Appropriation (2015/16 Estimates) Bill

We now come to the votes on the social development and the housing sector—volume B.5, volume 10. The question is that Vote Building and Housing and Vote Social Development stand part of the schedules.

I rise as the chair of the Social Services Committee to take the first call on this estimates debate. The Social Services Committee recommends the appropriations for the year ending 30 June 2016 for Vote Social Development be accepted.

It is an honour to be able to speak tonight on this. The Budget for 2015 delivers a $790 million package to help children living in some of New Zealand’s poorest families. It is a commitment that was made by the Prime Minister, and he clearly made it in his state of the nation speech, that we are firmly focused on helping those children who, through no fault of their own, have been caught in a cycle of hardship. As the Prime Minister has set that vision, I also want to acknowledge that the Minister the Hon Anne Tolley has taken on that role to ensure that we deliver that package and that vision as well.

One of the things that we often think is the key area of concern, and this is also the judgment from those in the sector who provide the service—and I know that my colleague Mr Matt Doocey will be reading from the state of the nation booklet called A Mountain All Can Climb, but before he does that I too want to sort of comment on that. In February of this year this was a report that actually talked about it, and often it is a state of the nation report that judges the performance of the Government in regards to the social sector. They have 22 indicators by which they judge the Government on its performance. I am happy to say that 14 out of the 22 had the thumbs up out of those social indicators of change during 2014, which gives us the lead that it is a good foundation for us to build on.

Just a couple of those to mention—child poverty, for instance. The percentage of children living in benefit-dependent households has reduced by 2 percent to 17 percent. We know it is a small change, but it is a significant change. It is moving in the right direction. We talk about children at risk, and it is a reduction of 15 percent down to 19,623. So, again, it is a small change, but the number of substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect has also reduced.

💬 Darroch Ball: How many reported? Don’t answer that one!

Educational achievement has increased by 0.2 percent. These are key indicators, social indicators, that are making a change. If Mr Darroch Ball was there, he might have read this. He might have seen that 14 out of the 22 indicators have shown that this Government is heading in the right direction.

Let us, then, look at the Budget of 2015 and what it is delivering for us and for New Zealand as well. We know that Budget 2015 delivers a $790 million package to help children living in some of New Zealand’s poorest families. We know employment is the best way to lift families out of difficulty and hardship, and the incentive to work will ensure their children who are living in poverty are supported. This is focused on helping 60,000 to 100,000 children who through no fault of their own experience material hardship. There has been widespread reform throughout the welfare system over recent years aimed at increasing independence where possible. This is working well, with 42,000 fewer children living in welfare-dependent homes since this time 3 years ago. I think that is a significant number—42,000 children in 3 years are now actually in situations where they can thrive and their outcomes can be improved.

This Budget’s announcements continue National’s plan to deliver better services to vulnerable children and New Zealanders who rely on them, and to deliver better value for money for taxpayers. Inside of that package, I want to talk about a couple of things that I think are quite important. One of the ones that was significant in 2015, which I know was celebrated even on the other side—I know there was acknowledgment—was the fact that under this Government, a National Government, the benefit rates for families with children will rise by $25 a week after tax. It is the first increase, other than inflation adjustments, for 43 years—43 years.

💬 Darroch Ball: What did you do in 1991, Alfred? What did National do in 1991 to benefits?

I do not think you were even alive in 1991, Mr Darroch Ball. It is the first increase, other than inflation adjustments, for 43 years, and there will be extra support for low-income working families, despite Labour voting against both these measures. That is significant because even when there was a time of surplus under the previous Labour Government there was no increase, but under this Government there is an increase.

Some speculators on the other side said: “What will $25 do?”. Q+A went up to the far north to some of the most deprived communities up there—Māori communities up there—and the question that was asked to Dr Lance O’Sullivan was this: “Will this budget of $25 extra per family that is eligible make a difference?”.

Thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak to this. I sat through what was actually a really painful estimates hearing in the Social Services Committee with the Minister for Social Development present. I want to talk to a little bit of what was discussed in that meeting and challenge a little bit of what the former speaker, Alfred Ngaro, spoke about.

There are three issues that came up in the estimates hearing that I really want to discuss today. First was that child hardship package, so let us talk a little bit about that today. Second was from benefit to employment—is that really happening? Does the Government have an emphasis on that or not? Third are the Ministry of Social Development dealings with Relationships Aotearoa—it fronted at that hearing, so I will speak to that as well.

Firstly, the member Alfred Ngaro touched on this, the Government’s child hardship package. It made this announcement that an additional $25 will be going into the pockets of families who are on benefits. What it did not give when it made that announcement was the detail. So let us look at this Support for Children in Hardship Bill, what that entails, and what it really will mean for families. The Government said $25 per family—not per child; per family. But, actually, there are going to be a lot of families who do not get that entire $25 because they are getting access to a disability allowance, temporary additional support, and a whole lot of other things. So they may not get the $25. They may not get anything. They may get $12.50.

The Government is looking to extend the work obligations alongside this additional $25 a week, expecting parents or sole parents to go back to work when their youngest turns 3 rather than 5. We asked the ministry for documentation or evidence to support why it might make that call. All of the reports that we got back did not support that move at all. In fact, there was no New Zealand evidence to support what it was doing. All of the evidence was overseas evidence, and the overseas evidence said that when you impose these types of work obligations on sole parents, then you are likely to have the adverse effect where you drive them further into poverty. Was any of that advice or research taken on board? The Minister and the ministry chose to ignore that.

We have seen recently that there are real issues in New Zealand with early childhood education in terms of access to quality early childhood education, yet with the extension of these work obligations, these—primarily—women are going to be expected to go back into part-time work and put their children into early childhood education. The standard of early childhood education available has been questioned recently by experts, by New Zealanders, and by the general public. It is something that the National Government still refuses to address.

I want to bring up the fact that we have been told that with the legislation the Government is introducing there will be an extension of childcare subsidies. Well, there is a problem there too because where is there a serious overspend every year? It is in the accessing of childcare subsidies. So the Government is saying that it is going to extend it. The Government is saying that it is pushing people into work and that it is providing more opportunities in terms of childcare subsidies. Well, then, why are there 1,800 fewer people in the most recent year compared with the last who are accessing childcare subsidies? Why has the number of people accessing childcare subsidies over the last 5 years dropped by 2,500 people? They are not accessing it, because the Government is making it difficult.

This Government is not aspirational for people, and I want to make that point. It is pushing primarily women, these women, out into jobs that are any job. I just talked to a woman yesterday who has taught for the last 13 years in Samoa and has come back. She is a qualified teacher. She did her training here. She thought: “OK. Yes, I will do this Ministry of Social Development course.” Sixteen weeks she has to do this course for. She goes along. She is a qualified teacher. She is sitting next to a woman who ran an airfield, for goodness sake, and the person taking the course that they have to attend for 16 weeks is saying: “And at the end of this you might get a job at McDonald’s.” How aspirational is that for these women?

I want to move from that over to whether or not people are going from benefits into jobs. When asked in the select committee whether or not it was a primary concern that people were coming off benefits and going into jobs, the Minister said: “It is not necessarily about employment; it is about independence.” How independent can you be if not only are you not getting an income from work but you are not getting any support from the State? When we continued down that line of questioning, her Ministry of Social Development chief executive said “Well, those people who are not in work and are not getting a benefit have other means.”, and the Minister sat there nodding her head.

It gives me great pleasure to take a call tonight to talk about Budget 2015 because, as we heard from the chair of the Social Services Committee, my colleague Alfred Ngaro, of course this is a huge year for those who are the less well-off in our communities. In Budget 2015 a $790 million package was announced by this Government, focused on reducing hardship for children in some of our poorest families.

It was a 43-year watershed when this Government announced a $25 a week increase in the benefits. No other Government in 43 years has actually focused on those receiving a benefit, and lifted that benefit. This Government did it. They hate it, on the Opposition, because in the very best of economic times that Labour Government did not lift the benefit. It ignored the people who are on a benefit. This Government has announced that, as from 1 April next year, people will get a $25 increase in the benefit.

💬 Brett Hudson: The first increase in real benefits in 43 years.

Yes, 43 years. Not only that, we also looked at those who are working hard. We know there are many families in New Zealand that are working hard but are still on very low incomes, and their children are still experiencing hardship. We have lifted the minimum family tax credit and the in-work tax credit, so that the families that are eligible for those also receive an increase of anything between $12 extra a week and $25 extra a week.

And we have increased the subsidy for childcare. We have done that because, contrary to the previous speaker, we know from experience what is working well, particularly for parents reliant on the sole-parent benefit. We know what support is needed to help those people out into work and independence. Independence of the State is extremely important. We know, from experience, what is working, what support is working, and we know the determination of many of those people to be independent. From 1 April next year it is interesting that a sole parent now working 20 hours a week, on the minimum wage and receiving the minimum family tax credit and the in-work tax credit, could be $190 a week better off. That is the difference that it makes—helping people and supporting them into work and supporting their families. They could be $190 a week better off and independent of the State. That is the ambition that this National Party has for those people.

We know that the outlook for those children in families that are reliant on the State for a benefit is not great. Their lifetime expectations are not great. The statistics tell us that those children who are born into homes that are included in the main benefit within the first 2 weeks of their life, 48 percent of them will have a Department of Child, Youth and Family Services notification. Almost half of those kids will have a referral to the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, and 48 percent of them will not attain NCEA level 2. We know that that is the minimum qualification that a young person needs to go on to get a good job, to go on to further tertiary education, or to go into an apprenticeship. Almost half of those kids—we know that if nothing changes in their lives they will not have that, and then 45 percent of them will go on to receive a youth benefit. Again, the outlook for youngsters going on to a youth benefit is that they are most likely to still be on that youth benefit in 20 years’ time.

So the absolute imperative is to help people become independent of the State, able to stand on their own two feet, able to support themselves and their families, and therefore we have put into play these benefits.

I did have a whole speech written, but I do feel compelled to respond to some of the comments from the Minister, who talked about this being the first benefit raise in 43 years. She has conveniently ignored the fact that it would have required a 45 percent increase in benefits to be able to return them to the pre-1990 level, when the previous National Government slashed them, to the point where we now have the unemployment benefit being worth 24 percent of the average wage, where people are consciously being left in poverty. And for children to be in our hospitals and dying because of the policy of this Government—we should be celebrating that in this Budget? Well, I am sorry, but I am not going to celebrate that.

We are being told by this Government that it knows what works. It is these sanctions, it is beating people over the head to be able to get them into work, because that is how you make it happen—that is how you encourage independence! You cut people’s incomes! That leads them to a life of independence! Well, why are more people being sanctioned now, in the last year, than were being sanctioned previously? If it was working, there would be fewer people being sanctioned. But it has been increased by 30 percent. More sole parents have been sanctioned in the last year. That is a sign of this policy failing, not succeeding.

We know that when benefit levels were set at a higher rate, we had lower rates of unemployment. Poverty does not drive people into work—it keeps them stuck in poverty. It puts them into fragile, precarious work that is actually not better for them or their family.

I really think that this Government, with the Better Public Services targets that it has set—of reducing benefit levels by 25 percent, and reducing the liability and the pressure on the Government—really shows the lack of awareness in its thinking. That, to the Government, is what is most important for this country. It is not about the well-being of our society. It is not about getting people into work, into decent jobs. It is not about eliminating child poverty. It is not about ensuring that families where women and children leaving violent relationships are able to re-establish themselves with a minimum of trauma. It is not about people who are sick—getting treatment for cancer or any other number of illnesses, or even donating organs—to be properly supported and not forced into debt or made homeless; so that they are so stressed out and unable to get the medical attention that they need, because of the financial stress on them at the moment, which is what is happening now. People are being made homeless while suffering and getting treatment for cancer, because this system no longer provides a safety net.

We are being told in this House by this Government, in response to this Budget, that we should be celebrating the fact that there will be an average of maybe $20 a week to families, no matter how many children they have. This Government was told in the policy documents that that amount of money would make no difference to the child poverty levels in this country, and the Government presented this to the public of New Zealand as a child hardship measure.

The New Zealand public cares about our children. We want our children to be well and healthy and able to thrive and live up to all of their potential. Instead of actually creating the environment to enable that for our children, this Government has presented a piece of window dressing that is leaving those children in hardship. It is refusing to address the core foundation of poverty in this country.

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: She can’t even look up. She’s just texting on her phone.

And the Minister is texting—really engaging with the issue!

So the impact of these policy decisions is the increasing number of people being trapped in poverty. We are being told by the community organisations I am seeing around the country that they are dealing with a lot of people now who are not even wanting to go into Work and Income because they are finding the situation and the environment in those offices so traumatising.

I am going to talk about housing. The really intriguing thing about this Government’s handling of the housing issue has been that, in the face of a crisis that has got worse and worse over the last few years, all we have seen from the Minister Nick Smith since he became the Minister for Building and Housing 2½ years ago is a series of grudging half measures. The standard operating procedure for this Minister on housing has been denial, trivialisation, complacency, and refusal to acknowledge the extent of the problem until the focus groups showed that people are starting to get concerned. Then what do we see time after time after time? He tosses out some grudging half measure as a sop to public opinion.

Last week the Prime Minister made his most revealing comments yet on this issue, in an interview with Leighton Smith on Newstalk ZB, where the Prime Minister said that Aucklanders like their house prices going up because it makes them richer. This was very interesting and very significant. It was the most candid that the Prime Minister has been, and it explains why we have a non-housing Minister and a non-housing policy.

He is a Minister whose job is to look like he is doing something—to provide political cover for a Government that has made such a cynical political calculation, a calculation that there are sufficient numbers of Aucklanders who own their homes and who will feel wealthier and happier because of rising paper wealth that they can never cash in unless they move out of the city, giving up their job and moving away from family. That does not happen. The Government knows that, but it is content to make that calculation—that there are enough homeowners who feel that they are getting wealthier because of skyrocketing house prices. In doing so, it will throw under the bus the 50-plus percent of Aucklanders who do not own their own home—who rent. It will condemn Generation Rent to a lifetime of renting—the very tenants in their own land whom the Prime Minister talked about only a couple of years ago.

Nick Smith talks a big game on supply—the supply of houses. His diagnosis of the housing crisis in Auckland is simply that there are not enough houses. It is all about supply and nothing about demand. But he has singularly failed to deliver supply. In 2½ years as the housing Minister, there is such a shortfall in houses that the Productivity Commission—his policy touchstone on housing; the Government’s pet thinktank—predicts that at current rates that shortfall is going to go from 32,000 now to 60,000 houses in 2020. That is a failure by anyone’s reckoning, from a Minister who made it his ambition to increase the supply of houses. It is getting worse by 5,000 every year.

That is why house prices in Auckland are skyrocketing and that is why the New Zealand Herald reported that they have been going up by $511 a day, on average, for the last year—$511 a day. You can make more money under this National Government’s policy by owning a house than by working. There is only one way to get rich under this Government, and that is by speculating in residential property. That is its policy. The National Party is the party of property speculators, foreign and domestic. That is whom it stands for, and the Prime Minister’s comments revealed very clearly that the Government is selling out New Zealand, and selling out young Kiwi first-home buyers, because it does not care. It has made a cynical political calculation that it would rather count on the votes of Auckland homeowners who think that they are getting wealthier. It does not give a damn about the lost generation that will never ever have the Kiwi dream of affordable homeownership.

The crowning glory of Nick Smith’s tenure as housing Minister so far has been his Auckland Crown land fiasco—

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: I thought it was him lying on the road.

It is hard, actually, to choose which one is the real fiasco. Documents released under the Official Information Act the other day revealed exactly what everybody knew. His Budget policy on developing vacant Crown land for Auckland housing was rushed. Treasury said that it was almost too late. It was past the deadline, and we know why—

It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on Vote Social Development. I would just like to concentrate on the Limited Service Volunteers programme and its—

💬 Brett Hudson: Great programme.

Is it? Oh, why did you cut it, then? Why did you cut the funding, then?

I would like to talk about the funding, or the lack of it and, actually, the reduced funding, for a couple of reasons. One is that youth is one of the most important age groups that we have in our country, but it is also one of the most underfunded and, actually, neglected by this Government. A second reason is that I was actually a platoon commander in the Limited Service Volunteers programme. I know the actual benefits and that it is a great course, the Limited Service Volunteers course.

I would just like to start by quoting the previous Minister for Social Development, Paula Bennett, and her explanation before the Government actually bolstered up the numbers from around 800 to about 2,000 positions for trainees there. Paula Bennett said: “It’s not always easy as a young person to know what direction you are taking. Self confidence is sometimes lacking and the courage to take risks and open yourself to new opportunities is sometimes missing. I have seen first hand the light that switches on for young people while on LSV. They gain confidence, they learn about themselves and what they are capable of. They come out with a plan. Sometimes it’s not just an employment or study plan, but a life altering direction that they will take.”

Actually, they have got some statistics and results here in this release, and it says that they have shown that of all those who have completed the course since 1993, 45 percent gained employment and a further 30 percent entered trade-related training within 3 months of the course finishing. But apparently if you fast-forward just a few years, the New Zealand Herald says that “The Government has quietly scaled back boot camps for young beneficiaries and Treasury has advised that they should be scrapped altogether because they are not effective.” But not effective about what? And how is the Government measuring the success of the Limited Service Volunteers courses, and why should it be cutting the funding to the Limited Service Volunteers?

In fact, a spokeswoman for the Minister for Social Development, Anne Tolley, said that the previous rise in funding was because of high youth unemployment during the financial crisis, which was around the 2010-11 year. Well, that is a load of rubbish, because if we actually look at the statistics, in the third quarter of 2010 there were 33,000 15 to 19-year-olds who were unemployed—around 23.8 percent. If you fast-forward to 2015, when the Government wants to cut it from 2,000 to around about 800 trainees, there is exactly the same number of youth who are unemployed—33,000—and it is around just over 21 percent. So there has been no change whatsoever in unemployment, but apparently in 2010 that was a cause to increase the numbers of Limited Service Volunteers and increase the funding, and in 2015 that was a cause to cut it. In fact, if you want to look at the age group from 20 to 24, which does include positions for Limited Service Volunteers, in 2010 there were just 26,000 and in 2015 there are 30,000. It has remained at 11.9 percent.

So where is this Government getting its statistics from? It is making them up. What it wants to do is cut costs, and it wants to do it by any means necessary. It is an absolute cop-out. It is letting these kids from this successful programme—the Limited Service Volunteers, which the New Zealand Defence Force is running—go towards yet another youth benefit scheme. We have got a bill going through the House at the moment about extending the Youth Service. The Youth Service is actually fully focused on just one thing, and that is education and National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2. So how can you compare that—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No, no—not me.

Sorry, Mr Chairman. How can members in this House and how can the Government compare that with the self-confidence, the courage, and the new opportunities that these trainees gain in the Limited Service Volunteers programme? They cannot.

I would just like to finish with this. In the Treasury report, it says that “The package does not include funding to continue the Limited Services Volunteer programme. There is limited evidence of its effectiveness in achieving [its] outcomes.” Well, in 2010 the Government had the evidence to increase it, and now it does not. What I would like to say is that I say, and everybody else who has been involved with the Limited Service Volunteers says, that you cannot measure the confidence, the courage, and the self-realisation that these individuals gain.

For a number of years the Māori Party has come into Government and decided to work with the National Government. It is something that we are willing to do, because, actually, it is easy to sit and throw stones, but we are actually more interested in providing an avenue for working collaboratively together. The increase, this year, of the benefit rates—for 43 years, no matter who had been in Government, nothing had been done about it. Nothing had been done about it. So there has been an increase, but I agree that, actually, that increase is not going to eliminate poverty. That increase is relief for hardship. We must commit to having ongoing measures that will eliminate poverty, eradicate poverty.

This year, in September, the Prime Minister will be attending the UN General Assembly for a sustainable goal agenda, where the No. 1 goal is eradicating poverty by our own country’s measurement. There is a whole lot of debate about how we do measure poverty. Well, if we look at the one that the Government likes—the severe hardship index—by that measure, 100,000 children still live in poverty. That is 10 percent of our children. I want to say to the Committee tonight that it is within our grasp, right now, to do something about it, so that we can eliminate and eradicate poverty in this country. If we stall any further measures to do something, it will soon be outside our capability and our capacity as a country to do that and to realise the actual goal of eliminating poverty.

The No. 6 goal on that agenda in September is to set a target to halve and eradicate poverty by our own measures. I want to call on our Prime Minister and our Government to sign up to that goal agenda, to continue to work together. I am willing to work together with the Ministerial Committee on Poverty to do just that: to find ways where we can take a purposefully targeted approach to eliminating and eradicating poverty in this country before it is outside our ability to do so. We can do it through a number of simple measures that do not actually cost a lot of money—it is not about putting an extra $500 in everybody’s hand and, therefore, making it impossible for us to do. But we can do some things, like indexing benefits to the median wage—why have we never done that before? Because in a few years the small gain that we have been able to make will, again, be widened, we could index our benefit rates to the median wage so that they continue to keep pace and not widen the gap.

Another thing that we can do is we can ensure that we extend the—what is it called; it has gone out of my blinking head—the paid parental leave. Extend that to the full 26 weeks; allow mothers to be with their babies in those formative first months so that they can give greater input into their lives and into growing and developing the brain, which needs to happen. One of the factors for poverty and keeping ourselves in the poverty cycle is actually poverty of the mind.

The other thing we can do is have security of tenancy. It does not cost much at all, but it guarantees people that they can live in a home for at least the life of their children in school, so that their children are not transient, so that they can stay in one place, and so that they can have a secure, warm, and safe home to come home to.

We can do these things, and I call on the Ministers on the Ministerial Committee on Poverty to work with us, to work with me. I am willing to do that. That is why this party—the Māori Party—goes into a coalition agreement of confidence and supply with the National Government. It is so that we can make some changes and have some influence.

The Prime Minister can commit to this in September. We can set targets for reducing poverty and eradicating it, and we can continue to build on the good work—because it is good work, because nobody had done anything for 43 years. The Hon Dame Tariana Turia will tell you that nobody talked about poverty in this country until the Māori Party came in here. Why? Because we know poverty.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: Oh, come on.

That is what she says, and I hold her to it, because it was in our relationship agreement, the very first one, in 2008. It was in the next one in 2011, and it was in the next one in 2013. Because of the Ministerial Committee on Poverty, we have seen benefits to our people.

I firstly want to acknowledge Marama Fox and the work that the Māori Party has done with this Government that has enabled us to deliver things like a $25 increase in benefit payments—the first in more than 30 years. I want to acknowledge its work that has enabled us to provide for free doctors visits for those under the age of 13.

An area I want to particularly acknowledge the Māori Party on, in which we are also making progress, is improving the quality of housing. Let me talk about this area, because we have provided in this Government’s term for the insulation of 290,000 homes through the Warm Up New Zealand: Healthy Homes initiative. We have also insulated 30,000 State houses, and we have also set down a programme, just announced with tenancy changes, for 180,000 other homes to be insulated. That is 500,000 homes—1.2 million people living in warmer, drier homes. I challenge the Labour members who are interjecting: how many did Labour do in its 9 years?

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Resign.

We did 500,000—Mr Cunliffe—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry. Order! The continual barraging across the Chamber is unacceptable. Tone it down. I actually want to hear what the Minister is saying, and I am sitting right beside him.

I am happy to compare the record: 500,000 homes are warmer and drier under our Government. Under the 9 years of Labour it insulated not 500,000 but 15,000, and Labour members have the gall to stand up in the Chamber and to pretend that they are the only ones who care.

I want to talk about HomeStart, because this Government is providing the most generous support for first home owners in more than a generation. Some of the older grey hairs may remember the State Advances Corporation loans. They may remember the capitalising family benefit. What we are doing in this Budget is putting $430 million into helping young New Zealand families get over that hurdle and be able to buy their first home. There is only one problem that we have had in the last 3 months, and that has been dealing with the tsunami of applications of new first home owners, from Invercargill to Kaitāia, who are picking up on that scheme and getting themselves into a home.

I want to challenge Phil Twyford, because never have I faced such a duplicitous Opposition spokesperson who is all over the paddock. He challenges us to put loan-to-value ratios in place, and when they are put in place, he opposes them. He is a spokesperson who when interest rates go up complains and says it is bad, and when interest rates go down complains and says that it is bad. When I first became Minister for Housing he demanded that I not interfere in the Auckland Council. He organised for my hoarding to be put up all over Auckland, and then he has got the gall to say: “Oh, but the Minister’s not doing enough in Auckland.” Well, let me give the numbers. Every year that I have been Minister, since 2013, the number of new houses being built in Auckland has grown by 20 percent. There has never been a period, in the last 3 years or in any time in Auckland’s history, when there has been as fast a pick up in the rate of house building.

But here is the really embarrassing bit: never have I seen a spokesperson tear up the heritage of a party that I thought stood for inclusion, as he did with his cynical attack on those with Chinese-sounding names. You only need to see the reaction of spokespeople in the Labour Party, who now cringe every time Phil Twyford gets to his feet, because, in one of the most clumsy manoeuvres we have seen in this Chamber this year, Phil Twyford has burnt up 50 years of hard work where people thought the Labour Party stood for racial equality and stood for inclusion. Now we know that the Labour Party is out to cynically target one ethnic group with this housing challenge.

That last speech was from a Minister, Nick Smith, the Minister for Building and Housing, who has done such a poor job at housing that they had to put three people in his place. That is appalling.

Let us start with the Housing New Zealand rebuild in Christchurch, shall we? The new builds—700 new homes in Christchurch. When is the deadline? The deadline for that is December 2015. How many of the 700 houses have been built?

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: How many?

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: How many?

It certainly ain’t 700; I can tell you that. We are closer to 300. The last time I got the answers to our written questions we were at something like 296. Now, how many does that mean need to be built by the end of the year?

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: 402.

That is right. How is that going to be done? I will tell you how it is going to be done, Minister. How it is going to be done is that we will have a deadline that National puts in place, which was going to be December 2015 and now it is going to be March 2016. So at the estimates discussion we hear: “No, it’s not December 2015.”, even though over the last 2 years the ministry has been saying that yes, it will get these houses built because the people in Christchurch desperately need them. What did we hear at the estimates discussion? March 2016, at the earliest. Do you think that is good enough? I do not think it is good enough, and I have been talking about this for a long time. I knew that that was ambitious at the beginning and I was right.

Oh, boy, it makes me wild to know that this Government does not care about the people in Christchurch and their housing concerns. Let us talk about the housing accord in Christchurch, shall we? Let us talk about the case of the disappearing $52 million. There has been $22 million spent on the housing accord for affordable housing in Christchurch, and what has happened to the other $52 million? Well, I will tell you what has happened to it. It has gone to Auckland. It has gone to Auckland to deal with the Auckland housing crisis. How do you think people in Christchurch feel about that, Minister? They do not feel very good about that. On top of that, let me quote from one of the city councillors, Glenn Livingstone. What did Glenn Livingstone say? He is the chairman of the council’s housing task force and he said this was the first he had heard that the money was to go to Auckland. So this Government could not even front up to the council in Christchurch and tell the council that it was taking $52 million out of the housing accord to send to Auckland. It could not front up to it. The council got that information from this news report. How is that for relationship building with the Christchurch City Council—that the council had to find out from a news report that that $52 million was going to Auckland? I think that is pretty appalling. How did we find out about that money? Did the Government front up and say: “Hey, we think Christchurch is actually doing OK. We’re going to send some money north.”? No, it did not. This cynical Government left it to a backbencher to find the information in the Treasury dump of documents. That is what it did. Did you get up here in the Chamber, Mr Smith, and say to the people of Christchurch: “You are doing so well in your housing issues. We’re going to send this $52 million up north.”? No, you did not.

Let us see what reaction we had in Christchurch to that, shall we, from the Salvation Army? “From a Salvation Army Christchurch perspective, it’s very alarming. There is still a major need and major issue [with affordable housing]. The impact that will have on all agencies is significant.” And let us see what the City Mission has said—

I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to report progress.

Progress to be reported presently.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill without amendment, and progress on the Appropriation (2015/16 Estimates) Bill.

Report adopted.

Sitting suspended from 9.56 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Wednesday)