Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill

ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) Link to this

I seek leave for Shane Ardern to assume the Chair.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) Link to this

Is there any objection to that course of action? There is none.

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) Link to this

Mr Chairman, it is a privilege to speak, with you in the Chair. It is also a privilege to welcome back the Minister of Housing, Chris Carter, from his overseas jaunt. He has been away for some time. There has been a lot of movement within Housing New Zealand Corporation in that time with regard to the recent allegations of financial mismanagement and the gagging clause, which have put this country into shock. Essentially, we saw a public servant be gagged by a contract that came from his department. Housing New Zealand Corporation stopped its staff from talking to the media, but what was worse was that it also stopped them from talking to their duly elected member of Parliament, who could have been any one of us, or a Minister of the Crown—indeed, it could have been that very Minister. However, that is water under the bridge, to a degree, though we should explore the details around that issue, perhaps later this week.

This afternoon, though, we are discussing the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill. The aim of this bill is to amend the Housing Restructuring Act 1992. First of all, I say we support the Government’s moves to rename the Act as the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Act 1992, and to insert information-matching provisions in the Act to allow Housing New Zealand Corporation to disclose information about tenants and tenancies to the Ministry of Social Development, as the ministry responsible for the administration of the Social Security Act 1964. The ministry is very interested and quite intrigued to know about the goings-on in Housing New Zealand Corporation. It needs to check that the benefits it parts with on behalf of the taxpayer go to the right people—to those in need, and not to those who are rorting the system.

In fact, it is interesting to note—and Minister may like to pay attention to this particular point, because it is quite a poignant one—that National tried to introduce legislation on this matter in 1999. At that time, Labour did not see fit to support the legislation. However, after 6½ years in Government, I think that the problem has crystallised in the minds of the Labour members, and Minister Carter has decided that perhaps it would have been a good thing to support National 6 years ago. Now he has actually grabbed hold of the baton and carried the torch, so to speak, from that National Government, and has introduced this legislation. So how could the National members not support their very good idea of 6 or 7 years ago?

We are a party of transparency, a party of openness, and a party where privacy rights are protected, but only to the degree that lawful citizens are able to go about their own business in their own private lives. We become concerned where we see rorting of the system—and, certainly under this Minister’s watch, we have seen a fair bit of that within Housing New Zealand Corporation and the State house sector, particularly while the Minister has been overseas, focusing on other things in the fine restaurants of Britain. We have seen a lot of those rorts go on under the Minister’s watch, and I know that he is a bit concerned about that issue and he is chasing his tail. This year I will continue to present him with the facts on the rorts that waste taxpayers’ money. Week by week and month by month I will put them before the Minister, and perhaps he will address them in time. He has addressed this issue—7 years late, yes. But grandma would say—and that Minister’s grandma would say this too, if she were alive today—“Better late than never”. “Better late than never, Christopher—”

BOB CLARKSON (National—Tauranga) Link to this

This bill is quite a good idea, but it needs more teeth. I think the information should be going both ways, between the Ministry of Social Development and the Housing New Zealand Corporation. The corporation should get the information from social services, as this would help to catch a lot of multi-benefits that are being paid out when they should not have to be paid out. I know of many cases where one household is receiving two or three benefits, and the recipients are all using the same address—just so members know—and that could be picked up quite easily.

PAULA BENNETT (National) Link to this

I rise to speak in support of the bill and to ask a few questions. First of all, I will deal with the Green minority view in the commentary on the bill. The Greens say that they oppose the bill because they are: “concerned by the proliferation of information-matching programmes operating between Government agencies and the intrusion this represents into the personal lives of New Zealanders …” who are on welfare. My answer to that would be, quite simply, for people not to be on welfare, then their lives will not be intruded upon, they can get on and live their lives their way, and they can look after themselves.

I certainly support information sharing because I think it has the opportunity to—

Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Housing) Link to this

I thank the previous speaker, Paula Bennett, the National list member. I thought her speech was a thoughtful presentation that raised some important questions, and I will focus on a few of them and on the points she raised.

Miss Bennett asked whether State housing is allocated on a needs-based assessment. I can assure her it is. Since 1999 the allocation of houses for Housing New Zealand Corporation tenants has been entirely on a needs base. There is quite a rigorous test. I represent a constituency that adjoins where her office is, and both of us know well that we live in an area that has the largest Housing New Zealand Corporation waiting list in the country. I regularly have people coming into my office—as does Miss Bennett, as she indicated in her speech—who are very unhappy that they have not yet been able to access a Housing New Zealand Corporation house in west Auckland, because we do follow a very strict needs assessment. Sadly, because of the 13,000 houses that were sold by the previous Government, we are behind in the number of properties we have available to rent out, but we are rapidly catching up.

The issue of wealthy tenants was also raised by the member. It is true that some people pay market rents—about 10 percent of Housing New Zealand Corporation tenants. But they are tenants we inherited, by and large, from a previous time when people were paying large rents and the selection for State houses was made not on a needs basis but on the ability to pay. I can say that 98 percent of new tenants are not paying market rents but income-related rents—they have been placed in a Housing New Zealand Corporation house on a needs basis only. In some areas, particularly rural areas, we do not have a waiting list, so properties are available there that sometimes do go to market renters. But, as I said, 98 percent of new tenants are paying income-related rents, showing that the system of helping those who need help the most is working. But we are still working on the stock.

Anyway, getting back to the bill itself—although I think that background information is important—I will say that there was a lot of focus by the first two speakers on what are essentially rorts to the system. This bill will actually be very helpful for beneficiaries who are Housing New Zealand Corporation tenants. It will ensure that beneficiaries are receiving the full entitlement to social assistance, and the Ministry of Social Development will be able to check that Housing New Zealand Corporation tenants are receiving their correct entitlements. Should Housing New Zealand Corporation tenants move into private rental accommodation, they will then, through the system, be able to be checked as to whether an accommodation supplement is appropriate to their needs.

So this bill is about streamlining the system. It is about identifying where the greatest need is. One of the issues many members of the Committee will have had to deal with in their time as constituency MPs is that of people who run up debts through social welfare overpayments. That does happen sometimes. This debt can be neglected very easily, and suddenly people who are on a very low income or a benefit can discover that they have, through an overpayment process, quite a considerable debt on their hands. This system of matching databases will go a long way to preventing that situation from happening, and, of course, will ultimately be very beneficial to those who have received overpayments so as to nip the thing in the bud as early as possible. So I think it is a very sensible process. I thank the main Opposition party for supporting the bill, and I am looking forward to us working through this process fairly quickly.

LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) Link to this

This is a good bill. It had its genesis back in 1999, when National tried at that time to introduce a bill in order to bring about the transparency and accountability that my colleague Paula Bennett spoke about earlier. It is good that the Minister has acknowledged National’s support for this bill. Other speakers from National will also articulate our position on it.

If we go back in time 6½ or 7 years, when Labour did not support the previous bill, we have to ask why it is introducing this measure now. Why did Labour not support the previous bill in 1999? Was it just because National was in Government and Labour was in Opposition that Labour thought that bill was a bad idea? The same sort of thing could be said now that National is in Opposition, so maybe we should just vote against the bill. But no, this bill has merit because, as my colleagues have said, it will bring about transparency and accountability. It will make sure that there is a matching of information between Housing New Zealand Corporation and the Ministry of Social Development. It is certainly our view that that is advantageous.

There have been rorts, and we want to make sure that any assistance that goes with housing is based on need. If rorts are happening, then they need to be sorted out. The matching of information must be very much part of the process. We do not want to have abuse of the system—there has been too much of that. We actually want the rorts to be sorted out, and we want to see exactly how the process will work.

Section 67, “Purpose of section 68”, inserted by clause 5, spells out the situation very well. Section 67(a) states: “verify the entitlement …”. That is very important. What are tenants entitled to? Are they getting the right entitlement? Time and time again constituents come to see me who do not really know what they are entitled to. It is not until we act on their behalf that we find out what they are entitled to and eligible for. That is fine. If we can help them in that respect, that is well and good. So section 67(a) refers to the verification of the entitlement or eligibility. The second point, in section 67(b), is about verifying the amount of benefit people are entitled to. With all the different benefits that are available, the provision in its totality deals with the benefits a person is entitled to. Thirdly, section 67(c) refers to the recovery of debts due to the Crown. Many people think it is their right, rather than a privilege, to have a State house. They think that is their right. They can do damage. They have no respect for what they have been given by the State and by us as taxpayers, and then debts are incurred. We say we need to have accountability.

I want to give an example that I think demonstrates that. In my earlier days, when I left university, I flatted with a widow. She had a young child. Her mother, who had a three-bedroom State house, did not live in her State house. She did not live there at all; she actually came and lived with the daughter. There was a three-bedroom State house that had nobody in it, yet there were families at that time who would have been overjoyed had they been able to have access to it. In the meantime, because the house was vacant, it was vandalised. I went around there on occasions to try to tidy the place up—to mow the lawns, and do things like that—yet the house became vandalised because there was no tenant. But would that person give that house up? No, she would not. She did not live in it during the 1-year period that I was flatting with that couple, but she did not give the house up, because it was her home. Yet there were very worthy families that could have moved into that three-bedroom home located in a nice part of Hamilton.

So National is fully supportive of this bill. Information sharing between the ministry and the corporation is the way to go. We believe that the bill will break down secrecy, and facilitate transparency and accountability. It will bring together the sharing of information so that everybody benefits and, where there are rorts, those rorts can be determined and ironed out. The matching of data is something National has supported. We also say that the identification of need is the criterion we should use to maximise and crystallise the argument—that the people who are worthy of support should receive it, and we should not have people who want to rip the system off. As my colleague Bob Clarkson said, there are numerous examples of people living in State houses and collecting more than one benefit—in fact, a number of benefits. Even my colleague Phil Heatley has identified that in this Chamber previously.

So National is very pleased to be able to support this bill. It is long overdue. As I said, it had its genesis back in 1999, and we are happy that it is proceeding through the Committee stage tonight.

NATHAN GUY (National) Link to this

It is interesting to listen to this debate as we go through the Committee stage this evening. I guess I have to raise the question about the relationship we want to forge with the Housing New Zealand Corporation and the Ministry of Social Development. When we look at the triangle, we need to look at the relationship with the Labour Party during the last election campaign, when eviction notices went out to all those State housing tenants. We have to ask ourselves how that information got out. Was it through the Housing New Zealand Corporation?

PAULA BENNETT (National) Link to this

As a member of the Social Services Committee that looked at this bill, I would like to help the Committee on a couple of matters. One in particular is the Housing New Zealand Corporation database and how that information got into the hands of the Labour Party so it could distribute that material as a scaremongering tactic—which very much describes Labour’s tactics during the election campaign. Interestingly enough, the corporation’s officials made no response when we asked how its database came to be used by Labour. This raised quite some concern for the National Party, as the corporation deals with information, and the bill is about information sharing and information matching. We asked the corporation—given that something is already so wrong with its database that information could get into the wrong hands and be used maliciously, as it was during the campaign—what this means as far as information matching and this bill are concerned. Well, everyone looked at each other rather sideways and gulped three times, but no one could actually come up with any answers.

I ask for a bit of caution. I certainly follow on from the previous speaker, Nathan Guy, in asking the Minister to take a call on this matter, because it is a vitally important question that I think New Zealanders need to have answered. We are talking about information matching, about a database, and about sharing information between departments. We need to be careful that people’s information is being treated with the respect it deserves. Obviously, we have seen an actual case of that information having been used in a way—

Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) Link to this

I move, That the question be now put.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) Link to this

I take Paula Bennett’s point that we want to help people get on in life and help those who are in poorer circumstances, as many in Housing New Zealand Corporation properties are. But I do not think we will do that by putting any negative attitude on people who happen to be in State-provided accommodation as against private accommodation. We need the attitude that a good State house is as good as any other house, any other rental property, and, hopefully, any private owner-occupied property.

We have a tradition, going back to the first State houses in 1938, of New Zealanders living in State houses often for long periods of time and really treating them as their own—treating them well and doing the gardens. The State house suburbs that developed in New Zealand have nurtured many of the people in this room, I understand. John Key lived in a State house himself, although he has more recently taken a somewhat negative attitude to State houses in opposing the building of State houses in the Hobsonville development in his electorate. That was a bit of a put-down of State houses. Unfortunately, in some other instances when areas are being planned, people try to impose conditions that no State housing can be developed in those areas or that no State housing tenants can live there.

So there is a certain negative attitude afoot. I think this bill in some ways—even if only minor ways—contributes to that negative attitude, because the data-matching will occur between Work and Income and the Housing New Zealand Corporation, so it will apply only to people who are on benefits and happen to be in State-provided accommodation. There is no parallel matching—and of course that would be difficult—between Work and Income and those people in private rental accommodation.

So there is an inequality there. The Greens are concerned, and issues of privacy have been raised. There are so many matching programmes now; they are expanding year by year. The Privacy Commissioner has indicated a certain concern that the more programmes there are, the more abuse there can be in the system, too. The people who operate these data-matching agencies—the State employees—are human beings and can misuse the agencies, as other human beings do in society. This data-matching system is not necessary, and as the minority report from the Green Party states, the Ministry of Social Development can obtain the information required for benefits through informed consent rather than by imposing this highly computerised data-matching system. There is no demonstrated need for this legislation at this time. It is leading us down the wrong track and placing a negative attitude on those who happen to be State house tenants.

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) Link to this

I rise to talk about Part 2. I have to inform the Committee that I have had some formal discussions with my colleagues on this side of the Chamber and I want the Committee to take into account that we have come to an agreement. Should the Minister choose to answer the questions put by Nathan Guy and Paula Bennett on the source of the State house tenants’ personal details that went to the Labour Party during the last election campaign so it could direct-mail the tenants threatening letters, we would give leave to that if the Chairman felt it was not within the scope of this particular part. We are relaxed about it being in the scope, if the Minister wants to address it. If the Minister wants to seek leave so he can address it and put to death those issues, then this side of the Committee will absolutely support that, because we would like answers, as would the State house tenants who lived in a climate of fear for those 2 months leading up to the last general election, and, of course, the general public as well.

Part 2, “Consequential amendments to Privacy Act 1993”, is a reasonably simple and necessary part that deals with the definition of the specified agency that will be involved in the information matching. In this legislation, we are not passing that every Government agency be able or obliged to share information with the Ministry of Social Development. We could not have that; we could not have every single agency being rash and free with the personal information held dear by Kiwis within the privacy of their lives and homes. We could not have that information splashing around the Internet, across the Minister’s desk, or in the information presented to the Labour Party president every month. What we are talking about here, of course, is just information relating to the Housing New Zealand Corporation.

More important, clause 6, “Interpretation” states: “(2) The definition of specified agency is … the Housing New Zealand Corporation established”—and people will recall this—“(as the Housing Corporation of New Zealand) by section 3(1) of the Housing Corporation Act 1974:”. So there is a play around with words there on the Housing New Zealand Corporation and the Housing Corporation of New Zealand. We are being specific here so that we would not be caught up somehow in the future, if the courts establish that the wrong organisation was involved in information sharing with the Ministry of Social Development. Thank goodness for Part 2.

This part, interestingly enough, formed one of the amendments that I was going to present tonight if the Minister and his officials had not covered it off, but—of course—they had, in the bill that was presented to the House before the select committee looked at it. The Minister’s officials were on the ball there. The Minister did not have to catch them out—I certainly did not catch them out—and the National Party will be cooperative in addressing that particular issue.

We also see clause 7, where schedule 3 is amended by inserting: “in its appropriate alphabetical order, the following item: Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Act 1992”. So schedule 3, after the passing of this legislation, will contain the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Act 1992 under section 68. That relates to the Ministry of Social Development and the issue of information sharing.

In summing up for this particular part, I will read a letter that was sent in mid-June. It states: “Dear Mr Brash, Thank you for pressing on with your investigations in Housing New Zealand. I’m thrilled to bits with this bill that will enable tenants of Housing New Zealand to be investigated, and that, of course, is investigated if necessary.” This particular person will remain confidential, because we have not passed an Act in this Parliament that allows me to brandish names here, there, and everywhere. I can, of course do it inside the House, but I am not Winston Peters; I am just not going to do it. That person acknowledges that Dr Brash and the National Party in 1999 first of all brought in these provisions, and we thank the Minister for passing them through this stage today.

PAULA BENNETT (National) Link to this

I rise to talk about Part 2, “Consequential amendments to the Privacy Act 1993”, which amends the definition of specified agency in the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Act. The question I have as well, which is within the scope of clause 6, “Interpretation”, amending the definition of “specified agency”, is whether anything will be happening with the move to one benefit. I know that the single core benefit—relating to entitlements—is not quite within this part but is within parts of the part. When we move to this single core benefit, can the Minister in the chair, Chris Carter, see what will result when there is one benefit with different parts to it—for example, the accommodation supplement? I wonder whether the Minister has discussed with the Ministry of Social Development how that will happen, given the changes that are going on concerning accommodation allowances, and so on. My own conversations with the ministry and the Minister have suggested that they are not quite sure how this will work; and they have been talking for a long time about moving to the single core benefit. I wonder what, if they have not quite got it right, the provisions about information sharing and the specified agency will mean for those people.

It is fine for us to stand up here and spout about entitlements and say that people should be getting what they deserve, and what they need to survive, but let us talk about some of the theory and the actual practice. The practice at the moment is not clear-cut. certainly the intention of going to the single core benefit is to make it more simple, but I do not know whether that will happen in practice. At the moment, I can see that we will be having conflicts about information sharing, anyway. I ask whether the Minister has thought through how, when we actually change the system, it will meet the information-sharing requirements. That is something the National Party certainly has concerns about. As I said previously, it is incredibly important that people get the help they need while they need it, so they can then move on and live more fulfilling lives and have more aspirations—and perhaps not live in a State house for the rest of their lives.

I take umbrage at a previous speaker who said there should be no difference between living in a State house and living somewhere else. I challenge that, and say I think there should be. I think people should aspire for more for themselves and their families. We in the National Party do not apologise for that. We do not apologise for wanting more for New Zealand—and more for New Zealanders—than having to be dependent on the State. We are not about to start apologising for that now.

So when members say there should be no differentiation and that it should all be the same and we should not be judging people—and there has been talk about entitlements and social development and so on—the reality is that people are on welfare and they are getting help from the taxpayer. They deserve it and, as I said, I have no qualms at all about those needing housing, but let us not start apologising for the aspiration of wanting more for New Zealanders.

There is this crying, bleeding-heart attitude that we need to be looking after everybody’s rights and making sure that everyone is getting everything. Let us make sure we are helping people who need it—in the short term. What is happening is that it is becoming longer and longer, and so we have intergenerational welfare dependency, with people losing that aspiration, in thinking that what they have got is OK—and it is not; they can actually do better than OK. They can actually have more than just “OK”, and they can do better than living in a State house for the rest of their lives, and then their kids’ lives, and then the kids after that. The National Party is the party that stands up and advocates for more for people and sees them having dreams and aspirations and getting off welfare and getting out of their State house. I do not want my information shared, in all honesty. So I am just not going to be in a situation where I need to do that.

BOB CLARKSON (National—Tauranga) Link to this

The Housing Restructuring Act badly needs things included, but National members will live with the amendments that are in this Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill. I worry that if the Government gets more information, it might go into overload.

The Government has made a mess of the Housing New Zealand Corporation in the last 6½ years, and I ask how it will improve its performance. The Housing New Zealand Corporation is wasting vast amounts of money at the moment, and has been doing so for years. Yes, this bill will help, but it will not solve all the problems. I am not going to tell Labour how to fix the problems, at the moment; I will, with the National Party’s and Phil Heatley’s approval, tell it what to do, before the next election. The Labour Party members should wait with bated breath. In fact, some of the members on the other side of the House today were taking swipes at me. They got their facts wrong; they must be hooked into the wrong phone or something.

Labour currently has 11,000 people on the waiting list. I hear these figures being twisted around in the House. But is it not strange that when National went out of power in 1999, there were only 14 families on the urgent waiting list in Auckland? [Interruption] Down, boys! This system needs sorting. As I said, this bill and its amendments will help, but I do not think the taxpayers will be happy to wait and hope that the Labour Government sorts out this major problem. It is costing the taxpayers thousands of dollars. Let us clean this mess up. If we can stop the rorts, we might be able to lessen dramatically the Housing New Zealand Corporation funding.

I look forward to making the Act much better when National is in Government. When we change it, the new name of it will be “Housing for Kiwis in Need Act”.

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) Link to this

I endorse the comments of my colleague Bob Clarkson, MP for Tauranga. Certainly—and I use that word “certainly” as something I picked up from Parekura—there is much to do in the State housing sector. I am unsure whether the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill will do all the things National wants to do, but we will be targeting some things. We would have used some of these provisions to target Kiwis in need.

There are Kiwi families up and down this country who are in genuine need. Many are in dire financial straits, and all they need is financial help and a roof over their heads—often for just a short time—so they can get on with supporting themselves. Through hearing some of the comments from the Minister Chris Carter tonight and by reading press releases relating to this bill, we see that Labour would rather help those people but keep them in dependency. I do not think it is a deliberate, malicious effort by the Government or its Ministers to keep those people in dependency, but because of the Government’s ignorance and unwillingness to look further at people’s potential, it does, in fact, by default, keep them in dependency. We cannot have a country where the Government provides welfare to an extent that it goes to first, second, and third generations.

The cynical amongst us would say that welfare is cash for votes—that it is cash for votes when Labour tosses out money in New Plymouth just to keep Harry Duynhoven’s majority above 20,000 votes. There are cynical people in this House who would say that Labour would keep people on welfare just to save Marian Hobbs’ seat and to compensate for the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary debacle that she oversaw. But we in the National Party are saying no—whether it is State housing, the domestic purposes benefit, the unemployment benefit, or any other benefit. Benefits are there to help people for a time while they are in need. Labour members do not believe in that, but National members certainly do.

It is a sad thing that list members on the other side of the House, who are replacing the whips—who could not organise a vote for the dog microchipping legislation last week—came in to Government on the back of the votes of many of those receiving a benefit. Some of the people receiving a benefit believe that the key to their continuing on the benefit is a vote for the Labour Party. Labour members believe that the key to their remaining in power is to throw more benefits to those people. It is a dependency culture—the Labour Party depends on the beneficiary, and the beneficiary depends on the Labour Party. It is a sad thing when welfare goes past need and ventures into generation after generation of State dependency. Harry Duynhoven, the member for New Plymouth, and Marian Hobbs, the member for Wellington Central—stumbling in the seat though she is—should be ashamed of that.

BOB CLARKSON (National—Tauranga) Link to this

Is this the title debate now?

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

I want to take a very brief call in support of this bill. I think it is really important when we look at the bill’s title that we understand that what is happening here is information matching, not information sharing, which is a little bit different. What we have here is two Government departments in possession of important information, often about the same people, and they will be able to measure that information against each other to check whether any rort is going on. I think everybody would agree that that is important.

What the bill does not do is to pass on information to an organisation that did not previously have it. That is an important thing. In terms of future developments regarding information, when information is passed from one organisation to another, we need to be extremely careful. I am very glad that we have an Office of the Privacy Commissioner that offers the kind of advice it does to make sure that we keep ourselves in check in that regard.

United Future believes that this bill is really important, for two reasons. It is very important to match this information so that people are getting the entitlements they are due. Where people may perhaps be entitled to more than they understood they were, this is a way of isolating and identifying that those people may be short-changed. Of course, the second reason is that this measure provides us with the opportunity to make sure that people are not double-dipping in the system, which is to the detriment of the New Zealand taxpayer and to the detriment of other people who are in need of the services of Work and Income and the Housing New Zealand Corporation. We are very pleased to support the bill, we think it has merit, and we wish it well on its passage through the House.

PAULA BENNETT (National) Link to this

I stand to support the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill, and I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak a little more broadly on it than I have previously. I found it quite restrictive speaking within the parts, so I am sure the Minister of Housing, the Hon Chris Carter, will agree that it is nice for me to have the opportunity to talk a little about the bigger picture and what it means for this information-matching amendment bill to go through. I would certainly like the Minister to take a call and address for us, yet again, the issue of the single core benefit and the fact that it has been going through the throes and bureaucracy of Parliament for many, many years now, and still we keep being told it is coming, it is coming. I have questions as to how information matching—particularly when it comes to the entitlement part of the bill and ensuring that people are getting their dues—will work in relation to the benefit changes we are looking at with the single core benefit.

The other thing I am very keen for the Minister to talk a little about is how 60,000 letters were distributed via the Housing New Zealand Corporation’s database. There have been calls for the Minister to do that this evening, and I back my colleague the knowledgable and incredibly talented, when it comes to matters of housing, Phil Heatley. It has to be a concern, as far as the privacy of people’s information is concerned, that a malicious letter was sent out before the election campaign. It informed people that if a National Government were elected, they could expect to be thrown out of their State houses, which of course was not true. It was a complete and utter lie. What that did was to fill people with fear.

The question we need to ask, when we are looking at the issue of information matching, is where that information came from and how people gained access to it. We have asked those questions at the Social Services Committee and we asked the Privacy Commissioner about the matter, but we have been stalled and dead-ended. Those are important questions. Leaving aside the fact that the letter was intended to work against the National Party and that sort of thing, we need to look at the broader implications of that sort of knowledge being out there and what it means for the protection of a person’s right to privacy.

The Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill also talks about transparency and openness, which is something the National Party is delighted to be supporting. We like that level of transparency. We believe that information is power and that sharing it between the two departments makes sense. It makes so much sense that we tried to introduce something like this bill in 1999. Of course, it was National that saw that this bill would give the opportunity to open that up, and to have information going from one person in one department to the next. The ramifications are that this bill will benefit those people receiving welfare payments, because it means they can look at whether they are getting their full entitlement, and whether they are able to survive on that payment.

When it comes to income-related rents, it is always an interesting matter as to how much we help people with a hand up and not a handout. I know that the Minister addressed the matter earlier this evening, but I ask him yet again about the implications of second and third-generation welfare dependants coming through in relation to State housing. I unashamedly say that National has greater aspirations for them than that. Living on welfare and being in a State house is OK, and thank goodness such support is there for those who need that sort of assistance, but it is not the end, and it should not be the means, for those New Zealanders. They can aspire to having more, and we want to be able to take that idea to them and actually share it with them. Information sharing may actually help those people with that side of things.

My colleagues have certainly touched on the issue of welfare fraud a bit, and I agree that this bill will decrease the level of fraud—it will make it that little bit more difficult. Personally, I do not think a huge epidemic of welfare fraud is going on throughout society; I think it concerns a smaller portion. The sad thing, of course, is that those few in the minority make things sound bad and give everyone a bad reputation. We certainly believe in the carrot and stick approach, and this legislation gives an opportunity for us to come down hard on those who actually are rorting the system and taking money from those who really do need it and do deserve it. The facts are that when we spend a dollar on someone who is receiving it illegally and wrongly, it is a dollar taken from someone else who, possibly, really does need it to get by, and who deserves it.

Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Housing) Link to this

I would like to make a short contribution, first of all to thank the National Party and those other parties in the Chamber that will be supporting this legislation, which is, as the member for United Future said, about a data-sharing programme that will ultimately benefit those in State houses who may well not be receiving the full entitlement they are entitled to. The bill is also to avoid that serious issue I spoke about earlier, whereby people can, inadvertently, be overpaid in their benefits. This will help to correct that sort of situation. So it is very pleasing to hear some positive comments from the Opposition.

Of course, we did hear a number of other, rather foolish things. I heard some comments earlier about boarders. I would like to remind the Committee that State house tenants have been able to have boarders since the 1970s. Sadly, a lot of the time between then and now was spent under a National Government, but National did nothing about it because—well, why would they? Two-thirds of boarders are family members, and who would want to deny the chance of a grandparent, a parent, or adult children to stay in a State house? As I said, that is a situation that has existed since the 1970s.

We also heard Mr Clarkson say some positive things about the need to give support to people who need it. I am sure I do not need to remind him that we do indeed have a list of 11,000 tenants who are waiting to get into social housing. The previous National Government sold 13,000 of those State houses. Did it sell them to the tenants? No! About a quarter went to tenants and three-quarters went to speculators. I wonder whether Mr Clarkson was one of those who bought some of those State houses. A great deal of money was made, of course, out of housing that was paid for by the taxpayers of New Zealand—and we have now a waiting list of 11,000 people. With those 13,000 houses we would have alleviated the need of New Zealanders today.

So I thank Opposition parties for their support for this legislation—those that are supporting it. I urge them to remember that social housing is something that all developed countries seek to provide in as best a way as they can. Just having returned this morning from the UK, where I attended a housing conference at York in the north of England, I was very pleased to see that the Housing New Zealand Corporation is at the cutting edge, internationally, of a really first-class service in providing houses to New Zealanders who have a housing need. It is a corporation that the Auditor-General’s report, just released to this Parliament a week ago, stated was doing a good job.

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) Link to this

In this last discussion around this bill I would like to reiterate that National is supporting the bill as the party that originally brought the idea to this Parliament in 1999. In turn, I thank the Minister, Chris Carter, and Labour members for supporting one of our ideas, and I ask the Minister to consider many others that we have rolling forward at the moment. It might interest him to wander off to England—to have some nice nights in restaurants and hotels, to enjoy the company, perhaps, of the royal family, or to do whatever the Minister does over there—but, clearly, if the Minister is adopting National policy, it would be easier to walk a mere 5 metres across this Chamber, get the ideas, and then pass them into legislation, as he has done with this Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill. So I thank the Minister for his support.

I would like to clarify the issues around boarders. Of course, National was aware while we were looking after the finances of New Zealand over that 9-year period that some State house tenants had boarders, and we were happy to have boarders in State houses. Who would deny a State housing family the right to have their 16-year-old kid in the house while he or she was studying at polytech? Of course, we would not. Who would deny State house tenants having their 75-year-old grandmother live at home with them? I guess if the Minister wants to label that person as a boarder, then who would deny that? Certainly, National would not.

We do not mind one or two boarders being in a State home, especially not family members who are in need, but my question to the Minister asked what was the maximum number of boarders that a State house tenant had in New Zealand. The answer was not three boarders, or four, or five, or even six. We have one tenancy in this country in which there are seven boarders under a State house roof. That is not a State house; that is a boarding house. That is a business. It is both a boarding house and a business. The Minister reported back to me that many State homes had four, five, and six boarders, and I have illustrated the worst situation where there were seven. I say that because New Zealanders, Kiwis, who pay their taxes, have asked me to say that. We never envisaged that we would be paying our taxes so that State house tenants who were not in need could have five, six, or seven boarders. That was not the intention. We as taxpayers provide State houses for families who are in need. People tell me that if families need to house a couple of extra relatives in the situations I have pointed out—the 16-year-old at polytech or grandma at home—then they accept that. But we do not accept the Minister providing State housing for five, six, or seven boarders. I tell members now that Kiwis will not put up with that, and it is not something that National believes in.

National does believe in this legislation, though, and that is why we support it. Information matching is very important—yes, for the reasons the Minister says, so that those who are in need can assure themselves that they are getting the full extent of taxpayer help when they are struggling. Information matching is also important to catch the ratbags who are ripping off mum and dad Kiwi workers who pay their taxes. Those workers have had enough of it. The majority of people in State houses are genuine, but some are ratbags. Sometimes they are second or third generation Labour Party voters who have been caught up in the cycle of welfare dependency—who have been trapped by Mr Chris Carter and his colleagues. When members throw out the hook of welfare, those people become fish who have been caught, and they will remain on the Government’s payroll for the rest of their lives. They will tell their kids to do the same, and their grandkids, as well. Of course, National has greater aspirations for those people than the Minister has.

So National supports this bill, and we support it for these two reasons—firstly, to make sure that those in need get what is required and, secondly, to catch the ratbags that the Minister would otherwise hook.

ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) Link to this

I rise to speak tonight in support of the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill. I want to continue on from my colleague talking about the major intent of the amendment before the Committee tonight, which is to enable fraud to be detected by the matching of information. I spoke in the second reading debate, when this bill came back from the Social Services Committee, of an elderly gentleman who had visited me in my office in Gisborne. He was living in a State house and was having difficulty making ends meet. As he lived up on the East Coast, he was in a remote rural area where everything costs more—every time one goes to get fuel or food it costs more. So he was really struggling.

He was a delightful old gentleman and he said to me that he did not want to break the law. He was very grateful for the help the New Zealand taxpayer gives him, but he had the opportunity of having his nephew come and board with him, and that would help him pay the bills. He just wanted to make sure that that was legal. He appreciated the fact that he was in a State house and that he was on an income-related rent, and he wanted to make sure that he was working within the rules. Of course, he was within the rules by having only one person board with him.

This matter occupied the select committee when it tried to determine the lengths that some people will go to in order to get around the law. Looking back, we asked the officials questions about what the difference was between a tenant and a boarder. We also asked, in the light of the proposed information sharing between the Housing New Zealand Corporation and the Ministry of Social Development, whether those agencies would be able to pick up the sort of fraud perpetrated where there might be, for instance, joint tenants—two people in a joint tenancy of a State house. Under an income-related rent, a tenant can have one boarder. Therefore, one person could relinquish his or her tenancy and become a boarder, so that his or her income would not then count towards the income-related rent.

There is no way that this bill will address that sort of fraud. There is just no way that we can design a law that digs into people’s lives as deeply as that. It is a sad indictment on our welfare system that some people will go to such lengths to defraud the taxpayer. Unfortunately, what we are debating tonight cannot go to that level of detail to try to make sure that people are honest, but it can provide the information that will pick up those situations where more than one boarder is living in a State house.

I will just refer to a comment my colleague Phil Heatley made about a State house that might have five, six, or seven boarders. Having operated a private hotel for 6 years, and a bed and breakfast for 4 years, I know that under the laws of this country, if more than three people stay in a bed and breakfast overnight, there is a whole new ramp of fire regulations and health and safety requirements around the way that business operates, because the operator is selling accommodation. Therefore, I ask this Committee what the difference is between operating a bed and breakfast and operating a State house that has four or five boarders. It is dinner, bed, and breakfast at the expense of the taxpayer.

JILL PETTIS (Labour) Link to this

I move, That the question be now put.