want our cities to be well designed, people-focused, and ready for the future, and Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities will need to be at the forefront of innovation in urban development, building and construction, and exploring new technologies and methods as they emerge. It will act as a catalyst for the private sector also to be more responsive, integrated, and innovative in its thinking. This bill makes the Government an enabler of this vision, and in this regard passing this bill into law today represents a step change rather than a continuation of business as usual.

Finally, I want to finish where I began. Every New Zealander should have a warm, dry, and secure home. They should be treated with respect and dignity. This requires all of us to ensure that New Zealanders are supported. We know that it's easier for people to address their health or employment issues once they have a secure home. When the Prime Minister announced the new Housing First programme in May being rolled out to a number of centres, she shared a part of a letter written by a Hamilton man called Mohi, who has been homeless for 18 years until he was helped by Housing First.

Mohi is deaf in one ear and has suffered a brain injury. And he wrote to the Prime Minister, "My first-ever meeting with you I hadn't heard of you and so I didn't know what you were about or what to expect. And what I got … was 'come hold our hand, we are going to take you through this process. It will take a wee while, you just have to persevere, and we will catch you if you start to fall.' " Mohi's letter goes on to describe what it felt like moving into his own home. He was so overwhelmed, he said that he cried and cried and cried. He wrote, "I used to think you have got to help yourself because no-one else will, but I was wrong, there are angels … in Hamilton … who believe in me, and who've helped me believe in myself so that I can persevere. I took their hand, held on to it tightly and didn't fall over."

This bill is another step in ensuring that we as a Parliament support people like Mohi, that we ensure there are enough homes that are affordable and secure, that we work with him to sustain that tenancy, and that we make sure he is able to live a life of dignity, to be a full and active part of the community. Those are the principles we are legislating today for Kāinga Ora.

In conclusion, I reiterate my thanks to members of the committee, submitters, and officials for their contribution to this bill. It is a key milestone in modernising how we approach housing and the development of our communities in New Zealand. I commend this bill to the House.

SIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I'm pleased to take a call. Look, I think it's absolutely marvellous that we've got the Hon Phil Twyford back on the housing portfolio here. He's been missed, so lovely to have him back. And look, marvellous that we've finally got to this bill as well. The amount of filibustering undertaken by the Government itself on its own bill over recent days has been quite, quite extraordinary, because if you've been listening to the Minister's speech of earnestness—the general public may not have realised that yesterday literally hours were spent by the Government filibustering or slowing down its own bill, its own bill.

But one thing I will initially agree with is that story at the end, and I think it's great actually that the Minister shared that story because Mohi used the term "hands"—"many hands were involved". And I will acknowledge the Government's role, but I think it's important too to acknowledge, if there are many hands involved, the National Party, which started Housing First. I acknowledge—I think important—the Government has extended that, but actually it was the National Party which started the programme and we are incredibly proud of that.

So I am—well, not delighted; one can't be delighted to oppose, but I stand in opposition of this third reading of the "KiwiBuild Bill". Oh, so this isn't the "KiwiBuild Bill", this is actually a different—I do apologise. This is a Kāinga Ora bill. I'm sorry that I'm confused, because as I was listening to the Minister, every word, every promise is verbatim of the promises that were put forward by this Government under KiwiBuild. I just took a few notes. The Minister was talking about "every New Zealander is to get a home. It's about respect and dignity. It's a step change. It's about sustainability. It's about vision, leadership, history. It's about working with the private sector. It's an expression of our commitment.", said the Minister.

The thing about all of this is these are the exact same words and phrases and empty promises which followed KiwiBuild, and why that's important is because everybody in this House, and particularly those on the Government side, know exactly where those words of "promise" and "partnership" and "history", of "commitment", of "sustainability", "calling time on doing as little as possible"—to end the quote—all of these words, all of these phrases and good feelings were put forward for KiwiBuild and we all know where that ended up. It was a complete and utter failure—

Hon David Bennett: A shambles.

SIMON O'CONNOR: —a complete shambles, a reset which turned into a retreat—an appalling retreat, an appalling retreat.

And so from this side of the House, our concern, our opposition to this bill is not based on the fluffy words—we all agree on the importance of housing—but we oppose the bill because the same empty-headed rhetoric that brought about KiwiBuild is the same empty-headedness which is behind Kāinga Ora, and it will fail in the same way that KiwiBuild failed because words do not build houses. Pulling together Housing New Zealand, HLC, and the failed KiwiBuild—blending it all together, rearranging the deckchairs—doesn't build houses. Unfortunately, on this side of the House we see that the words and intentions are well played. They are the very same that led to the failure of KiwiBuild and so we oppose Kāinga Ora.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and it's a real pleasure. Well, actually, no, it is with some disappointment that I rise after Mr O'Connor and his "do nothing" speech—do nothing, just like National did over the past nine years. Three hundred and thirty-eight houses; in the past two years, Housing New Zealand has added 2,026, and we will keep doing that because we think housing of all kinds—State-provided houses, community providers of houses, private sector houses—they are all important. And you know what? That's exactly what this bill, this excellent bill led by an excellent Minister for Urban Development, does. It says, "We need absolutely to have an overview here and we need to …"—and this is the great thing about this bill; it's an enabling bill.

I must say, when the Environment Committee heard submissions the bill itself was almost universally supported. And so I'm very surprised—even when we had local bodies, Infrastructure New Zealand, all kinds of people supporting this bill—that we now have the National Party being the lone guy in the party, sitting in the corner by itself, no friends, sitting there saying, "No, no, no. Do nothing. Sit down. Let's not take action again."

Look, the Minister in his speech touched on community housing and I also want to just reaffirm how important community housing providers are and how this bill absolutely wants to engage with them, wants to cooperate, facilitate at every level. We had a number of housing providers. We had the Auckland Community Housing Providers' Network come in and they had some real concerns. I mean, they identified the fact that there's 200,000 working families out there who are struggling to pay rent, let alone to own their own home. Again, this is a bill that can and will address that in a whole lot of ways: by ensuring there's an appropriate supply, by ensuring that there's an ability to embark on different ways to own a home—a rent-to-buy scheme or a shared-equity scheme. Also, the Auckland Community Housing Providers' Network identified the fact that we needed to tap into the expertise of community housing providers and the fact that they were really well networked in their communities: with the community in general; with the faith community, in many cases, particularly those people like the Methodist Mission; and also hapū and iwi.

So we can absolutely tap into that expertise when we're embarking upon these projects, facilitating them, or whatever the case might be. Of course, the community housing trust there, they also had a lot to say—really wanted to emphasise the need for partnerships, the need for Government and community housing providers to be hand-in-hand along here, and, also, again emphasised decision making at a community level. I'm very pleased that this bill, as I'll, hopefully, get a chance to identify in particular, does exactly that. One of my favourites submitters was the Māngere Housing Community Reference Group, who came along and informed us that Māngere was, in fact, the appropriate capital of New Zealand—which I quite liked—but also, again, talked about the need for engagement with community housing, and also just expressed some concerns that, historically, they've been tied down with bureaucracy. So bringing these entities together with a clear purpose is exactly what we want to do, because it's time to take real action because this is a problem that's been here for a long time, well over—for many, many years, throughout the last Government's term.

So we're going to build a country that we can be proud of, and we're starting here with the Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill. So if we do look at what happened to this bill; it came before us in good shape, but we've taken it—we've very much listened. For example, even the definition of "financial assistance" in clause 5(1)(a)—rather than just looking at it as a loan or an indemnity or insurance or underwriting, the definition was expanded to include "shared equity, shared ownership, or rent to buy or option to buy", and that's not exhaustive. If people come up with other designs, new and innovative ways to help people into homes—whether it be on a rental basis or on a part-ownership basis or any other basis—Kāinga Ora is equipped to provide that assistance, including a grant or a loan or more traditional ways to do it.

I want to talk about the membership of the board as well, because that's important. And if we look at clause 10 of the bill, we can see that that board will have a very broad base. Obviously, we want people with infrastructure and urban development and technical housing expertise, but, equally, we want people with knowledge of Te Ao Māori, with community connections, with perspectives of public housing, with perspectives of being or assisting tenants in public and community housing, because that's all part of understanding how these projects are best delivered. A number of submitters came to us—community submitters—and said, "Well, in some of these projects that Governments have embarked upon we felt left out of the process. We felt we were only taken into account at the last." Well, here we have it that we've got an ability to have those people around the table at Kāinga Ora and making sure that they're absolutely included in the decision-making process.

Then, if we go to the functions—it is really the heart of the bill, the functions of Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities. If you look at that, clause 13(1)(f) is really important, and that was substantially changed through the select committee process. Rather than just being initiating and undertaking urban development, a small but really important word was put in there, and that's to "facilitate" so that Government doesn't have to be the deliverer, doesn't have to be the centrepiece. In fact, they don't even have to be there when the project is embarked upon. They can simply be there in an overarching way helping people along, perhaps simply by providing expertise, perhaps by sending them to the appropriate people with expertise. Then the other word in that clause which is really important—a new word—to do that whether on its own account or in "partnership". And I think that's really important as well, so that it's a new and express recognition that at the heart of this are going to be partnerships—partnerships with community housing providers or with other entities. Conceivably, with the private sector as well, because we know the private sector has an important role to play; we know that many homes are delivered into the market, whether they be for rental or for purchase by private providers. It's really important to recognise as well that these relationships can be built with any entity, whether it be the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church in my own electorate, which is itself doing a very small project with 15 social houses on the lot at the back of the new church it's just built—the church is fine—or whether it be with a large corporation or, indeed, a community housing provider who has much expertise and a long history in the area.

Of course, we've got, again, the operating principles. So the functions are there, we've got the operating principles and we look at it—and it's about time we said these out loud: the idea of providing good quality, warm, dry, healthy rental housing. Not tenuous rental housing where you get thrown out at a moment's notice if there's a sniff of P on the walls. That's what we had under the last Government. Well, here we have a stated legislative policy to sustain tenancies. We know for a fact that having somewhere to live for our most vulnerable, for our most at risk, and—look, to be honest—for those people who cause us the most trouble in our communities, having somewhere to live is the starting place. Only then can we really go and deliver all of those other services that they need to become meaningful, engaged, contributing members of society. So that's fantastic.

Then there is clause 14(1)(c), working with community providers to support tenants and ensure those most in need are supported and housed, because—in fact, the Chief Human Rights Commissioner has said this very clearly—housing is a human right; and tenuous housing is not meeting up to the expectations that a nation like ours should have and, indeed, taking into account, in terms of its operating principles, its environmental, cultural, and heritage values. Also, an important one, is the environmental framework—taking into account the need to mitigate and adapt to the effect of climate change. This is a fantastic bill. This is a real sea change. We're turning around New Zealand after nine years of it going nowhere and falling away, and I'm very proud to support this bill.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Well, thank you, Madam Speaker. I listened carefully to the chair of the Environment Committee and the Minister for Urban Development, who spoke first in this third reading debate, and neither one of them actually clearly enunciated what this bill does, what it's about. And the reason they didn't is because it does very little. It's kind of like a Christmas stocking stuffer of a cheap variety that is a terrible disappointment when you come to find it in your Christmas stocking on the day—

Erica Stanford: $2 Shop present.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: It's a $2 Shop type of Christmas present—because this is a bill that was designed in two parts. Well, there are two pieces of legislation required to actually make this new thing fly. This bill, all it does is establish a new Crown entity—that's all it does, a new Crown entity. It's a Crown entity made up of three existing agencies that include the merging of Housing New Zealand, its development subsidiary HLC, and the skeletal bones of what used to be the KiwiBuild unit. It puts it into one unit but it doesn't empower anything to happen after that. There's going to be another piece of legislation that will have to be introduced by the Minister later this year or early next year—depending on how slow they can make the legislative programme go—and one wonders why. Well, it's because there isn't much in the legislative programme at the moment. So here was a bill that was sent to the Environment Committee; it's, effectively, a bill that creates a Crown entity. It was sent to a select committee that had almost no work on its agenda to give the committee something to do, and so last night we had the ridiculous situation of the Government filibustering its own bill to try and slow it down. Why would the Government want to do that?—because there's nothing in the pipeline. There's nothing happening over there on that side. It is a deliberate plan to slow things down.

Now, on this side, we're opposing this bill not because the establishment of an Urban Development Authority is not necessarily a good idea; we are opposed to it because simply doing it without substantive, real, dedicated reform to the Resource Management Act makes this piece of legislation, frankly, a joke. The real stumbling block to building homes and getting homes built fast is actually the rules that have been developed over years through the Resource Management Act that prevent homes being built faster. The merging of existing entities, simply in the hope that a better outcome will be obtained, is nothing more than futile. So we are opposing it because we just think that the merging of these three entities achieves nothing of itself. Indeed, the Minister knows that, because he's going to have to introduce a more substantive piece of legislation to give this piece of legislation some shape and form later in this Parliament time frame.

It's well known that the vast majority of houses built in New Zealand are actually built by the private sector. They're developed. They're built by entrepreneurs and developers who can see an opportunity in a market to build homes. Now, the Government tried to do this a little bit on their own with KiwiBuild and failed utterly—absolute, humiliating, disastrous failure. What this bill fails to do is it fails to acknowledge the needs of the private sector, which are simply not addressed or met in this bill. For that reason alone, we oppose it.

CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): What a great pleasure to stand up on behalf of the Government to talk on the Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill. I have to say, there's nobody in New Zealand that wants a cold, moist, or unsafe home to live in, in this country. The thought of that actually sends shivers up my spine—makes me feel like drinking cocktails. What we're looking for is warm, dry, safe, and secure homes for all New Zealanders that are underpinned by affordability—something that the previous Government didn't deliver on for nine years.

Kiritapu Allan: What did they do?

CLAYTON MITCHELL: I'll tell you what they did. For nine years they sidled up alongside these properties, the accumulation of State houses, and sold them off to the lowest bidder that possibly they could get.

Now we've got a new plan, and I have to say that I know Mr Simpson didn't feel that this bill has got the credibility that it deserves, but beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, and I think this is a very beautiful thing. So too do New Zealanders when they see the efforts being made to ensure the security, the wellbeing, the longevity, and the sustainability of our housing plan through this Government. Now, when the Government comes together and works collaboratively with the private sector to ensure that they can deliver on these homes, it's going to be a very successful outcome. When we can provide work and the long-term work for our building and commercial construction sector, we enter into a boom phase, which is also very good for our economy. We have 64,000 homes owned by the State—is that right, 64?

Hon Member: 68.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: Sixty-eight thousand—it gets better. Oh my God. I'm just getting blown away. Sixty-eight thousand homes are going to be upgraded—75 percent of those homes are going to be upgraded. Who's going to upgrade them, of course? The private sector. They will go out and they will do that.

We are looking to be a fair and reasonable landlord, ensuring that for the most vulnerable people in our society—those people on fixed incomes, those people that have disabilities, some of our elderly people, some people that are on low incomes and are stretched out—the State is there to provide that security, that safety net, for people in need.

This is something that this Government—in fact, even in Opposition, last term, in New Zealand First and Labour we were all talking about the issue when the State sell-off was happening right under our very noses. We thought, "We need to put an end to this." The State's absolute sole responsibility is to ensure wellbeing—not the wellbeing of profits, of directors, of shareholders, and of large organisations but the wellbeing of the ratepayers and the taxpayers of this country. [Interruption] This is about ensuring their wellbeing into the future, and that's what we are doing right here, Mr Bennett. I know he'll be up speaking very shortly. I can't wait to hear his contribution.

But stopping the State housing sell-off is a very, very good thing. Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities is about creating safer communities to raise our families—a place where we can take families that are currently living in cars out of their cars, put them into a warm, safe, dry home—not a moist, cold, damp home that's unsafe or unsecure—that's very secure, where they can actually grow up in a community, do their homework, learn, and be part of a society that they feel part of.

If you think about the houses that have been built in the 1950s and the 1960s and the 1970s, right now, currently, we're actually building more homes than we did even through that boom time of houses. But it's about affordable homes. The private sector do a fantastic job in certain sectors, particularly around opening up parcels of land and building homes for a group of people that generally are more well off than others. But the State has a responsibility to ensure that we supply enough affordable homes so that New Zealanders who aren't on higher salaries, who don't have the jobs that can support that sort of monthly cost of rents or even, dare I say, mortgages, so that they can actually have a place of their own. New Zealand has always prided itself on being one of the best home-owning democracies in the world, and that's something, over the last previous nine years of the previous Government, we have slipped behind and gone backwards on.

Now, we are absolutely committed to work with the private sector on this, and the collaboration that has gone on with the construction sector to ensure that they are working and on board with the Government is surely a good thing. Certainly, if I was in the private sector in the construction arena, I would love to have a responsible partner like the Government who will pay on time rather than some of the other trading partners that could otherwise be out there. So I think the feeling and the response from the private sector is very, very positive.

Looking at ways that we can get people into these affordable homes through rent-to-buy schemes or shared equity is another great opportunity for this Government to explore more and ensure that we can open up those parcels of land.

In fact, I remember John Key proudly said that he grew up, as a young man, in a State home, and many people in this House, in fact, probably grew up in a very similar state—and not ashamed, actually very proud to think that the Government actually had the foresight and the planning. Even under a National Government and a Labour Government of old, they made sure that those facilities and the availability of those homes were there for those people. We are just bringing back good, solid values and ethics and morals that New Zealand can count on, that this country, this Government—

Hon David Bennett: Morals! We don't want morals coming out of New Zealand First.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: Great morals, great values, heading in the right direction—

Hon David Bennett: Tell us about Jonesy's morals.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: —because it's very important, Mr Bennett. Really, I hope you stand up and take a call, mate.

So ladies and gentlemen, New Zealand First, along with this Government, are very, very proud to put the weight and support behind the Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill. It's a step in the right direction.

I have to say, we have had—I think it was in Australia, actually. In Australia, they went through a change a number of years ago where they enabled first-home owners. They gave them a $7,000 grant to try and stimulate their economy when it was having a bit of a downturn and enabled first-home owners that right to put a deposit down on a home. That was a good initiative by a Government—again, it was through a tough time in the global financial crisis; I think it was about 2008 or 2009—that saw them in good stead moving forward, and this Government now has its own policy to deliver on some of those ideas of homeownership and moving into areas that are going to be good for all New Zealanders.

Disestablishing Housing New Zealand and HLC is a good step. I know that Mr Simpson talked about KiwiBuild being in there as well, but it's actually a very simple thing. We are disestablishing Housing New Zealand. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that the State provides affordable homes that are warm and dry, not moist and cold, and we commend this bill to the House.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Wow, New Zealand First have come alive, haven't they? Mr Clayton Mitchell spoke with such passion about this new plan that's going to deliver us to the promised land—this bill with, apparently, magic functions that we don't know about. Mr Mitchell really has taken a leaf out of the Prime Minister's book with his fluff-speak. He used it to great effect in his speech, which was mostly waffle, where he talked about values, ethics, and morals. All this bill does is rearrange the deckchairs, and let's not forget that one of those deckchairs actually completely collapsed—it's completely broken. Phil Twyford sat in it and it collapsed. That's the KiwiBuild deckchair. Mr Mitchell, at the end, did note that this is a step in the right direction. Well, I tell you what, it's more of a shuffle to the left than any move forward.

I'm not going to take too long on my speech today because what needs to be said has already been well canvassed by speakers before me, so I'll keep my contribution succinct and to the point. As my colleagues have pointed out and we've touched on in previous speeches, all this bill does is merge Housing New Zealand, HLC, and the KiwiBuild unit, an unusual and a weak sort of cocktail mix of failures and one good performer. As Mr Scott Simpson mentioned in his speech before me—

Hon Scott Simpson: Very good speech.

ERICA STANFORD: —very good speech—the National Party is not fundamentally opposed to the creation of an urban development authority, but what we are not sold on is the idea of somehow merging these entities together, especially given the spectacular failure of KiwiBuild and the fact that the overwhelming majority of housing is developed by the private sector. The Labour-led Government took seven years to develop the failed KiwiBuild policy that they completely botched. They've pushed social housing wait-lists to record highs; they've failed to build houses that are in the right place, that are needed; and they've kicked the can down the road for Resource Management Act (RMA) reform. Where Labour could be delivering meaningful reform in this area, with this bill, all they're doing is putting a fancy new bow around a few different agencies and giving it a new name. As Mr Scott Simpson mentioned, it's a cheap $2 present and it's not actually achieving much.

What we would suggest as a credible alternative is seriously tackling the RMA, which we all acknowledge needs overhauling. We need an RMA that brings building costs down, that has more effective and accessible planning rules, and, very importantly, that contains the right environmental protections. In contrast, this bill is just the same window dressing we've seen that's typical from this Government, just like polytechnics—bundle it all together and give it a new name, take the assets out of the stand-out performers, and, hopefully, that will magically, sort of, fix the weak ones. I am very pleased to oppose this bill.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. The previous speaker, Erica Stanford, seemed to infer that the people talking about values in this debate were somehow negative. She was disparaging the use of values in Parliament. Now, I decry that, because I think we need more values in this House. Actually, when it comes to housing, the values this Government has—which is that housing is a right for Kiwis; that people deserve to live in warm, dry homes—that's not waffle; that's core Kiwi values, and that's why I'm proud to be here voting in support of legislation in support of those values. If National wants to campaign against values in politics, go right ahead.

What this legislation is is housing leadership. What it's doing is setting the institutional framework, the foundation, of resolving the housing crisis that National left the country with. This is the foundation on which we can build the solutions, because while National was getting on with cynicism, you know, negative politics—not actually proposing any solutions, mind you—and spent nine years actually denying there was a problem, blaming other people for the problem, and then not actually addressing the problem, this Government's getting on and doing it. So this legislation is housing leadership. It's setting up the new entity Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities, which is not only going to build homes for Kiwis; it's going to house Kiwis in the State sector as well.

So this new Crown entity, made up of Housing New Zealand, HLC, and parts of KiwiBuild, is going to set the leadership framework. With the Government policy statement embedded in the process to achieve it, it's going to get the Government working in a coordinated, collaborative fashion with private interests, with iwi, hapū, with community providers. Look, it's going to take the Government, working with councils, iwi, hapū, and private businesses, to actually—

Hon David Bennett: The Green excuses.

GARETH HUGHES: It's somewhat ironic for the member Bennett to be talking about Green excuses, because what the Green Party's actually doing is getting on with the business of building homes, in conjunction with our Government partners. Something we're incredibly proud of is the work when it comes to rent-to-own. The $400 million package recently announced is going to make a real difference to Kiwis, because those Kiwis who don't have the money for expensive deposits are going to be able to work with the Government to develop the equity in the House through their rent. So we're incredibly proud. We're not making any Green Party excuses, Mr Bennett.

What we're going to see later on this term is legislation around urban development. What I'm really particularly interested in is the role for the Housing New Zealand tenants. We know thousands of Kiwis are homed in State homes. Now, the previous Government, of course, I think sold off, was it, 6,000—Mr Bennett? I'm sure you can remind us—in the midst of a housing crisis. Now, the new social approach this Government's taking, the social mandate, is making a real difference. I chair the Social Services and Community Committee, and earlier this year we saw the legislation to remove letting fees making a real difference for tenants in rental properties. There's legislation and processes supporting tenants. Now, what we saw under the previous Government was an absolute waste of taxpayer and private money when it came to that meth scandal. So this legislation is about housing Kiwis and getting on with the process of building houses for Kiwis in terms of planning consent, in terms of land, in terms of infrastructure and community services.

Now, something the Green Party has been pushing incredibly strongly as well is not only the rent-to-own scheme but the importance of energy efficiency and sustainability in housing developments in New Zealand, not only State but council and private. Now, I know Minister Twyford's talked about Homestar 6, which is a wonderful development. We need to be ramping up those energy efficiency standards because not only is it going to save money in the long term—in the short term as well—but also it's about protecting our environment, utilising our resources more efficiently.

Something the Green Party is going to continue to push for is ramping up private rental standards. Gee, it was nearly 10 years ago when I drafted the first legislation to set a minimum standard for rental properties. I toured some of the houses, the private rentals, in Auckland and Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch. Some of the worst I saw, of course, were in Dunedin, which I think were houses that should have been condemned but were rented out for profit by private landlords. So we're going to continue to push for that.

Now, there's a great deal of innovation, and I know Minister Woods recently was at a prefabrication facility, noting the rapid cost reductions you can see from prefabrication. That's going to be part of the solution. Obviously, tiny houses is a topical issue which has been gathering quite a lot of media attention, and I've seen some media reporting—actually, academic journals—that have said that New Zealanders have amongst some of the largest houses in the entire world. What I think is important is, actually, that we get the right size houses for Kiwis, and for some, smaller homes are not only more affordable, more sustainable, but more desirable too, because they can live in inner-city locations.

I was recently in the United Kingdom, where I met with officials from Exeter City Council. Now, there I was incredibly inspired because they're building all of their council homes to a passive house standard. Now, passive houses are most identified with the German housing market. I believe they're mandatory in Austria. I met some of the tenants in Exeter who were raving with happiness about the state of their passive houses, because triple-glazed windows meant there was zero condensation, they didn't actually require any artificial heating, the mechanical ventilation meant that there was a constant clean airflow, the tenants were healthier, they were happier, the homes were quieter, and they were almost zero cost to heat. I think passive houses is something that's gaining much more attention in the New Zealand housing market, and it's a good example of how the State can not only use its power—and I know it's happening with the procurement, and this legislation is going to advance that even further—but also in Exeter was stimulating private developers because they wanted to make sure they could match that great standard.

While I was there I also met with the former Welsh Minister that instituted the One Planet Development scheme. Now, there, with tight planning and urban - rural boundary rules, they instituted this law change called the Well-being of Future Generations Act, which actually meant, with the One Planet Development, that if people were self-building, were using sustainable materials, were able to track and demonstrate how they were reducing their carbon, as well as having a business on the property—so of course there was lots of horticulture, lots of agricultural enterprises—they were actually able to develop the properties, which was quite hard in rural Wales. For me, it was a good example of how we're going to need more innovative solutions. National, for too long, sat on their hands.

Now, what we need is leadership, which we're seeing in this legislation. What we need is innovation, which is what you're seeing with this Government's actions. What we need is more sustainable energy efficiency, and that's what we're seeing with this Government. So the Green Party is incredibly proud to be supporting this legislation. It's a great step forward, a foundation on which to build on, and while there's going to be a lot of legislation and action to come in the future, this is just the start. Kia ora koutou.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill.

National opposes this piece of legislation for a number of reasons but, first and foremost, because this is a piece of legislation which, simply, does nothing. Simply, it just rearranges the deckchairs; merges a few Government departments. It seems to be something which could have easily been put together by one of those working groups. They've got 300-and-something. It's also bereft of any ambition. There is no ambition in this at all, and this is a Government which has failed on housing and has failed on its ambition.

They came into the election, saying they were going to build 100,000 houses. There's no mention of 100,000 houses anywhere in this piece of legislation. Now they've said, "We're not even going to have a target. We're just going to build as many as we can." Well, they've managed to build 286 in—how long?—two years since they came into office, and that's simply a failure for the New Zealanders that they say they've got so much compassion for.

The other point is that this bill is half-baked. This bill actually requires a companion bill to be introduced later in 2019 to give this new mega-housing bureaucracy the ability to have some of the powers that I hope it's going to have. Well, where is that piece of legislation? When's it coming to the House? And what is it actually going to do for housing? This is a half-baked piece of legislation. They can't even do their housing policy by putting it all in one piece of legislation and bringing it to this Parliament and asking Parliament to look at this issue as a whole.

The real issue that this Parliament needs to be addressing is the reform of the Resource Management Act, which this Government has simply kicked down the road with another working group, seeking to put that issue on the back-burner, when they should have come into Government and actually looked to address the issues they said they wanted to address. This is a Government without any vision, without any ambition, and it is failing to deliver for New Zealanders; whereas the private sector is out there building tens of thousands of houses every single year. This Government has run out of ideas within only two years of coming to office. We will not support this bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call. [Interruption] Order! This is a split call—five minutes, Kiritapu Allan.

KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): E Te Mana Whakawā, tuatahi, ka nui aku mihi ki a koe e te pā. Ki a rātou ngā uri o Ngāti Hinerangi kua haramai nei ki tēnei Whare mō te hōnore o te pānui tuatahi o ā rātou pire. Heoi anō, ka huri ake ki tēnei pire.

[Mr Speaker, firstly, I would like to acknowledge you, sir; and them, the descendants of Ngāti Hinerangi who have arrived here to this House for the honour of the first reading of their bill. However, I turn to this bill.]

I quite enjoy this session. It's the last sitting session in the afternoon at the end of the sitting week, and it's always quite a vibrant feel in the House. The House gets a little vocal. I think that we are all a little vocal this afternoon, on this bill in particular, the Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill, because this bill here is one critical step change in what this side of the House needs to do in order to fix up the nine long years of absolute mess that the previous Government left for this side of the House to go about fixing.

Now, before I turn to the substance of the bill, I want to acknowledge the Hon Phil Twyford. The Hon Phil Twyford has been the absolute architect of housing reform in New Zealand. The Hon Phil Twyford has stood sturdy amongst storms often conjured up by the Opposition on baseless claims, because the reality is that they have to deflect and detract for nine long years of absolute insufficient and inadequate action on absolutely anything.

In fact, what was their legacy in housing, if I may recall? Well, I can tell you that we all remember, for example, in my little area, the East Coast—what's their legacy? Was it building homes, Mr Speaker? No, sir, it was not. It was selling down State houses—something that this side of the House thinks is an absolutely critical feature.

Now, as I turn to the bill, the Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill, I want to acknowledge that this bill does many things, but, in particular, it brings together, or converges, three entities that are responsible for various components of housing here in New Zealand. So we are bringing together Housing New Zealand, which is the largest, I guess, landlord in the country, with the intention of it becoming the best landlord in the country, under this new Crown entity, Kāinga Ora. We're also bringing in the KiwiBuild Unit and we're also bringing in HLC Ltd.

As the Hon Phil Twyford has said in his previous remarks about the intentions for why we are bringing these three entities together under this new Crown entity, it is to ensure that we are lessening the duplication of the roles that have been—

Clayton Mitchell: The duplication—I agree.

KIRITAPU ALLAN: —exactly—played by multiple agencies. This side of the House is committed to efficiency. This side of the House is committed to doing the things that nobody else did for nine long years under the previous Government. We are tackling the long-term problems that this country faces here, and we're doing that in this particular way by ensuring that those families—look, there are 68,000 State homes—68,000 homes—managed by Housing New Zealand at the moment. Now, there has been a somewhat troublesome—well, in my patch they actually do a blooming good job, but what the intention is here—

Hon David Bennett: What are you saying—what are you saying?

KIRITAPU ALLAN: —is to ensure—I'd love Mr Bennett to get up and have a good yarn, because I think that he'd like to really give us his views on housing in the Waikato, because it's pretty miserable, as I understand, because of that lot and what they didn't do.

But, look, in addition to establishing the Crown entities, this bill is also ensuring that there will be a Government policy statement on housing and urban development. Now, this is going to be a very powerful Crown entity, once it gets up on track. We know that this is the first piece of legislation that gives it the bones. The second piece of legislation that's coming into the House this year will give it the substance, the meat on those bones. But we know that this is going be an incredibly powerful entity that will transform the face of housing here in Aotearoa New Zealand. Again, I must tip my hat to the Hon Phil Twyford for being steadfast in the face of adversity.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): We have heard a lot of rubbish in this House this afternoon from those lefties, around housing. The reality New Zealanders need to know about housing is that their own homes now are at risk because of the economy that they have created, that they will be losing equity in their homes from the day that left-wing Government got elected, and now they will be in a situation where they're probably going to have a loss of their own home. That will be the legacy of the Labour Party in housing: thousands of New Zealanders that had owned their own home that lose their own home under a Labour - Greens - New Zealand First Government. That's what the legacy will be from that member.

There is one member over there—he's Mr Phil Twyford, who, you know, has been the face of housing for the Labour Party. He designed this great policy that they were going to have, called KiwiBuild. He became the Minister to implement it and he couldn't do it—he couldn't do it. He had to lose his job, and he's going to lose his transport job in the next few months as well, because he can't do that either.

He has to go sack the board of New Zealand Transport Agency because he can't do it—he can't build the trains that he was talking about. He's a failure. He's just a failure. And some people in life have just got to recognise that they're a failure, and he is one and he should just resign. Let someone like Kiri have a go. I'm sure she'd be much better.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Mr Bennett, this bill is what's on the Table. Speak to it.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Well, it is—it is, because this is his legacy: KiwiBuild, which is going to get merged. They're going to merge something that doesn't exist. There's no KiwiBuild homes, so how can you merge it? It won't need Commerce Commission approval, will it. Ha, ha! It's so small.

This is just another example of Labour trying to cover their tracks for their own inefficiencies and failures. There's nothing of substance in this bill. It's just trying to rearrange and make it look like they're entities and that housing has been dealt with under this Government, when it hasn't. It is just a smokescreen for the New Zealand public and that's all we get from this Government. It's all soft politics. It's all smokescreens. There's no actual reality. There's no actual delivery. There's nothing that they actually can do. I want to see one of those members from the other side come up and say how many people in two years they have taken out of living on the streets and into housing.

Kiritapu Allan: Thousands!

Hon DAVID BENNETT: No, give me the number—give me the number. I don't want "thousands"; I want actually to know the number—because the Prime Minister promised that, in her first winter, there would be nobody living on the street.

Hon Phil Twyford: No, that's not what she said.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: What did she say, then?

Hon Phil Twyford: No one needs to be living on the streets.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: "Nobody needs"—OK. "Nobody needs to be living"—that is the smoke and mirrors. This is what this legislation is—"Nobody needs". Well, do something about it. You've had all that time and done nothing—done absolutely nothing. Tell me the number. If you've done something, tell me the number. You won't be able to give me a number. I bet you, the next speaker comes up and says, "Nobody needs to be living on the street," and "There were thousands of people looked after." But give me a number—give the New Zealand public a number for what you've done in two years. You can't, because there is no number, because you've been a failure, just like this bill.

ANAHILA KANONGATA'A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Six thousand State houses were sold under National. If you do the maths—if you do the maths—he wants a number, so I'll give him numbers. Nine years of National: 6,000 State houses sold. That's 365 days a year. You do the maths: 6,000 divided by 9; then you divide that by 365—1.82 houses a day, State housing, that was sold by that Government, sold by the National Party. One—almost two—State house a day was sold by that Government. I want to actually give another set of numbers: 2,206 State houses have been built by this Government. Yesterday was the 82nd anniversary of the first State house, built by a Labour Government, by the Hon Joseph Savage. My mother was born in 1936. She was a year old when they built the first State house at 12 Fife Lane.

The reason why I go to numbers is because what we are proposing is a solution to solve what National have left us, which is a mess—to solve the mess that National has left us. Let's do the maths—let's do the maths—82 years ago, the first State house was built; in the two years that this coalition Government has been in place, we have built 2,203 State houses. What does that work out to? That works out to almost 2½ State houses a day that we've built since we've come into Government. What did National build? Well, they sold 6,000 State houses. How many State houses did they actually build in the nine years? It was 338. In nine years, National built only 338 State houses—338, that is.

Hon Clare Curran: Shame!

ANAHILA KANONGATA'A-SUISUIKI: Shame! Shame on them.

If they want numbers, we'll give them numbers: 800 families were affected by the P decisions that that side of the House made—a sniff of P and what they did was dislocate 800 families. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge Ngāti Hinerangi, who were here earlier this afternoon. It's over a hundred years or so that they have been fighting the fight to get to this House to talk about what rightfully should be theirs, and we are giving it to them in fractions. Last nine years of the National Government, 800—800—families were affected, dislocated, became homeless. I don't know how many years that will affect them, and there is no settlement for that to happen, for those 800 families to receive some sort of apology from that side of the House. That's what we call no-heart leadership—no, National, no plans.

I want to take this opportunity. I'm wearing a camellia in my right ear. This is from a place not far from here. It's 126 years since women got the vote here in this country, and I want to acknowledge all those women that have fought the good battle for us to be here, and we are now at our third woman Prime Minister. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the leadership of the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern in terms of being the Prime Minister for this time, for this era—this era when we are building warm, dry homes.

Let me come back to Kāinga Ora. I want to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon Phil Twyford, in terms of Kāinga Ora. The naming of this bill actually is the principal beginning—that door that opens up on how we are doing things differently. Kāinga Ora, when I read it as a Tongan, I read it as thinking about everybody who lives in the House, outside the House, and in this motu. Kāinga Ora is about that.

I want to quote the Hon Phil Twyford, from the speech he gave earlier this afternoon, because I think it describes what this is—it's about a vision. It is about a vision on how we're going forward, not just for the next 30 years but beyond that. I quote: "For the first time, we will have a strategic direction … an overarching plan for housing [in New Zealand], and set out expectations and priorities for the whole sector, from local authorities to community housing providers, the private sector, Kāinga Ora itself, and iwi." If that is the beginning, the vision of this bill, then everything else that falls under it comes in with a good spirit and a good heart.

I want to talk about what this bill will actually deliver. The bill delivers on the Government's new approach to State housing. I've said before, we've built over 2,000, but we're building more houses, and I'll come back and, maybe next year, know more numbers on what we've been building in warm housing. So what this bill will do is legislate for Housing New Zealand to aim to sustain tenancies, provide warm houses, dry housing, treat tenants with respect, and social objectives.

There is a word that we use in this House all the time. People in this House use the word "vulnerable" all the time. There is one thing that we share with every other human being on this planet, and that is that, when we lay our head down to sleep at night, when we close our eyes we are all vulnerable.

But for members of this House, we know that we'll wake up tomorrow, that we've slept in a warm, dry room that's in a warm, dry home. Many in the nine years of National couldn't say that, because, where I live—I live in Manurewa in South Auckland—and it was becoming, in the nine years of National, normal to lay your head to rest on the pavement of the footpath of shopping centres outside takeaways. That was what National has left them. What Kāinga Ora will do is work in partnership with everybody in the sector to build something that every New Zealander, when they go to sleep at night, will not be vulnerable, because we are building warm, dry homes.

Chris Bishop: How's homelessness going for you?

ANAHILA KANONGATA'A-SUISUIKI: Mr Speaker—I can't hear what that person is saying, but what I want to—

Chris Bishop: Tell us about the motels.

ANAHILA KANONGATA'A-SUISUIKI: —know is—I heard the member Chris Bishop saying, "Tell us about motels"—motels that were created by their Government, motels that they were having people—those were their policies. I don't know why they're pointing fingers at us, when, actually, that's their legacy that they left. The legacy that they left was they had no plans. I've said, many times, that people think the National Party can add, but they can't. Why? Let me quantify that statement. If you're selling State houses—6,000 State houses—and if you're not helping other community providers build houses, people are being born in this country, people are coming into this country, people are living longer; what does that add up to? It adds up to the population, actually, over—the National Party didn't have a plan for the population growth, for poorer New Zealanders who couldn't afford to do that. So I just want to do that. They could not do maths, because they were thinking with their pockets and not their hearts.

Anyway, let me get back to Kāinga Ora. I am moved to hear the story of Mohi that talks about the collective group that helped him into a home in Hamilton. I am moved by that story, and that is the sort of story New Zealanders want to tell—that when they're down, someone there is able to help them. When they're down and they're sleeping on the streets, and they feel like nobody's there, that's the role of Government: to provide warm, dry homes for its population. If you can't do that, then I actually don't know what that is.

I want to end my speech today by acknowledging all the women who are standing in the local elections. The voting papers are out today. I want to acknowledge the legacy: that 126 years that women have had the vote in New Zealand. I went to urge every woman out there to get out there and support every other woman that's standing, and vote—vote, because that was fought for 126 years ago today. On that note, I commend this excellent, excellent bill to the House. Mālō.

Hon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): Well, that was a fascinating contribution from that member. It sounded like a general debate speech, and she was imploring people to get out in the local body elections and vote. This is a rather interesting bill; the Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill. It went through the Environment Committee, and I'm now sitting on the Environment Committee, and it's a very interesting committee. But when I came onto the committee, this bill had gone through. So I've done a little bit of research for the House, so that those members over the other side that have been given speaking notes from the Labour research unit actually know what they're talking about.

Now, this bill creates a Crown entity. It received about 86 submissions, so it's not a big bill. It's, really, a nothing bill; 44 submitters were heard in person, and a lot of the community organisations who are providing that very important community housing were concerned about this bill, that it was going to deal to them. But they learnt, in the select committee, it's not. So they left thinking, "What is, really, the purpose of this bill?" Well, the purpose of this bill, the nub of the issue, allows the Government to get hold of Housing New Zealand's balance sheet, to use it so that they can expand the portfolio. What we've heard this afternoon is they've bagged the National Party, "The National Government didn't do enough in housing", and they've gone on and built I think it's about 2,000-odd State houses in the last couple of years. A lot of those were started under the National Government.

Of course, what you don't hear from the other side of the House this afternoon, this two-word phrase; you don't hear KiwiBuild mentioned at all. Of course, when Labour campaigned, they campaigned saying they were going to build—all their heads go down—100,000 homes. Of course, we know that that hasn't occurred at all. Last count: 286 houses have been built under the Labour coalition Government. So over the last two years, just under 300 houses have been built under the banner of KiwiBuild, which is now termed "KiwiFail". So what you haven't heard this afternoon from the Government benches is anyone talking about KiwiBuild, because it's such an embarrassment and disaster.

I have heard a contribution this afternoon about the Government's vision for reforming the Resource Management Act (RMA). Well, actually, we did quite a bit in our nine years of Government—

Hon Andrew Little: Ha, ha! Rubbish—absolute rubbish.

Hon NATHAN GUY: And Andrew Little pipes up. I was waiting for him to take the bait. Thank you, Minister, for taking the bait. What Andrew Little is not aware of is that we reformed the RMA, particularly to call in projects of national significance to a board of inquiry, for that process to occur within nine months. For those people in my electorate who are commuting out of Wellington this evening through to the wonderful Kāpiti coast, they'll be driving on the Kāpiti Expressway; a project that was called in through the reform of the RMA, and that went through a consenting process of nine months. My commuters—

Hon Andrew Little: It had to be resealed twice.

Hon NATHAN GUY: —Mr Little—will be delighted to drive on Transmission Gully, which will open next year as part of the reforms that the National Government did to the RMA. What do we hear from the other side, from the Government? Well, they're going to reform the RMA. But hold on, it's a working group—it's a working group. We wait for No. 312 working group to report back, and that won't occur until 2021.

So, in summary, this is really a nothing bill. It is confusing, it's going to create a Crown entity, it's not going to do much, and the big issue for New Zealand is to ensure that houses are built. This isn't going to deliver any more houses, because the private sector are calling out to the Government to make some changes, particularly to the RMA, and we're going to get into the election campaign—here's my bet—in the next sort of eight or nine months, and nothing will have happened under this Government to the RMA. They won't have reached out to Judith Collins, who's leading the charge for us. She smashed Phil Twyford on KiwiBuild. We're doing all the work so that we're not going to be in the position in 2020, if we get there in 2020, where we wouldn't have done the homework. It wouldn't be nine years of doing nothing, and not supporting our changes on the RMA. They've been there two years and done nothing. This is a nothing bill, and we don't support it.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, unlike that other member, I'm actually proud to be part of a Government that's tackling the long-term challenges facing our country, and one of the biggest challenges we've got is the huge mess in housing that was left by the previous Government. Certainly, down in Invercargill, where I live, we've got lots and lots of people that are struggling to find decent housing, and, in particular, we've got this acute shortage of State and social housing because of the huge number of sell-offs by the previous Government.

So what this bill does is it does two key things: the first thing it does is it becomes a world-class public housing landlord, and then the second thing it's going to be doing is becoming the leading coordination of urban development projects. What we need is decent coordination in terms of housing and urban development, and we need a decent standard of rental housing to address this housing crisis.

What I want to do today is just focus, first of all, on the role of a world-class public housing landlord, because I think for anybody that's ever been a tenant—like myself—what you really realise is that you're incredibly reliant on the decisions that are made by your landlord. The decisions about insulation, the decisions about whether you fix up those leaks and whether you do the maintenance—all those basic, basic decisions. Do you put a heat pump in or not—because the problem is that if you live in a crappy, cold, damp house, you live with those decisions every single day. You live with them when you put your child to bed at night and you live with them when you get up, freezing, in the morning and send them off to school, and that has huge consequences for kids for their health and for their wellbeing.

So, thankfully, our Government has put some decent rental housing standards in place that will put a bottom line in for many of those areas, and that's incredibly important.

Chris Bishop: That was our bill, thanks very much.

Dr LIZ CRAIG: You put in the insulation, but our standards also include things like dampness, and they include things like thinking about what your clean-heat source is, so you can afford to turn on the heater. Over the next couple of years, a lot of the living standards of many, many tenants will be significantly improved, and so this is where the Government needs to be leading and setting the standard in terms of decent, quality housing for those people, for us—for all of us. I think the thing we've got, though, is that what this bill does is it legislates. So some of those social housing objectives that were recently introduced into Housing New Zealand—what it is doing is it's legislating for those and putting those into law. Things like providing decent housing, being a fair and compassionate landlord, and helping to sustain tenancies—those are some of the principles.

So what this bill does is it talks about the operating principles that will be underpinning Kāinga Ora, and those operating principles are what the Kāinga Ora board will have to enforce. The first one of those is very, very simple: providing good quality, warm, dry, and healthy rental housing, a thing that many, many kids—a whole generation of kids—over the last decade, have missed out on.

What I used to see in my old job was we used to see thousands of kids coming into hospital every year with respiratory infections, and many of those were from the poorer parts of town, where rental homes were substandard. What we were seeing was kids coming in with bronchiolitis, pneumonia, and bronchiectasis, which is permanent lung scarring. What these rental standards are doing, and what Kāinga Ora becoming a world-class landlord and providing warm, dry, healthy homes is doing, is that they will have a huge impact on many of those families.

Some of the other underlying operating principles include supporting tenants to be well-connected with their communities and to lead lives with dignity and the greatest degree of independence possible, and to sustain tenancies, so that you're not worrying about having to change houses all the time and changing schools for your kids, and the impact that that has—so, some of those basic operating principles to underpin what we're doing.

But the other thing is thinking about ensuring that we've got housing supply and that it meets demand, and so some of those other principles that this bill introduces is managing our housing stock prudently, including upgrading and managing it to ensure it remains fit for purpose. That's where the ball got dropped under the previous Government as well. So, many of our State houses got rundown, and so then we couldn't be proud as a Government, as a landlord, because of the state of those rental houses—but also ensuring that housing developed is appropriately mixed, so you have communities, so you can have public, affordable, and market housing mixed together and creating the communities that people want to live in. So it's incredibly important to have these operating principles embedded into law.

One of the other things, I think, and this is where the zero carbon bill—and we've heard a lot of conversations about climate change over the last year. So what this talks about is operating in a manner that recognises the need to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change. It also talks about that in the Government policy statement (GPS), which is also introduced by this bill, because what this bill does is it requires a strategic direction to be set out in terms of where we're going in housing and urban development.

So what the bill, in Part 2, talks about is "Ministers must issue a GPS on housing and urban development no later than"—it's 2021. So we've got two years, from when this bill comes in, to have that Government policy statement which outlines our broader vision in terms of where we're going in housing. Basically, that needs to be reviewed every three years to make sure it's up to date. There's a whole range of things that the legislation sets out in terms of what needs to be in that, but there's one that says this must include a multi-decade outlook, because it's incredibly important that we don't just focus on what's in front of us. We need that broader vision because a lot of the building programme, a lot of what we're developing, will take time to bed in, and we need to know where we're going in the bigger picture.

But it also talks about how Kāinga Ora will recognise the need to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change, because all around the country, what we've got are huge infrastructure assets that are within one or two metres of sea-level rise. I think about down where we are in Invercargill. Our airport is at a very low level of sea level, and we've got, around the country, many, many houses that while they may be higher than a couple of metres of sea-level rise, the roads that get to them aren't. The sewage plants that actually are going to be looking after those housing developments—if they're at sea level, we've got to be thinking about what we're doing there. So what this bill does is it says that within the Government policy statement, the Government must think about that broader vision in terms of where we're going in terms of mitigation and adaptation for climate change, which is incredibly important.

There's a range of other things that must be included in terms of this Government policy statement, in terms of looking at the overall direction and talking about what the other Government agencies need to be doing in this area, because I think what's really important is if you've got other agencies and other people thinking about where they're going to be building their infrastructure, and what they're doing, they need to have a very, very clear idea of where the Government's going. I think that's what was highlighted in some of the submissions that came in with the Environment Committee. What they were talking about is having that sense of: if we know where the Government policy statement is going, and the Government has laid out its direction, that means that developers and others can get a sense of that and then they can plan accordingly.

So I think this bill is incredibly important because, on the one hand, it sets out how we are going to be as a public landlord and the kind of principles that we want underpinning our role as a landlord. I think that had we had that over the past decade, the lives of many, many families would be significantly different, because we would've thought about how we can provide warm, dry housing, but we also could've thought about how we provide secure tenancies and how we can have those communities that kids want to grow up in and feel absolutely at home.

In that, we also need to know where we're going as a country—what's our broader strategic direction? This is where, again, I look at the struggle we've got with social housing down in Invercargill. Across all of Southland in the early 1990s, we had over 800 State houses, but just progressive sell-offs and we're down to under 400 just before the last election. We've stopped the sell-offs and we've started to rebuild more, but I don't know whether anybody actually thought about, consciously, what we were doing in that and then what would happen and the impact that would have on families.

And, certainly, it's families that I meet now in my office, and all the agencies down in Invercargill also are actually working with. So it's incredibly important that we have that broader strategic direction so that we know where we're going and know what impact our policies are having and how they'll impact on our families and our community. So I'm incredibly proud to be speaking on the third reading of this bill, because I think it's going to have a huge impact for good in terms of our country, in terms of our strategic direction on housing, in terms of our strategic direction on urban infrastructure, and I'm very, very pleased to commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 63

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.

Noes 57

New Zealand National 55; ACT New Zealand 1; Ross.

Bill read a third time.