22 May 2015

Social Housing bill passes third reading

5:16 pm on 22 May 2015

Legislation enacting the Government's programme to sell off thousands of state homes to community housing providers has passed through all its stages in Parliament.

A Vision West house in the Auckland suburb of Ranui.

Photo: RNZ / Lauren Baker

Parliament is sitting under urgency to debate a range of Budget measures.

The Social Housing Reform Bill allows Housing New Zealand to shed up to 8000 properties by 2017.

It passed its third reading 63 votes to 56, with Labour, the Greens and New Zealand First opposed.

Labour said the bill was pushed through under urgency because the Government knew it would not stack up under select-committee scrutiny.

MPs were now debating a bill implementing a telecommunications industry levy.

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