10. MOANA MACKEY (Labour) Link to this
to the Minister of Housing
What reports or advice has he requested on the impact on New Zealand’s community housing sector of the Charities Commission’s decision to deregister the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust from September this year, and what does he believe that impact will be?
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Housing) Link to this
I have requested advice on this matter from the Department of Building and Housing, and I am advised that the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust has appealed the Charities Commission’s decision to the High Court. Injunctive relief from deregistration until the appeal has been heard next year has, in fact, been granted.
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked about the impact on the New Zealand community housing sector, not the impact on one housing trust.
Mr SPEAKERThe member asked what the Minister believed the impact will be—“what does he believe that impact will be?”. When a member asks what Ministers believe in a question, it is not much use asking the Speaker to intervene when the Minister answers. I thought the Minister did answer.
She says, as written on the sheet, that she is asking what the impact will be on the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust, not on the community housing sector.
Well, I appreciate the contribution of the member. I am ruling that the last part of the question is so vague, in terms of asking what the Minister believes that impact will be, that I cannot intervene in respect of the answer that was given.
Why has he not acted quickly to convince Cabinet to amend the Charities Act to ensure that the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust keeps its charitable status, instead of its having to spend large amounts of money, which should be spent on housing, on legal fees to fight the change in the courts?
I am not the Minister in charge of the Charities Act, and this decision actually does not affect my decisions or the decisions of the Department of Building and Housing in terms of giving grants to this particular trust. In fact, we gave $1.4 million to the trust last year. It has put in a very good application this year, and we will not be viewing it any differently from previously.
Did he know in June this year, when he announced with great fanfare that the Queenstown trust would receive $1 million in funding from the Housing Innovation Fund, that it faced having to hand back more than $1.25 million to the Government in tax?
I believe that the grant it acquired last year through the housing vote was actually $1.4 million; it has put another application in this year that looks pretty good. We do not decide in the Department of Building and Housing what the Charities Commission does. That is a matter for another Minister, not me.
Has he seen reports that Charities Commission chief executive Trevor Garrett, in publicly defending the decision, made claims that the trust had been helping households with incomes of over $200,000 per year, a claim that has no basis in fact, whatsoever; and what has he done, as the Minister of Housing, to ensure that this public slur against the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust is retracted and corrected?
I am not, as the Minister of Housing, in charge of the Charities Commission. I cannot tell off its chief executive. I do not meet with the chief executive; I am not the Minister responsible for that chief executive.
What impact does he think the Charities Commission’s decision will have on his expectation that the community housing sector will take a lead role in providing his Gateway affordable housing scheme, given that to do so will lose it its charitable status?
That matter is to go before the courts. There has been an interim injunctive relief from deregistration for this particular community housing group. I do not see that the decision has any particular impact on the work that we are doing.
I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I did not ask the Minister for his opinion on the court ruling, because to do that would be inappropriate. I asked him about the impact of that decision on an announcement that the Minister made this week.
Hon Darren HughesThe member is normally very well behaved. What I will do on this occasion is to invite the member to repeat her question, because I have to be honest: when I listened to it, I could not understand it. Now, how do I judge whether a Minister has answered a question, when I cannot understand it? So I apologise, and I accept that to some extent it is a matter of my hearing. I invite the member to repeat her question.
What impact does he think the Charities Commission’s decision will have on his expectation that the community housing sector will take a lead role in providing his Gateway affordable housing scheme, given that to do so would lose the sector its charitable status?