Keep our state houses NZ-run

Bryndwr Housing New Zealand tenant Gail Scott is ready to fight any moves to sell her state house and up to 2500 others across Christchurch to landlords in Australia.

Scott and many others, including this newspaper, are strongly opposed to ownership of our public housing being sold overseas. The sell-off of state houses is bad enough but, if it has to happen, the dwellings must stay under the control of New Zealand-based community housing providers.

News that Treasury officials are flying to Sydney next week to take part in a talkfest on this country’s social housing sector, including the sell-off of Christchurch state houses, is perturbing. Also at the session will be members of PowerHousing Australia, a network of non-profit community housing providers, and other ‘‘selected attendees’’.

So who or what is PowerHousing Australia? According to its website, it ‘‘provides a unique forum for peer to peer exchange and collaboration amongst housing professionals who are dedicated to improving lives through the provision of affordable housing’’.

Members include Anglicare SA, Compass Housing Services, the Rural Housing Network, Southern Cross Community Housing and the YWCA Victoria, and it includes among its aims the ambition to ‘‘develop relationships to assist in influencing policy and outcomes for affordable housing’’. On the face of it, that all sounds well and good. But, the point is, how can an Australian provider know best what New Zealand tenants need?

Christchurch doctor and Korowai Youth Well-Being Trust chairwoman Dr Sue Bagshaw is right to consider this would be selling to ‘‘absentee landlords’’ if it went ahead. She says the Government looking overseas for buyers is ‘‘another example’’ of it shirking its responsibilities to provide housing for those most in need.

There is certainly a depth of feeling on the issue, not just from current and former state house residents. In a letter to The Press recently, Edgeware resident Jeffrey Paparoa Holman said public housing was ‘‘a human right to ensure the wellbeing of citizens’’. Another letter writer, Nicola Flute of South New Brighton, asked how private accommodation providers could afford to maintain these homes without the resourcing that Housing New Zealand has.

That is a very good question. Even at a conservative price of $300,000 each, 2500 state houses would cost about $750 million to buy. Routine maintenance and repairs, let alone any ambitious renovations, could easily add another few hundred million dollars to that price tag.

When prime minister-in-waiting Bill English says a private provider would probably do a better job of fixing these houses, it makes you wonder why that might be so. Where does the Government think a local provider or providers will find $1 billion or more to do the job?

That may well be why, given the failure earlier this year of plans to sell state houses from Horowhenua and Invercargill, Treasury is now looking offshore for buyers.

If the Government really wants to sell to local community housing providers, it needs to come up with some financial incentives to help them do so. There could be lowinterest loans or the ability to pay in instalments.

Much better, though, would be the Government doing the right thing and rethinking its sell-off of public housing.