On The Nation: Lisa Owen interviews Paula Bennett
Youtube clips from the show are available here.

Headlines:
Social housing minister Paula Bennett says community groups can afford to borrow to pay for 50% of the capital costs of providing more social housing.
Of the 3000 emergency housing places funded in the 2016 Budget, only 300 are new
Bennett says applications have been made for consent to build prefab houses on three sites in South Auckland. She says tenants should be able to move in in April/May 2017.
Bennett says she’s only half-way through her work programme, two years after becoming social housing minister.

In May The Nation brought you a shocking story - pictures we hadn't seen in this country before - of dozens of working people living permanently in cars in South Auckland because they couldn't afford a house and couldn't get into social housing.
Ever since then we've been inviting Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett to do an interview, about Government initiatives to cope with the overwhelming demand.
This week she said yes - I began by asking her if she believes permanent, secure and appropriate housing is a basic human right.
Paula Bennett: Yes, I do.
Lisa Owen: Okay, so then whose job is it to provide that?
I think it’s the Government’s job to pay for it through subsidies and the way that we do it, and then actually providing it is a bit of everyone, really, so from the state to community housing providers to developers and to investors.
So when you say it’s the Government’s job to pay for it, in its entirety?
Well, we certainly pay for it in the income-related rent. We subsidise housing, of course, through the accommodation supplement for people. I mean, it’s really our responsibility for those that are more vulnerable and unable to afford it themselves, I think. We believe in a welfare state. We’re that sort of country. We’re that sort of Government.
Okay, well, let’s see how you’re doing in that regard. How well do you think you’re doing in terms of fixing this problem? Because I’d like to know how you rate your performance. On a scale of one to 10, where do you place your performance on this issue?
I just think that we’re making progress every day. Certainly, it consumes me. I want more places, I want more houses, I want them in the right place for the right people, and that’s what I concentrate on. I don’t think too much about rating my own performance. Let me rate it on the fact as to whether or not I’m being successful or not.
But the thing is, there has been a bit of criticism around this, and you’ve noted that yourself that every move you make, people say it’s not enough or they want more. So I think it’s important to know where you think you’re at in terms of achieving your goals.
So I have a really clear work programme. I concentrate now every day on executing that so I’m not still thinking about what we need to do. All I’m doing now is executing the programme that we’ve got in place, and that will provide more beds, more homes for those that need them most, and that’s my absolute focus.
So how far through are you, then? Are you 70% to where you want to be? 80%?
Yeah, I would probably give it about 50%, to be quite blunt.
So only halfway?
Yeah, it’s a big programme of work, and it’s not something you can change overnight. So every day we have to make progress. I mean, every week we’ve got another 15 Housing New Zealand homes, so it’s literally that kind of numbers.
But is that fast enough? When you’re sitting at about 50%, is that fast enough?
Well, I’m saying 50% through my work programme, so I want to get more emergency right through to affordable and everything in between.
Okay, well, let’s look at some of the detail, then. MSD’s latest household incomes report says that about 20% of the lowest earners are paying 50% or more of their income on rent. Do you think that’s acceptable, or where should it be at?
That’s really tough. Particularly when you’re on a low income, of course, that 50% that you’re not paying on rent is lower than someone with a higher income, so that gets really really tight for them. You know, 25% of income is the income-related rent. I think in today’s world that’s low, but certainly 50% must be hard for people to be actually managing on that. Of course, that report doesn’t take into consideration the increase in benefits that we’ve put through and the changes to Working for Families.
Across the board, where do you think realistically it should sit?
Well, I mean, it sits at different levels in different circumstances and for different people in different places that they live, so—
But you’ve got here 20% lowest income earners paying more than 50% of their rent. For that group of people, about where should it be?
Well, it certainly shouldn’t be at 50.
So 30?
But you would be looking at more like— I would have thought 35 to 40 would be the ideal limits.
So how do we get there and how long does it take?
Well, the good news is that 80% aren’t. Yeah, so, yes, 20% are, and that’s too high, but 80% aren’t.
But that’s not good news for the 20%, is it?
It’s damn good news for the 80% that aren’t, that aren’t stuck in that place, so we can manage with that 20%. So that means more housing for those in that 20%.
But that 80% is not your core responsibility. Arguably, that 20% is your core responsibility, so how do we get them there and how long is it going to take?
Yeah, so we’ve got about 5,100 people on the waitlist at the moment. I imagine a lot of that 20% are on it. So our complete focus is more houses in the right place at the price and for the right length of time.
Well, let’s look at some of that programme. So this week you announced 24 million including capital funding for social housing. You pay up to 50% of the cost of building. So we’ve spoken to community groups who say that they simply don’t have the other half of that budget. They don’t have the other 50%, so why doesn’t the government just fund social housing construction 100%, just go for it?
Well, we do. That’s what Housing New Zealand does, so through Housing New Zealand—
But to a greater degree.
No, no, well, to Housing New Zealand we pay 100%, and that has been scaled up, and as I say, we’ve got 3,000 new homes coming on over the next three years. What we also want to do is grow the community housing providers, and, no, they may not have 50% sitting in the bank, but they can borrow that 50%.
No, well, they’re telling us that in a lot of cases, banks don’t want to lend them the money.
Well, I’m sorry, but I’ve heard that they can. I’m kind of ‘you show me yours, and I’ll show you mine’. I’ve got providers that are ready to go, that actually have the land, have got resources consents and actually can do it with a 50% grant up front, as well as, don’t forget, they’re going to be getting—
Can you give me some examples?
I can’t, because why would I string them out to dry so that you then go and throw a camera in their face? They want to get on with what they’re doing, and, no, I’m not going to.
It’s a good-news story—
Well, I’ll make the announcements when they’re ready to be done.
It’s a good-news story from your perspective, isn’t it, Minister? If you’ve got people who say that they can get the 50%, name some names. Who are they?
Invite me back in a year’s time, and I’ll show you the photos of turning that soil and digging those bases.
A year is a long time, Minister.
Yeah.
A year is a long time.
It doesn’t happen overnight, Lisa, so what you’ve got to do is actually present that funding up front. But I’ve got houses every week, so we’re housing 150 people a week. I’ve got 15 new houses in Auckland every week, and I’m going to scale that up to more, and that’s what you’re going to see. So it’s fine to say in a year’s time, but I’ve got them happening weekly now. I’ve just got to keep that pipeline going and growing.
We’ll look at some of your other initiatives, but I just want to stick with this for the moment. Like I say, people are telling us they can’t get the 50%, and why should they have to go and leverage themselves and borrow it to build community housing?
Because they’ll then own the asset.
When you’ve acknowledged that it’s the government’s responsibility to pay?
So we’re going to pay 50% up front, and then we’re going to pay 100% of the rent every week at market rent levels, right? So that’s our contribution. That is currently costing about $766 million a year, and we put another $60 million in just for the rent component that we will pay weekly, and they will own the asset. So for a 50% grant, plus a guaranteed weekly market rent from the government, I think that they can actually make that work, and I’m very confident that we will see—
So they can afford it?
I am very confident that we will see more community housing providers building houses because of it.
Okay, how many houses or units do you think that money will build? Because not all of that 24 million is for capital investment. So how many more houses or units do you think you’d get out of that money.
So 24’s on top of what we had in the budget.
Yes.
And the numbers that we’ve got there is more than 500 that are new and leasing another 200 to 300 houses.
So you think from the 24 million,…
Additional going in on top of the 120 that was in that budget.
…how many will the 24 end up building in terms of units—?
So let me just explain. So in the budget, we had 120 million—
Got that.
Yeah, but that was 30% grant, right?
750, yeah.
So that was at a 30% grant. What I’m doing is topping it up to 50% grant, and we will get that 750 new places.
So as you say, you earmarked the 200 million in the budget for social housing over four years. 120 million for an extra 750 social housing places.
Yeah.
Yeah? How many new places have been made available since that announcement in May?
So what I was really clear on in the press release and I’ll make clear now is that what I was doing was I wasn’t getting those deals over the line to get those 750.
Yeah.
They couldn’t do it at 30%, so I’ve put another 24 million in to get those 750 places going.
So none are over the line? None are over the line? It’s this additional injection that’s going to get them?
That’s going to get them over the line, that’s right.
So zero increase in available spaces since you made that announcement?
So that was the May 26 Budget.
Yeah.
Turned around, went, ‘Why aren’t we getting these over the line?’ and just as you’ve heard from community housing providers, they said, ‘We can’t do it at 30%. We can do it at 50.’ I went back to Cabinet and said, ‘I need some more money. This is what it’s saying.’ I got PriceWaterhouseCoopers to do some work for me to make sure.
But this is the point isn’t it, Minister, the wheels are turning slowly, people would say. 750 new places. You’ve got 41,000 people homeless. You’ve got a social housing list of about 4000. The maths is pretty simple – it’s not enough.
Yeah, so what you haven’t added in, though, is the 3,000 new houses that are coming through from Housing New Zealand. What you haven’t added in is the new places that we’re getting around emergency beds. Another 140 at least that I’ve got coming through with modular housing that’ll be on board April, May next year.
But the 41 million you put in for emergency beds, that didn’t create new emergency beds.
It will create new beds.
How many?
So at the moment, the numbers that we’re looking like being new are around 300.
300?
New ones.
But as I said, 41,000 people regarded as homeless, and you’re talking about low numbers.
Well, they’re not actually homeless. So out of that, they are living in insecure housing of some description. Homeless for most people would be rough sleepers.
They’re living in temporary housing, though, Minister.
So of that, I have 500 people on my housing register that are considered homeless.
They are living in temporary housing, Minister, which is not considered a home by definition by Otago University research and a definition that is accepted by the Ministry of Social Development.
Sure, you call them homeless, but most people actually wouldn’t.
They are. The Ministry of Social Development calls them homeless. They don’t have a permanent home.
We have 1139 people on our social housing register that are in insecure housing.
So you’re happy for people to be living in their cousin’s garage or car?
No, I’m not.
Because that’s what—
But I don’t. No, that’s not true. And, no, but I don’t think we should be exaggerating the number out. What we will do is I am absolutely making a commitment that every single week I will have more social housing, and I make a commitment to those New Zealanders that need it that I will be providing it. And I am pulling every lever as quickly as can be done to make sure that that happens. I will increase the number of emergency beds beyond the 300 so that I don’t have people living in their cars like they were. I am doing that not just in Auckland but throughout New Zealand.
In terms of emergency housing, there’s another issue for experts in this sector, because they say that every dollar is better spent in permanent housing.
Yeah, absolutely. So I’m with them there, which is why that massive build is going on for permanent housing, but that’s no—
But you’re increasing money to emergency housing.
Yeah, both. I can’t just pull one lever. I’ve got people that don’t know that tomorrow— tonight everything could turn to custard for them and they’re on the streets tomorrow. I need a bed for them that night.
Modular prefab housing was another thing that you announced in July. You’re looking at three sites in South Auckland, supposed to start earthworks in December.
Yeah.
Where are you at?
I am on track, I’m pleased to say.
So can you confirm the sites?
No, not to you right now. I’ll be making my announcements when I’m due. So I’ve gone the geotech, I’ve got resource consents in—
Why can’t you tell us where?
Because they’ll be making announcements on that in due course.
So have you got resource consents?
I think the resource consents are currently with council.

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