Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Bill

JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) Link to this

I say “Good morning New Zealand” and give a particular welcome to those listeners in the Wairarapa, my electorate. This legislation demonstrates everything that is wrong with this Government. First of all, the wording has child-like simplicity, as my colleague Tim Groser said last night. Secondly, when we look at what this bill will do we see it will do nothing. This is worthless legislation, and the Government is doing exactly the same thing with this legislation as it did with the Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill. With that bill the Government set up the theatre of doing something important. This housing legislation is all theatre as well. It will do nothing and has no substance, whatsoever. It is a political fig leaf. This legislation demonstrates that the Government is again transferring responsibility from central government to ratepayers, through territorial authorities—just as it has done over the past 9 long years. This legislation will simply impose more taxes on to communities.

With this legislation the Government aims to put increased costs on to developers and builders, just as it did with the Retirement Villages Act 2003. This Government has put huge compliance costs on to entities that try to provide accommodation for our old folk. What is the net result of those huge compliance costs? In the last 3 or 4 years all those small retirement villages have folded. This housing legislation will do exactly the same thing, because it aims to load developers and builders with increased costs. This legislation will increase bureaucracy in territorial authorities, because it creates a new employment category—the housing inspector.

In this House there is no disagreement about the need for affordable housing for people, but there is a philosophical difference between the squawkers on the other side of the House and the serious people on this side. This bill highlights the serious philosophical differences on this issue of affordable housing. Our method of dealing with this issue is, first, to create the conditions where this economy grows and money is left in people’s pockets, not sucked out by an over-bloated Government. The first thing is to leave money in people’s pockets, and that means capping the growth of Government, capping the amount of taxes, and then reducing them over a period of time, so that people have more money in their pockets.

Second, we have to strip away the increased bureaucracy that this Government has created. I think particularly of the Resource Management Act. In the House last night I gave the example of a fellow from Greytown, where I also live, who had to pay $900 to get resource consent to build a fowlhouse for four hens. What arrant nonsense this Government is imposing on our communities.

Third, we have to remove the constant stream of burdens that have been imposed on territorial authorities by this Government over the last 9 years. I am thinking of air quality requirements, I am thinking of water quality requirements. Those things may apply in Wellington, Auckland, and Christchurch but I promise you they do not apply in much of provincial New Zealand. By imposing those requirements we put a huge burden on our communities.

Then I address the lack of intellectual thought that goes into the big projects that this Government proposes to support. If we are thinking about the need for more affordable houses, we realise there is quite a simple solution. It applies in my electorate, which stretches from Ngawī and Cape Palliser on the south coast, to north of Waipukurau and Waipawa—

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) Link to this

I want to take a very brief call on behalf of United Future on the Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Bill. As I mentioned in the second reading, United Future supported the first reading. We were excited to see the Government weighing up some options around affordable housing, but we have been disappointed in what has come out the other end and are unable to support the bill any further.

The bill gives powers to territorial authorities that they may, or may not, use. If they do choose to exercise the powers contained within the bill, it is unclear whether they are obliged to apply them in an even-handed way. The truth is a council could impose rigid obligations on one property developer and choose not to require similar obligations of another. How that would play itself out at a local level is completely unclear.

The bill provides very limited guidelines to the territorial authorities about who they can capture with these new powers, if they choose to use them. It is unclear, for instance, whether they can capture current landowners who purchased land in anticipation of establishing a housing development sometime in the future, and who were unaware at the time that they purchased that land that the territorial authorities would subsequently be given powers to slap some serious challenges on to their business plans.

United Future agrees with, I think, all parties in this House that central government should be looking very seriously at a range of options to better facilitate the provision of affordable housing in New Zealand. However, we do not believe that this bill is a well-considered option, and we are sorry to say that we have to pull our support at this stage. The bill has some other interesting provisions that have merit, but we cannot agree with the main thrust of it, which I think is to place upon the territorial authorities much greater responsibility for the provision of affordable housing. One of the things that United Future is scared of is that it shifts the responsibility to the territorial authorities in a way that is unhelpful. We think that the territorial authorities could choose to incentivise the provision of affordable housing through reduced compliance costs—that is a hugely positive possibility that, even now, they could choose to do—but they should not actually dictate to a landowner. That is why United Future is a little surprised that the Māori Party has chosen to support this bill. That party has a fine track record in this House of advocating and standing up for the property rights of others. I think that is an area that that party has neglected to consider in terms of the imposition that this bill allows the territorial authorities to place on landowners.

The motive is good, the motive is fine, but the bill certainly breaches the principles of our party, and we are unable to support its third reading.