Annual Review Debate — Social Development and Housing Sector

I stand to make this speech on the Appropriation (2015/16 Confirmation and Validation) Bill, social development and housing sector. The 2015-16 period has been a very active time for this Government, by supporting low-income families.

In the 2015 Budget, we saw $790 million invested into the child hardship investment, which came into effect during that period. For the first time in 43 years, we saw a $25-per-week increase in benefits to the many people who are on benefits, and that is a historical event for this country—the first time in 43 years. We saw Working for Families increase between $12.50 and $24 per week for low- and very low-income families, and we saw child support and access to it also be made more available for low-income families.

Under the social investment approach to welfare working in the 2016 Budget, there was $111.5 million set aside over a 4-year period. This was to help New Zealanders to come off benefits, and $41 million of that went into Youth Service so that they could receive specialist services through—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Following on from my speech before we rose, I want to take some time to talk about the overhauling of the care and protection system, because this is a massive piece of legislation. What it has done is it has looked at Child, Youth and Family and the way that that system has worked, and it has developed a new system that has set up the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki. What that does is it places the child at the centre of everything around their needs and supporting them, so that they can thrive in a society where they were a little bit—well, not a little bit, but where some of them actually did not thrive. The establishment of this ministry, as I said, has also worked in helping to set up a new independent advocacy service called VOYCE – Whakarongo Mai, meaning “Listen to me.” “Listen to me” is the catchcry for the young people who will come in under the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki. This piece of legislation has also overhauled the age at which young people can stay within the service, so that a young person can stay in the service up to the age of 18.

This is, as I said, a massive piece of legislation. There is $347 million for the care and protection of vulnerable children and young people, of which $140 million will actually go towards the front line—the pressures that this piece of legislation is developing. Also, $200 million of this is going to be used to help transform the system for young people. As I said, this piece of legislation actually fits in with all the other areas of the social development and housing sector.

Along with the areas within sexual violence and family violence, this is another piece of major legislation that we have also been working on over this 2015-16 period. With family violence, we are looking at an integrated safety response budget of $1.4 million to start to get things rolling. Just recently the Government announced a $680,000 boost to the Canterbury Integrated Safety Response pilot.

Sexual violence is hideous—hideous, it makes me sick just having to think about it—but it is one of those things that have actually affected many, many, mainly women, in New Zealand. Our response of $46 million of operating funding over 4 years has actually helped to put in crisis support services and has also put in a 24/7 sexual violence helpline, which is something that women will be able to access that they have not accessed in the past. It also—[Bell rung]

Order! [Interruption] Order! Does the member want another call?

💬 Joanne Hayes: Oh, sorry.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Got a minute and a half on the clock.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No. I told her how much time she had. I am calling Denise Roche.

I rise to take a call for the Greens to look at the Housing New Zealand annual review. There is a wise saying that a society will be judged based on how it treats its most vulnerable. I think that if we look at the case of Housing New Zealand and social housing generally in this country, then we should be judging the Government very harshly indeed since our vulnerable are not cared for very much at all.

Over the last 8 years there has been a real ideological shift around housing and social housing in this country. National has applied its ideology of free-market economics to the housing situation, and it has not only refused to invest in social housing, Housing New Zealand, but sold off its assets. The total stock under National has fallen from 69,173 homes in 2009, its first full year in Government, to just 64,000 last year. Through a combination of sales, divestments, and lease expiries, 3,633 houses have passed on from Housing New Zealand. During the time that National has been in office, the population has increased. In the 2009 census, it was 4.3 million, and it increased last year to 4.69 million. That is an increase of around 400,000 people. So while there has been an increasing need for social housing and an increasing population, there has been a decrease of the investment that this Government has actually put into social housing in New Zealand.

I guess one of the things it has done is provide emergency housing in motels at the cost of around about $100,000 a day for emergency accommodation, which is incredibly short-term thinking. If we were wanting to build communities, to support families so that they can thrive, then we should not be sticking them in motels with the hope that they will be able to find something later on when there is nothing there. Those are the lucky ones. According to the Otago University research last year, there were over 4,000 rough sleepers, people sleeping in their cars, or people sleeping in the streets, and we have no provision for them. It is growing. That is not even recognising the people who are doubling up, who are actually sleeping in garages or three or four families together. That rise in rough sleepers is actually incredibly disturbing. To quote economist Shamubeel Eaqub, “Our housing market is fundamentally broken—it can no longer provide decent, warm, safe houses and that basic human right, which is shelter, is no longer available to all New Zealanders.”

I believe that the Government has a responsibility to support those human rights for all New Zealanders and that we should be looking at social housing provision, and that Housing New Zealand should definitely not be selling off homes, particularly to the private sector, in the guise that they will be building affordable housing—because it is not affordable housing, certainly not in Auckland. What it is doing in places like Glen Innes is it is fracturing communities, well-established communities, which have been there for generations.

We can do better. We can do much better. We have got a Homes Not Cars policy, which would let Housing New Zealand keep its dividend so it could build emergency housing. We have got a Home for Life policy to increase the level of homeownership in this country, particularly for the lower-waged people, like we used to do.

💬 Phil Twyford: Very sensible.

Very sensible—you are quite right, Mr Twyford. It is a very sensible policy. But the biggest change of all that we need is we need to ensure that this Government changes in September and that we get a much more progressive Government to support our people, the vulnerable people, of Aotearoa New Zealand.

I feel like it is timely that I can stand at the end of that contribution from Denise Roche and completely concur with the sentiment at the conclusion of her speech—timely also because she was speaking to housing issues. I really do think that that will be a key point of debate this election, as it should be. My colleague Phil Twyford will speak to that issue sometime soon, because housing truly is fundamental to us as the Labour Party, the people’s party, because it fundamentally affects absolutely everything. As much as I am the spokesperson for children, I cannot look past the impact of unaffordable housing and of poor quality housing on a child’s health and well-being, and on their family’s discretionary income, their ability to put food on the table, and help that child fully participate in their school and education, and in their community generally. So it affects everything.

The issues that I want to speak to, though, relate more directly to elements of the social development portfolio that affect children. We do, of course, now have a Minister for Children, a role that we have applauded for having been created. It is something that we had as a policy for some time. We equally had, matching that policy, the idea of creating a ministry for children, something we as a Labour Party still stand by. We saw with much disappointment that the opportunity of creating a separate department was, in a way, squandered when the Minister decided to apply a very narrow approach to her work with children and child well-being by creating the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, rather than a ministry for children. I think that speaks, fundamentally, to the differences in the social development portfolio generally between Labour and National. National has, via its social investment approach, taken the view that unless it can prove that there is a particular data-driven outcome, it is not worth investing.

On our side of the Chamber, our view is that there are social and societal gains to be made by early intervention and early investment that may from time to time come in the form of universal services; that may reach beyond a particularly heavily targeted group; and that will not wait for someone to be in dire straits, be it their mental health situation or be it the vulnerability of a child, before we provide support services in a community, because that essentially waits for harm to happen before we look to provide any intervention.

I want to give a real-life example of where we have seen the Government’s approach versus Labour’s approach. For over 20 years now there has been a programme called Parents as First Teachers (PAFT) operating in New Zealand. It was attached to Plunket originally. The idea was that, yes, everyone in New Zealand gets their contracted visits—I hope that is not something that social investment will change. Every New Zealander is entitled to visits from Plunket nurses. It is a world-class service. But they identified that there were some families that would benefit from additional support. They might not be as this Government would predetermine. They may not be families that necessarily have another family member in prison, or someone on a benefit, or some other marker that the Government has determined is the only rationale by which you can ever get social services. They might, however, be isolated. They might be rural, young, have English as a second language, or have something—just something—that may trigger some need in that family. The Plunket nurses use their professional discretion—their professional discretion via that universal service—to say these are families that could do with additional support.

Parents as First Teachers was that additional support. The Government decided it did not target families that were vulnerable enough, and cancelled it. I saw firsthand the accounts from families that stood as testament to the worth and value of that early investment. Where was the evidence to say that those families did not need that support? Where was the evidence to say that the need existed here, and that should be mutually exclusive to the need that exists over here? But that is what this Government’s model of so-called social investment is. It is a narrowing of the scope. It is, essentially, an exercise to try to reduce down the investment in people, the investment in community. We fundamentally disagree with such a narrow view of well-being because it will result in simply greater need manifesting further down the track, in our view. The Government’s decision was to take money out of Parents as First Teachers and put it in Strengthening Families. Yes, there is value in Strengthening Families, but Strengthening Families triages a much higher-risk group. PAFT existed to stop families moving into that high-needs group. It was a totally short-sighted move.

My additional view, and the view of the Labour Party, would be that if you genuinely want to have an effect on some of the things that the Government has targets around—infectious skin diseases, preventable illnesses like respiratory diseases and bronchiectasis—then you would target the cause of those preventable hospitalisations. What are the causes of them?

💬 Clare Curran: Housing.

Housing.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Cold, damp houses.

Gold star to Clare Curran. Gold star to Ruth Dyson. Cold, damp, overcrowded houses: that is fundamentally the cause of those issues. Actually, when we use the word “overcrowded”, often you might actually have sufficient bedrooms, but families will reside in one room because that is the one room they can afford to heat. That then causes the spread of disease and infection.

It is our view that if you want to make a fundamental difference, then, yes, you will have plans around housing—well, around reducing homelessness and overcrowding, and improving the quality of housing—but why not target material deprivation? The Children’s Commissioner suggested it. There is value in it. Surely we can agree it is an international measure. Why not actually target income poverty itself, as the driver of so many of these social ills?

That, to us, fundamentally demonstrates the Government’s view around the notion of social investment: that the Government is the only one that can come in and save these families, when, actually, a huge proportion of New Zealand families would need nothing to do with the State if they had the dignity to do the job themselves through decent wages, decent incomes, and the ability to look after themselves with dignity and respect. They do not need us to come to the rescue. A huge number of families do not need us. They just need a Government to back their ability to earn a decent wage. That is what they need, and that is what is missing in this portfolio.

What did we see last Budget? We saw, finally, acknowledgment, though, that we have a child poverty issue in New Zealand. The Government’s response to that, instead of looking at some of those bigger systemic issues, was to provide a pot of money, and say to officials: “Here is your pot of money. Choose how you distribute it.” We know that, because that is what came out at the Social Services Committee. That is what generated the $25-a-week increase for those on benefits.

I will counter the rhetoric that exists that this was the first time benefits were raised in decades. That is totally incorrect. That is totally incorrect. The Labour Government, when it introduced Working for Families, introduced the family tax credit. The most extensive part of Working for Families was the family tax credit, and it went to families on a benefit. There is a fundamental misunderstanding of that policy package. So it is totally incorrect to say that that $25 was the first increase.

It is also incorrect to claim it made a difference, because when you have a 40 percent increase in rents in Auckland in an 8-year period, you can bet your bottom dollar that 25 bucks is gone already. During the Mt Albert by-election I had someone come and tell me that they had just received a 20 percent increase in their rent. Snap: that is that $25 gone—gone.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: And more.

And more—absolutely. What we need this election is some honesty from this Government about what really will create change for these families. It has touted that it might do something around Working for Families. I think we just need a little honest reflection. In 2010 National froze the threshold for abatement. In 2012 it increased the abatement rate and it changed the income thresholds for Working for Families. In 2015 it increased the abatement rate again. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been taken out of Working for Families because of this Government’s adjustments to that scheme, and now we have the Minister claiming that that is probably where we are going to see some wins for families out of this Budget.

I would remind New Zealanders that just like we saw for KiwiSaver, this Government has tinkered, and tinkered, and tinkered again, and squeezed families on middle incomes and low incomes via its changes in Working for Families. Do not be under any illusion that what we see in this Budget will necessarily be generous, when you take that into account. Do not be under any illusion that the Government has well-being genuinely at its heart via something like social investment.

It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First in this debate. I would like just to focus on something that Jacinda Ardern mentioned. When we talk about social services, especially the modern Government’s approach to social services, you cannot go past discussing the social investment approach. The one word that pops into everybody’s mind—or into mine, certainly, when I am looking at the social investment approach—is the word “juxtaposition”. There is no more blatant, definite, and palpable example of the Government’s juxtaposition between what it says in regard to the social investment approach—what it says the reasoning is behind the social investment approach—versus what actually happens and what it does.

In the Ministry of Social Development’s annual report, the intent of the social investment approach is stated everywhere. It states that “Building a social investment approach … is about applying rigorous and evidence-based investment practices to the development, purchase and delivery of social services so decisions can be made that improve the lives of New Zealanders.” That all sounds well and good, and we would agree with that if that was the actual case, but the fact is that it is not.

It goes on to list a number of the works that the ministry is working towards in regard to the outcomes, and one of them is “More people into sustainable work and out of welfare dependency”. One of the programmes that the ministry and the Government are using to get their young people and youth off the benefit and avoid them being State-dependent is the Youth Service. If you take into account what I have just quoted about what the intent of the social investment approach is, and what the Government says the social investment approach is about, and then just read—do the basic research and reading and evidence-finding in the report from Treasury, which was released only earlier this year, about the success, or not, of the Youth Service—these are just fundamental things about what the intent of the Youth Service was. It was about educational participation. The report did not find any significant change in the likelihood of staying in school for these young people through this Youth Service, through the social investment approach into this Youth Service.

Talking about time spent on benefits: in fact, it found that there was slightly more time spent on benefits by these young people using the social investment approach to fund this programme. It said that participation in the Youth Service was associated with higher rather than lower benefit receipt in the following 2 years, with the impact on benefit rates increasing through that time. It actually found a negative impact on employment rates: “The limited impact of [the Youth Service] on qualification attainment is the most likely reason for the programme’s lack of labour market benefits.”

In conclusion, the report says that “The programme did not raise participants’ employment rates, and their benefit receipt rates were slightly raised rather than lowered.” But here is the kicker—here is the sentence that is the absolute juxtaposition of what the Government is saying the social investment approach is: “Prior international research on the impacts of youth mentoring programmes has found that they either have no impacts or small … effects on academic achievement.” This is all based on the social investment approach, and it is the social investment approach that is failing. Yet this Government and the Prime Minister and the Minister have said that this entire Budget coming up is based on the social investment approach.

One of the programmes that the Government is going to be reinvesting in is the Family Start programme. This is just yet another example of saying one thing and doing another. They say that—and this is the evaluation of that programme that it is going to reinvest in—“We find no statistically measurable impact … on participation in the B4 School Check. A concerning finding is an estimated reduction in enrolment with a primary health organisation at age 1”. This is before they have made any sorts of decisions to reinvest in this programme.

Lastly out of this report, an evaluation of the before school checks: “By the nature of our data, we are restricted to examining outcomes that are captured in administrative records. Administrative data currently offer few direct measures of children’s cognition, parenting behaviours and attitudes, or the home environment. This means that our study captures only a subset of programme impacts that are of interest.” Yet this Government is investing more under the guise of social investment, and it has proven to be a failure.

I would like to take a quick call to talk to some of the issues that have been raised. I want to pick up on what Denise Roche from the Greens said, that a society can be judged on how it treats its most vulnerable, and, I think, if you take that saying then this Government has much to be extremely proud of. I know that the Opposition does not like it and it keeps arguing against it, but if you look at some of the most vulnerable in our communities, they are people who are reliant on the benefit. Benefits are supposed to be a hand up, not a handout. This Government was the first Government in 43 years to increase the benefit directly to beneficiaries who had a family. [Interruption] It does not like it; it tries to dispute it, but, actually, for all the time that Labour was in power, and it talks big about looking after the vulnerable, this Government, led by John Key, a National Party - led Government, increased the benefits to family members with children. Ninety thousand - odd families, which is about 170,000 children in New Zealand, directly benefited from this Government.

It is all very well for people to talk about Auckland, but I can tell you that $25 a week, every week, goes a hang of a long way in places like Ōpōtiki, in Wairoa, in Taumarunui, in Te Kūiti, in Kaitāia—some of the areas with some of the poorest people in this country. Twenty-five dollars a week has made an enormous difference to those children and their families. What is more, we increased the take-home Working for Families for those low-income families and very low-income families. The Opposition hates it; it never gives us any credit for it, but this Government looked after some of the most vulnerable people in its community.

While we are talking about vulnerable people, I want to talk about the magnificent effort that New Zealand’s sole parents have made over the last 8, 9 years to get themselves out of welfare, into employment and independence, and supporting their own families. That is an enormous step for a young mum or dad to take when they have that enormous responsibility of raising their own children. I pay tribute to the fact that we have seen that number of sole parents reliant on the taxpayer for support reducing by 57 percent since 2009. That is well over half of those sole parents who have backed themselves—we have been there with them—and they have gone on to work and independence.

That is important, because we want to break the cycle of dependence. On this side of the Chamber, we want to break that cycle, and we know that those 60,000 children who are no longer growing up in benefit-dependent homes—we know that is important, because we know that if a child grows up in a benefit-dependent home they are twice as likely to go on to a benefit themselves before the age of 23, and we know that if they go on to a benefit before that age, they are most likely to spend 14 or 15 of their adult years on a benefit. That is no life for New Zealand’s children. Some of the most vulnerable children in our community—this Government not only cares about those vulnerable members of our community but is doing something tangible about them.

Then I come to the overhaul of perhaps the most vulnerable children of the lot, the overhaul of Child, Youth and Family—well, long overdue. Child, Youth and Family has been restructured 14 times, and if you go out and talk to the community they say those amazing changes to the law in 1989 were not put into practice. Well, we are determined, on this side of the Chamber, to make sure that every single New Zealand child gets the opportunity to have a great, successful life—even those children who for some reason or another have to be taken into State care. They deserve to have the best lives ever, and it is time that the State stood up and took responsibility. I am very proud to be part of a Government that is doing that and is determined to make the changes that will happen over the next 4 to 5 years as we work in partnership with a whole variety of groups in our community. Iwi are ready to take responsibility for their children; they want to be part of the new Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki. They know that they have a place to play. There are Māori organisations; there are NGOs. This Government is determined to make sure that every single New Zealand child gets a great life.

We have just had 5 minutes of rhetoric from the Minister in the chair, Anne Tolley, so here are 5 minutes of the reality. The Minister said that this Government is about looking after vulnerable families, but I want to give just one example of how this Government’s policies and systems let one family down. I want to talk—and I will not mention names—about one sole parent who was looking after her adult child and a 3-year-old grandson and relying on one income. Since the Government changed its policy where Work and Income assesses income-related rents and Housing New Zealand becomes the landlord, there has been mass confusion between those two departments and sometimes a lack of communication.

This single parent with a disabled child was paying $127 a week. She had her personal circumstances change; her marriage broke up, so she had her income-related rent reassessed and it went to $329. She could not afford $329, so the arrears for her rent piled up to close to $4,000, to the point where her family was at the Tenancy Tribunal, 1 day away from being evicted out of their Housing New Zealand home. Let me reiterate what we are talking about here: a single mother with an adult disabled child and a 3-year-old grandson whom she is looking after by herself. She cannot afford the $329, because that is $200 more than what she was paying before. She comes to my office and says: “Kris, something can’t be right. Can you please have a look at this?”. She is 1 day away from being evicted from her house.

So we move a few cogs, and things get moving, and, lo and behold, those two agencies are wrong. Because her rent should have been—wait for it—not $329 but $53. So they were about $280 shy of the mark, and this rent that she could not afford piled up and got her 1 day away from eviction, and this is how this Government looks after vulnerable families in our community. It was 1 day away from evicting a mum with a disabled child and a 3-year-old grandson. She is looking after them by herself, and the Minister says: “We are looking after vulnerable families.” Well, that is the reality of what this Government’s policies and this Government’s attitudes towards looking after vulnerable families and providing good, affordable housing is doing to people in our communities.

So stand up and take another 5 minutes, and explain to this Committee and to this country how you are looking after vulnerable families, if your policies and your departments are about to kick out a grandmother with a 3-year-old grandchild whom she is looking after, and an adult disabled child. I say to those members on that side of the Chamber: stand up and defend that. That is exactly what happened, and if it were not for a Labour member of Parliament working for his constituents, that lady would be out on the street looking for somewhere to live. If you want to be proud of your track record of looking after vulnerable families, then get up and defend that. I doubt any of you will—not one of you. That is the reality of your policies around social housing and the way you changed the game for my constituents 2 years ago.

The other thing is that you have sat on your bums and done nothing about this piece of land in Porirua for the last 7 years. This is a photo of Castor Crescent. It used to have about 45 homes in it. You demolished it.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Let me see it.

It looks like a park; it is not.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: It’s bare land.

It is bare land. You demolished the houses 7 years ago, and promised you would rebuild—and the Government promised it would rebuild, sorry, Mr Chair. You have not lifted one hammer, hammered in one nail, or dug one hole to put those houses back. And you say that there is no massive demand for social housing in New Zealand. Well, tell that to the Citizens Advice Bureau, which, when I went and visited it the other day, said “Emergency housing is the biggest issue here in Porirua.” Tell that to the camp owners who are saying “We can’t take any emergency housing cases any more. It’s starting to affect our business.”

If you did care about people who need homes you would do something. Something needs to change, when there are 41,000 New Zealanders who are homeless. Something needs to change, when you are not replacing homes in my electorate. Something needs to change, when a single mother with a disabled child and a 3-year-old grandson gets her income-related rent calculated at the wrong amount and nearly gets kicked out of her house. Something needs to change. Something needs to change, and that is the Government. If people really care about housing they will do a great thing on 23 September and kick this lot out.

I too want to respond to the Minister for Social Development’s rhetoric. To be honest, there are times in this House when I feel as if I am living in a completely different country to that Minister.

When I hear that Minister saying how much the Government has done to alleviate poverty in this country, how generous it is, and that it is basically just politics that we are not standing up here and congratulating it on everything, I just wonder whether that Minister has ever sat across from any advocates, like we did in the Social Services Committee, where we heard from advocates telling us that they had worked with a mother and a baby who were living in a shed on a mouldy piece of carpet because that family was too intimidated by the culture of Work and Income to apply for a benefit. I want to hear what the Minister would say to that mother and to that advocate in response to those concerns.

I want to hear from that Minister what she might have to say to the pensioner with PTSD who was kicked out of his Housing New Zealand house for the damage that he did to it during a psychotic episode. I want to hear from that Minister what she has got to say to those children who are not able to go to school because there is no food at home, because they do not have shoes, and because they are too embarrassed to get to school.

I want to know what this Government is going to do about that. I am not going to congratulate this Minister on a $25 increase when there seems to be nothing that her Government has done that is based on listening to the needs of those families and the people working with them. There is nothing.

We have had a token increase based on evidence provided by the officials, who told the Minister that that $25 increase would not take one category of people out of poverty—not even one of the people in poverty—in a country that has so much and where productivity and GDP have increased so much, but where 155,000 kids are going without seven or more of the things that they need. These are not things that would just be nice to have, but these are things that are considered the basics for getting by in this society, where almost 300,000 kids in this affluent society are living in significant income poverty. The Minister expects us to congratulate her and her Government on that. Well, I am not going to congratulate the Minister on that.

I also want to make the connection between these policies of poverty and the other failed policies around care for children who are hurt in their families and are needing to be removed—and I say “needing” with some hesitation. There has been an increase in recent times in the number of children taken into Child, Youth and Family care and an 8.1 percent increase in tamariki Māori, in particular, and I think that is particularly important to note when this Government has so comprehensively failed to work with Māori to plan the new way forward for care for tamariki Māori.

While we have had this increase and we know that more children are being taken into care because the pressure on social workers means that in many cases they are not able to work with whānau or families to be able to come up with good solutions, and after we had a report in 2014 that told us we needed 356 more social workers, we now have fewer social workers than we did then. We have 66 fewer social workers. In a time of transition and a time of increased risk of things going wrong, we have fewer social workers. We have a Commissioner for Children with a statutory role of oversight of that system who has repeatedly said they do not have the resources to be able to do that job effectively.

So our children are at risk right now because of the decisions of that Government. This Government has created poverty and chaos, and it should be kicked out.

I am very happy to be following on from a couple of excellent contributions from my colleagues—Kris Faafoi, who made an impassioned speech about the failure of this Government to live up to its rhetoric about helping vulnerable New Zealanders, and also the superb contribution from the deputy leader of the Labour Party, Jacinda Ardern, on the hollow that lies behind the Government’s talk of social investment.

I want to talk about housing, because if there is one issue that shows that this National Government has run out of ideas and given up, it is housing. Let us look at the numbers, because they are quite shocking. New Zealand’s rate of homeownership is now the lowest it has been since 1951. The Auckland average house price has doubled since National has been in office, and the housing crisis is now spreading around the country. We are seeing extreme homelessness in Blenheim, in Dunedin, in Taupō, in Tauranga—all over New Zealand. This sickness is spreading. One in seven properties in Auckland is being purchased by a property speculator who owns multiple properties—five, six, seven, eight properties. That is how bad it is.

But put the numbers aside, because this is deeply personal. Andrew Little has a son called Cam. Like me—I have a son. His name is Harry. He is a bit older than Andrew’s Cam, who is a teenager. But his son and my son—their generations do not stand a chance of achieving their dream of affordable homeownership. They are locked out. Their generation does not stand a chance under the policies of this Government. [Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! We are not going to have this cross-bench—[Interruption] The member will sit. We are not going to have this. I am calling Phil Twyford to carry on—

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No. I know what you are going to be saying.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: You can take a point of order in this Parliament. I would just like Ms Dyson to withdraw and apologise for an unparliamentary remark.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No, no. I am in control of this. The member will sit. [Interruption] I am ruling. The member will sit, please.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I have dealt with it. The Minister will sit. The clock is ticking. It does not stop because of this—Phil Twyford. [Interruption] The member will withdraw and apologise for those comments. That is completely unparliamentary.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: That is exactly what Ms Dyson just said.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I did not hear it. I am asking the member to withdraw and apologise.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Well, you’ve got to turn up, seriously, or—OK, I withdraw and apologise, but you are losing control of the House.

💬 Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No, no. Sit down. Did Ms Dyson—did she make those unparliamentary comments as well? [Interruption] If the member did, I would ask her to withdraw and apologise.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: No, I did not.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): You did not? I take the member’s word for it—Phil Twyford.

💬 Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. It is absolutely unacceptable for a Minister of the Crown to tell a presiding officer they are losing control of the House.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): It is, and I am in control of this. I am moving on to Phil Twyford.

It is deeply personal, the housing crisis, and I deliberately say to this Committee that—[Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I do not want any more on this subject. I am calling Phil Twyford to continue the debate. I do not want to hear any more about that matter. I have dealt with it.

I am glad that the member Jonathan Coleman is getting all emotional about this debate, because it is deeply personal. When my son and his generation do not stand a chance of ever owning their own home in our country’s biggest city, when Andrew Little’s son, Cam, and his mates do not stand a chance of ever owning their own homes, something is seriously wrong in our country, and that is the reason why the housing issue has become the most explosive political issue in New Zealand today. Parents and grandparents from one end of this country to the other feel sick that their children and their grandchildren will never have the opportunity that our generation enjoyed to own their own home. That is why it is deeply personal. That is why housing is the issue that illustrates, more than any other, why this country needs the fresh approach that a Government led by Andrew Little and Jacinda Ardern will bring.

We are approaching the Budget, again, and the Government is talking up a big game about a Government-backed housebuilding programme. After 8½ years in office, the Government has suddenly decided that it might be a good idea if the Government started building houses. But, as we think about that, let us consider what this Government has done in terms of Budget-time housing policy over the last few years.

In 2013 the Government’s great Budget housing policy was the Auckland Housing Accord, signed 3 years ago by the Hon Dr Nick Smith. What has the housing accord achieved? The Government promised to build 39,000 houses. Well, it has built fewer than 2,000 houses under the Auckland Housing Accord. The Government promised 39,000 houses; it has built fewer than 2,000.

What did the respected analyst Rodney Dickens have to say the other day, in his critique of the Government’s housing policies? He pointed out that since Nick Smith signed the Auckland Housing Accord in 2013 house prices are up 45 percent, land prices are up 52 percent, and building costs are up 36 percent. That is the result of the National Government’s flagship housing policy.

In Budget 2014 the big announcement was that the Government was going to reduce and suspend anti-dumping duties and tariffs on a range of building products. The Government promised it would knock $3,500 off the cost of the building supplies needed to build a standard home. What has happened since then? What has happened since Budget 2014, in regard to building supplies? They have got more and more expensive. Instead of saving $3,500 off the cost of the building supplies for a new home, the cost of wallboard alone has gone up by more than $3,500. That was the other great flagship housing policy of this National Government.

What happened last year, in last year’s Budget? The Government announced a $1 billion line of credit, so that councils could build infrastructure to allow new homes to be built. We found out in question time today, from the Minister for Infrastructure, Steven Joyce, that not a single new house has been built as a result of that policy. We found out, from the Official Information Act, that this $1 billion line of credit offered to councils was dreamt up, in a brainstorm, by a staff member in Bill English’s office only 2 weeks before the Government announced it in a speech.

Treasury said at the time that it had no advice about the policy because it did not come from officials. It was dreamt up by a political staffer. The absurdity of that policy is that it tried to offer councils cheap credit—councils that are already bumping up against their debt ceiling; they cannot borrow any more money.

But this National Government, which has borrowed $90 billion since it has been in office—the Government that has borrowed more money than any other Government in New Zealand’s history; it has spent the last 8 years criticising councils for borrowing too much—its idea of a solution to the housing crisis was to offer councils more cheap debt. What has happened? The Government has spent the last 12 months trying to fix that problem, because the policy was so wrong-headed that none of the councils actually wanted to borrow any of the money that the Government was offering them.

What was the other big policy that the Government announced this time last year, around the Budget? It made all sorts of big promises about emergency housing for the homeless, in the middle of the “winter of misery” last year. We found out, only a couple of weeks ago, that in the last 6 months since Paula Bennett made all those great promises about building extra emergency housing, the Government has increased the stock of emergency housing across the whole country—Alfred Ngaro, this is your responsibility now. The Government has increased the stock of emergency housing by five beds in 6 months—five beds in 6 months. That is the net increase in emergency housing. Is it any wonder that the Government is spending $100,000 a day on housing homeless Kiwi families in motels?

This speaks volumes about the bankruptcy, the intellectual bankruptcy, of this National Government. It has reduced the number of State houses by 2,500 and it is selling thousands of State houses around the country. It has added only five extra beds to the stock of emergency housing in 6 months, but it is shelling out $100,000 a day to moteliers, to put up homeless Kiwi families. That says it all about this Government’s housing policy.

The only good news in this story is that help is on the way. In September the country has the opportunity to vote for a Government that will fix the housing crisis—that will build 100,000 affordable homes for first-home buyers in New Zealand. That is the kind of policy the country is crying out for. People want a Labour-led Government that will do what Governments have done for decades—what Labour Governments have done for decades in this country. When there is a mess created by the National Government, Labour will come in and fix it. When there is a housing shortage, we will build houses. We will build affordable homes for young Kiwi families. We will ban foreign buyers. We will tax speculators. We will change the rules so that renters get a better deal. We will build thousands of new State houses, instead of selling them off.

I want to talk about the housing crisis holistically because one aspect of it is linked to another. Lack of the number of houses available for people to buy leads to demand for rental houses, lack of rental houses causes demand for social housing services, and so on. Since the National Government took office in 2008 it has been rather like a frog in a saucepan waiting for the heat to increase to the point where it really has to jump. It should be jumping high now because the housing crisis is chronic. It is chronic and the Government has done far too little about it. In the last 9 years house prices have gone through the roof in Auckland, so we now see that in that city houses cost, on average, 12 times the annual income of the average wage-earner. It should be more like four times, because that is historically what it has been in New Zealand. So it gives you an idea of the magnitude of the problem.

The Government has done some little things about it. It has caused greater access to KiwiSaver funds—for those who have any to access, but, of course, there are many who do not, and so it is a rather limited solution. Then when you look at rent you will find that the situation is not much better than homeownership. Between 1991 to 2015 there was a shrinkage from 74 percent homeownership, as a proportion of the whole population in homes, to 64 percent. Those who rent have gone from 23 percent of the total to 32 percent. That is caused by the huge ballooning in rent throughout the country, but mainly in Auckland. The result has been more poverty, more homelessness, and more waste of Government money on emergency housing, which should never be necessary in the first place.

The root causes are mainly—we say mainly—immigration. Immigration numbers of over 70,000 per year for the last few years are just not sustainable. Reduced immigration is therefore a central plank of New Zealand First’s policy. That is something we would want to do first. We want to further discourage speculation by making it not possible for overseas buyers to purchase homes in New Zealand. We would stop them doing it altogether.

Looking at the special housing areas and accords—yes, they have helped to some degree. But the real problem is the Government’s unwillingness to invest directly in housing. New Zealand First policy is to do just that: to invest in land and see that it gets developed through a special agency for the purpose, and to make sure that people can afford them by allowing them to purchase either a section or a fully built property over 25 years at a low interest rate. The Government has done that, to some extent, with Crown lands. But it is looking at places like Point England, and Point England has got its own problems: it is a drop in the bucket and it causes a loss of public amenities, open space, and conservation values as well.

A much greater Budget provision is needed for the Government to invest in real housing solutions by making sure that the houses are there by actually building them. It needs a long-term strategy of the kind that New Zealand First has in our policy, together with assistance for first-home purchases, as I have mentioned.

The Government’s record is even worse in rental housing. Rents have increased under National by over 20 percent, well above the Consumers Price Index. It is the lowest-income earners, of course, who are hurt. Typically, people paying rent in Auckland have to pay more than 50 percent of their take-home income. You can understand how crippling that is for them and how bad it is for New Zealand’s social cohesion. The problem is that the whole thrust of the Government’s housing programme is wrong. It minimises its efforts in social housing and has done far too little for first-home buyers. It is really a poor performance overall.

I think that at the heart of what we are discussing here is what kind of New Zealand we want: one that is compassionate and caring and supports people on the way to having a decent standard of living and supporting themselves and their families, or one that is harsh and judgmental of people who are experiencing tough times and harsh and judgmental of disabled people? This is an issue that is really close to my heart. Recent statistics that have been released on cold, damp housing show that 38 percent of disabled people cannot keep their houses warm—significantly higher than any other group. Just think about that: people with disabilities are living in cold, damp housing—38 percent of people with disabilities. The very people who often, for health reasons, need to be kept warm—need to be in warm housing—are not.

The social support system in New Zealand is failing these people. Year in, year out, winter after winter, they are living in cold, damp housing. They are living in cold, damp housing because the benefits are not enough to secure rental housing that is warm and dry for them. Not only is the rent too high but, for many people, there is a shortage of accessible housing, housing that meets their needs. Sometimes they are forced, both because of their specific needs and because of low incomes, to accept the worst possible housing, and that is just outrageous. This is not what we want for New Zealand.

The other issue I want to pick up on is the one that was raised by my colleague Jan Logie, about the culture of Work and Income being intimidating—about this solo woman with a baby who could not get the benefit because she was so intimidated by going into Work and Income. I know what that feels like, because I have been there. I have been there under two different Governments. I have directly experienced what it feels like to go to Work and Income under a Government that is harsh and judgmental, that rants on about beneficiary bludgers. Do you remember those days?

I remember trying to go to Work and Income and asking for the unemployment benefit. It was like being hauled over the coals as to why I should get the unemployment benefit to see me through a few months. It was an incredibly humiliating experience, and that was under a National Government. So what happened—jump forward 15 years later—when a Labour Government was in? I thought that the culture at Work and Income might still be the same. When there was a crisis in the family business and there was no money coming in for several months and the cupboards were bare, I still could not bear to go to Work and Income because I was terrified of being subjected to the same treatment. Finally, a friend rang them and said: “Look, I have this mum with three children who is actually quite desperate for a food grant.”—this was under a Labour Government. They said: “Come on in, come on in. Just bring in your records for your business, and we’ll see what we can do for you.” The atmosphere was completely different.

I cannot tell you how important that is, that fundamental culture of respect when somebody walks in that door and says: “We’re experiencing tough times.” They should not have to dot every “i” and cross every “t” and produce a billion swathes of documents to show who they are, multiple times over. They should not have to prove that they have a disability every 6 months or every year, or whatever it is. That is what happens at Work and Income. It is so intimidating, so overwhelming, that people are desperate when they try to explain. Then they get it wrong—sometimes they get it wrong. They confess they have earned some money that week. They get it wrong and Work and Income cuts off the benefit by 50 percent straight away without actually factoring in that over time they have not earned that much.

There are so many things wrong at the moment in Work and Income—so many things. The only way we are going to get things better is to change that culture, and that is going to require changing the Government because I cannot see National ever recognising that it has such a serious problem with the culture at Work and Income.

There are moments in the House when you sort of take pause for a moment and you take stock and you think. Someone says something that makes you really think about things and you just hope that other members in the House have also paused to think about them. For me that was a few weeks ago, when we were in the House and the Minister who is now in charge of social housing, Amy Adams, stood up and boasted about the fact that the National Government was spending more on emergency housing than any other Government in New Zealand’s history. I stopped for a minute and I just thought: “Really? That’s their signature achievement in housing—that they are spending more on emergency housing than any other Government in New Zealand history?”. I thought: “Well, Labour did not need to do as much because we actually had houses for people to move into.” Amy Adams’ pride and joy so far in the portfolio is that the Government is giving more people hotel units or caravans than it is giving them houses.

I think that says everything about where this National Government has landed up, because for years and years we heard Bill English talking about how the National Government was going to protect New Zealanders from the sharp edges of the economy. Well, which New Zealanders are those? It is not the 41,000 homeless New Zealanders whom we are now dealing with, the tens of thousands of young New Zealanders whom Bill English has written off as “pretty damn hopeless”, or the 78 percent of people renting houses today who have no hope of getting the deposit together in order to buy their own homes. None of those people are being protected from the sharp edges of the economy by this National Government.

When I think about what this Government has done to housing, I do not need to look much further than my own electorate. One of the first issues that I dealt with as a member of Parliament was the publicity and the furore around what was going on in Farmer Crescent in Pōmare. There was a North & South magazine and the cover story on it said: “Is this the”—I do not know whether I can use the word in the House. It was the headline in the paper. It said: “Is this shittiest street in New Zealand?”. That is what the North & South magazine said about Farmer Crescent. Phil Heatley, who was then the Minister of Housing, went in there all guns blazing and booted everybody out. He evicted everybody from their houses, those houses then ended up being vandalised and they were eventually demolished, and the land sat empty for years. Finally, the Government got around to doing a redevelopment. Well, how many of those families were able to return? None. How many of those houses ended up being State houses out of the hundreds that were demolished? Only a handful ended up being State houses and the rest have all been private houses.

So where did those people go? Where did those problems that were associated with that street go? They have not just disappeared. Those people did not just vanish off the face of the earth. They are still there. They have just been relocated elsewhere and, in the meantime, the Government freed up some very nice land to create more private houses for people who could afford to buy them—none of the people who used to live there, of course. And what do we know now? It is doing exactly the same thing in Naenae and in Ēpuni and in Pētone and in other areas of the Hutt Valley where the Government is demolishing houses and leaving the land empty. Nothing is happening there. Nothing is happening there and, as a result, we have got more people showing up at our electorate offices in the Hutt Valley desperate for accommodation.

I also want to put on the record here that I think the decision to separate out the needs assessment from the provision of housing has been a disaster. The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing, and my office, day in and day out, is trying to mediate between Housing New Zealand and Work and Income because they cannot get their act together, and we have got people living in car boots because of it. We have got people missing out on rental housing because they do not know what they are doing and because nobody can get any sense out of Government departments that are supposed to be working together. The Government has made an absolute hash of providing social housing for people. People are falling through the cracks, they are being lost in the system, and the National Government is simply turning a blind eye to the problem.

It is getting worse—more homeless people every day. I had someone sleeping outside my electorate office a few weeks ago because they desperately needed housing, and no matter what we did we could not get the Government agencies to get their act together and provide them somewhere to stay. The holiday parks in my electorate think that the Government’s housing plan is great because they are getting extra business from people who are homeless and the extra revenue that goes with that. I think that that is an indictment.

I think that a fundamental right as a citizen is to have a roof over your head, and this Government’s track record is woeful. It is a stain on this Government’s record—the level of homelessness and the absolute disaster when it comes to people being able to afford any form of accommodation.

I rise to take a call on this debate. It is an interesting thing, when a member gets up to talk about one party’s history and forgets his own. I think that member, Chris Hipkins, needs to stop for a moment and just take a little bit of a history lesson and maybe talk to some of the more senior members of his party, and actually think about your own history. Think about your own history. When you talk about housing and the housing stock, think about the sort of housing stock that we inherited—[Interruption] that is right—nearly over 9 years ago. It was run down, it was cold, and it was unsuitable for people to live in. Who was the Government that made the investment to make sure that we could retrofit those houses?

But here is the thing—right? You have started to use examples, so let us go for an example, because you will want to use an example. Let us take the Tāmaki Transformation. That was under a Labour Government. That was under a Minister who turned around and said that this housing stock in Glen Innes—by the way, we lived in it as well—was not fit for people to live in. This housing stock—I can name you the streets: Farringdon.

💬 Chris Hipkins: Inherited from a National Government.

No, no, no, no, no. Let us take this: 9 years—9 years. So now you are saying it was inherited from a National Government. You had 9 years to make a difference—sorry, Mr Chair—under a Labour Government, but you did not. You did not. [Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I want to hear what the Minister is saying.

Thank you, Mr Chair. You know you are getting in when the growls start to happen. You know when you are scratching home, because all of it begins to hurt and all emotions start emerging. OK, that is when you know you are starting. Why? Because it hurts, because it is the truth. It hurts because it is the truth.

Under this Government we have retrofitted, we have fixed, we have housed more people in warmer, drier homes than that party in Government did in 9 years. That is the truth and that is the difference we have made. Over 35,000 homes have been retrofitted and made warmer and drier, under this Government. That is the record that we have. So I can tell that member that when he thinks about his own history he should think very hard before he starts to blame the legacy of this Government, because that is what this Government has done to make a difference.

I want to also acknowledge my colleague and friend Kris Faafoi who talked about and said—I want a member on the opposite side to stand up and to actually make a comment. It is not a challenge, because actually I think that what that member has done is the right thing. He has been an advocate. That is what a good electorate MP will do, which is to take a constituent case. He talked about the single mother who had, I think, a disabled eldest son and a grandchild living with them and they were having to pay their rent arrears. Up to something like $350 is what they were asked to pay, after the review on their income-related rent. You are right, because if it was not for your advocacy—and then when the amount came out, what they were entitled to was $53. It was $53. So what do we say to that? We say this: you are right, Mr Faafoi, and the fact is that in the calculations an administration error was made and your advocacy caught it. But here is the thing that you have to say: $53 means that actually it is affordable.

💬 Hon Member: Are you really defending it?

I am going to defend it. Why? Because under this Government we have ensured that actually it is appropriate that they are able to. Once the right amount was made, OK, the problem was fixed—right?

This member over here was talking about emergency homes. This is the first Government that has invested $354 million in emergency housing. No other Government has done that. The other side can talk about it, but this is what we are doing to make a difference: 8,600 emergency homes every year, to make a difference for those without housing.

Those members have been complaining about the fact that people were living in cars and were struggling, and now, when we are giving them temporary accommodation—that is all it is; it is a transitional house, into social housing—the heckles are coming up that we should not even be doing that. They say that we should not even be doing that, but it is a temporary fix. By the way, it is not all just in motels. There are other forms of builds that we have been making to make a difference, and that is what is making a difference. We are increasing supply from 66,000 social houses. By June 2020, it will be 72,000 houses. That is 6,400 extra social houses. That is making a difference.

Under this Government we know that the direction we are taking is making a change. It has quietened down now. Why? Because we know that this is more than just rhetoric. These are facts. These are the things that we are doing as this Government. We are not only increasing social housing but at the same time we are also looking at emergency housing. That is making a difference. That is coming along.

We are proud of our record that under this Government we have taken responsibility for those who are vulnerable and who have needs in our community. We are proud of our record to date. Thank you.

Kia ora, Mr Chair. Ngā mihi ki a koutou. Kia ora. I am sure everyone has seen the newspaper series featuring headlines such as “ ‘I almost lost hope’: Woman, 23, lands dream home in Auckland”, “How to buy a home before you turn 30: Millennial tradies get head start”, or “From nothing to two homes, one in Auckland, in two years”. It is a bit like Instagramming food in a famine, but people are clicking these clickbait headings because, in New Zealand, house buying has gone from normal to unusual.

I want to speak about the housing affordability crisis featured in the Vote Housing report, but I want to be honest and say I am one of the fortunate few who bought a house at the age of 30. Like the newspaper series, I could have said: “Look, it just took a bit of hard work, a bit of dedication, an MP’s salary, a zero percent deposit, parental support, and travelling back in time 5 years, before house prices got crazily high.” Instead of asking why a couple under 30 bought a house in Auckland, we should be asking why a whole generation is being locked out of homeownership.

It is time for some home truths. Currently, the median house price in Auckland is more than $1 million. The median income is now only $23,000. House prices are now 11 times the median income, putting us first or second in the developed-world housing affordability league. We are seeing $100,000 annual price increases, which might make some people feel rich, but it is making the country feel poorer. Generations are being locked out of homeownership and record numbers are sleeping rough. Meanwhile, in the middle of this crisis, the Government is selling thousands of State homes. That is like burning the furniture to keep warm. National has built a speculator’s dream, where homeownership is now at its lowest level in 60 years, and unless people’s parents are wealthy, they are being locked out.

So, after 9 years of National, what do we see? House prices up, deposit requirements up, building costs up, rents up, people sleeping in cars up, and people sleeping rough on the streets up. The only thing going down is the number of State houses. But why is it getting worse? Well, if you read the report we are debating, the Government is about to launch a housing affordability indicator—an indicator. It is like waiting for the weatherman to tell you your house is blowing away when you are inside it in a tornado.

Let us have another home truth: National does not care. It knows it will not be around in 5 or 10 years’ time to be held responsible. It knows that people without a home do not vote for it, so it does not care. And, as the most self-interested, power-hungry, poll-driven Government ever, it knows that as long as it gives the appearance of acting, it does not have to act.

So how has National got away with it? Well, first, it called it a problem of success—a problem of success. When everyone else stopped laughing, it went on to plan B: blame everyone else. First, it was Labour’s fault, then it was the Greens’ fault, then it was the councils’ fault, and then it was the Resource Management Act’s fault. The only person, it seems, not responsible was the person most responsible—Nick Smith. Meanwhile, its mates blame millennials, and the other parties, they go and blame immigrants.

The reason millennials are locked out of homeownership is not that they go to Bali twice a year. It is not because they are driving a BMW on lease or have a 42-inch plasma screen and blow 200 bucks at the bar on Friday and gorge themselves on smashed avocado brunches.

💬 Chris Bishop: You’re locked into Phil, who blames migrants.

It is because house prices are too high, Mr Bishop. National has built a two-track society, where wealthy kids get into housing. And, to be blunt, if you do not have a house now, your kids probably are not going to have one in the future—170 years after migrants fled the class society in Britain, we are returning to the days of the landed gentry.

National’s housing policies might be rotten, but the foundation of New Zealanders’ values—that everyone deserves a house—is still solid. The housing crisis has not been an accident. It has been the result of policies. Policies can be changed when you commit to having a warm, dry house for every New Zealander.

No one but the Greens has the courage to say in this House that house prices cannot go up for ever. No one but the Greens has the intellectual honesty to say that we need a capital gains tax. No one but the Greens has been able to work with both the red team and the blue team to insulate homes. Who first put a rental warrant of fitness on the agenda? The Greens. Who put rental rights on the political agenda? The Greens. Who will stand up for Generation Rent and get on with building homes? The Greens. The Greens will build a future where homeownership is not just clickbait; it is the New Zealand home truth.

I just want to refer back to what Minister Anne Tolley said earlier, and that was in respect of being judged for the way National treats the most vulnerable. She acted and spoke as if that judgment would be favourable, but we in the Committee know that National will be judged harshly for the way that it has treated the most vulnerable.

I want to quote Minister Alfred Ngaro from a recent magazine article just to highlight, really, my concern for his lack of aspiration for our people. He said “ ‘We had a three-bedroom house that was full of family, between 12-15 people, no insulation, no running water and an outside toilet,’ he recalls. ‘But living in that house, I never had the sense that we were impoverished. We saw this country as the land of opportunity and lived and breathed it.’ ” The way I read that is that, basically, he is saying to all those people out there who are struggling with unhealthy homes and who are struggling with overcrowding in houses because they cannot afford to get their own housing that they should be grateful for what they have, and they should be grateful because they are in the land of opportunity, they need to work harder, and life is good. Well, that is not the case for so many of our people.

I think that Minister needs to look at the statistics with regard to our Pacific children and respiratory diseases and the admissions to hospital over the winter months. The number of our children who die because of those respiratory problems—those respiratory problems that are largely brought about because of the substandard living conditions that they are forced to live in, the ones that Mr Alfred Ngaro is, basically, saying should be celebrated. So I want to call him out on that, because our people should not be grateful for substandard living conditions, but that is what they have had imposed on them by the National Government.

Mr Ngaro is a list MP in west Auckland, so I am surprised that, unlike the rest of us who work in west Auckland, he does not see the reality of the housing crisis that has been inflicted on our community by the National Government. I want to talk through some of those cases that have come through my office—like my colleague Kris Faafoi did—because the reality is so far removed from that Government’s rhetoric it is a joke. No one can accuse me of making these stories up. These stories are documented. They are in the papers. They have been interviewed—these are real people, real lives, and real struggles with housing.

The first family I want to talk about is the Fa’avale family, who have two children. Mr Fa’avale found himself in the situation where he could not work any more because of a workplace injury. He was not given the right gear in his workplace, and so he had to give up working. Before long, basically, the family could not continue to pay their market rent and they were evicted. On the day that they were evicted, Mr Fa’avale was supposed to have the operation on his eyes, but he could not because he was concerned with looking for accommodation. No emergency housing was available to them, so they ended up living in a makeshift tent in Henderson, under a tarpaulin at the back of a Housing New Zealand house. Luckily, Housing New Zealand did not know about it, otherwise they would have been moved on. There were already other people living in that house, so only one of their two children could live inside the house, and that child cried every night, knowing that his parents and his 4-year-old brother were sleeping outside under a tarpaulin.

We had to take that case up with Housing New Zealand and Work and Income, and of course they jumped into action when an Opposition MP brought it to their attention. But that Government should not be waiting for Opposition MPs and the media to bring these cases to its attention. I was so disgusted when I showed up at that house with a journalist and saw that poor 4-year-old child come out of that bed, having just woken up, with eczema and mosquito bites covering his body. That is the reality, Mr Alfred Ngaro. There is not much to celebrate there, and that family was not feeling very happy about their situation.

💬 Chris Bishop: Probably because there was a journo.

I want to talk about—Mr Bishop thinks it is funny. Keep going, Mr Bishop. Your whole Government thinks the housing crisis is a joke and will not take it seriously.

I want to talk about the family from my electorate who were in emergency accommodation at a motel on Lincoln Road over the school holidays. They were evicted after 10 years in a rental house because they missed a couple of weeks of rent earlier this year. Going to visit them at that Lincoln Road motel during the school holidays—a 5-year-old, a 7-year-old, a 9-year-old, and a mother who had taken 2 weeks off her job at Tegel to stay home with those kids. Talking to those kids, I had the 7-year-old turn around and say, with tears in their eyes—I am not even exaggerating—“Thank you so much for helping our family.” This was another family that was homeless under that Government’s watch. So I do not know what the Minister is talking about when she says that Government will be judged fondly for what it has done for the most vulnerable people in New Zealand.

I have sat through the annual review, I have listened to the officials, and I have listened to the Minister. The reality is that the additional money that the Government puts into benefits—it cannot even tell us whether or not it has had any impact on the child poverty rates in this country. It has not done anything to address the real hardship that families are facing, and that is why we are in the situation where we have least 41,000 people who are homeless. It is not the reality that we all grew up with in this country. It is so foreign for us, still. It still shocks me when I go to my local shopping centres and I am faced with rough sleepers outside those shopping centres. It is not the reality that we in New Zealand know, and it is not what we want to see every day, but we have got a National Government that continues to ignore it and to pretend that it is actually attending to the needs of our most vulnerable when that is not the case.

I want to point out what came up in the annual review around the Ministry of Social Development’s role with regard to getting people into employment. It continues to bother me and worry me that a large number of the people who are going off benefit are not, in fact, going into employment. It came up last week that an increasing number of people who are going off benefit are going into prison, and a decreasing number of people who are going off benefit are going on to study. You have to wonder how aspirational that is. When you listen to the rhetoric from that Government talking about social investment, talking about long-term cost savings—because it is not going to save us money if what we are seeing is people going off benefit and into prisons, and it is not going to save us money if people are not getting the upskilling and training that they need when they find themselves in a period of unemployment when they cannot get work.

So we have an increasing number of people going into prison. In fact, if we look at the numbers in terms of the trend, if it continues on that path, in 4 years’ time, one in 25 people who go off benefit will actually be exiting because they are going into jail. What kind of legacy is that, and how aspirational is that, for our people who find themselves out of work?

We had a 40 percent drop in the number of people who are going on to study. I have to refer back to one of the first actions of that National Government—another action that was anti-aspirational, not supportive of some of the most vulnerable families—and that was the cutting of the training incentive allowance. Of course there has been a drop in the number of people picking up study, because they are not supported by that Government to get into study. Instead, what they are encouraged to do in whatever way is to just get off benefit and, where possible, go into the nearest, fastest minimum-wage job, which does not actually see them better off and which does not actually see their long-term employment prospects improve. As a country, we should be concerned about that.

The Government has been trying to celebrate the fact that there has been a slight drop in benefit numbers, but the reality is that families are not better off. We see that with the increase of hardship grants given out—74,000 additional hardship grants compared with last year. We see that with the extra $20 million that needed to be spent on emergency housing. There is $100,000 a day being spent on motel accommodation. We see that with the types of hardship grants that families are having to seek out. Those hardship grants are in the area of food and educational costs—the basics that we would expect any New Zealand Government to provide for with regard to families in this country.

So families are struggling; there are no two ways about it. And, actually, when you look at the hardship grants, it is not just beneficiaries who are having to access them. It is an increasing number of working families—10 percent of those hardship grants that were accessed were actually accessed by working families. It has been 9 long years of incredibly, incredibly harsh treatment of the most vulnerable in this country, and, actually, an increasing number are vulnerable because of the actions, or the non-actions, by that side of the House.

Thank you, Mr Chair—a good decision. We have heard a lot about substandard housing in the last little while, and I would just like to point out that probably 17 years ago, 20 years ago, those houses would have still been substandard. They have not appeared to be substandard just overnight. They are old houses, they are old stock, and the issue is, actually, there has not been enough investment in that stock over the years, and it is in the wrong place, it is the wrong size, and it needs to be reconfigured, and at last we are attacking that. I applaud that step forward. It is forward-thinking, and it is a massive step, but it has to be taken. It is a shame it has taken so long for that to be realised, because we now have a lot of ground to make up.

There was a lot of talk about what is happening in Auckland, but, you know, I do not live in Auckland, and while there are some shortages in other parts of the country, there is a lot of surplus housing stock around the country, and also it matches up with a shortage of employees to work around the country. I note in the Ministry of Social Development report that it talked about how we asked the Minister about several of the initiatives, like the 3K to Christchurch scheme, which provides $3,000 to enable people to move to take up jobs in Christchurch, and that has worked incredibly well. It is quite ironic when you look around the country that we cannot get people into the regions, and it is happening in every region. I note meatworkers, for example—I have got an abattoir in my electorate that is desperate for staff. It is desperate for them. It cannot get them, and yet there are meatworkers with skills in other parts of the country who will not move. So it is a real problem.

We also have some issues in other parts of the country, like in Southland with dairy workers, all being paid—

💬 Phil Twyford: What about Blenheim?

And vineyard workers in Marlborough, absolutely. In fact, a taxi driver was telling me the other day, quite proudly, about his adult son who is home from university and who cleared $19 an hour in his hand working in the vineyards. It is actually very good money, and it is surprising that more people are not availing themselves of that.

I also wanted to talk about how there was an appropriation, or a vote, of $15 million for 800 places in the Limited Service Volunteer programme. I have to say, as a former patron of the Limited Service Volunteers, I have seen how well that works, and I applaud that money going towards that programme. To see over 6 weeks the young people who come along to that programme, most of their heads down, in fact, with very little confidence, very little pride in themselves—to see how their heads come up over that 6 weeks and the skills they get having to work in a team, having to actually take responsibility for themselves, is quite amazing.

They are allowed to smoke, for instance, but there is a little square painted on the ground in amongst all of the buildings, and if they want to smoke, they have to find their way over there to smoke, and they are allowed to do that only a couple of times a day. But it has turned their lives around. And to see the pride on their faces—I had the pleasure of handing out the awards at the graduation, or passing-out parade. The emotion on the faces of those people was amazing. I think, for some of them, it was the first time they had ever been told that they had done a great job. It was fantastic to see that and, really, a very humbling experience.

I also—talking about experiences—would like to reflect back on the Budget in 2015, which was my first Budget. I have to say it was quite amazing sitting in here when the Government announced its hardship package raising the benefit for the first time in 43 years, and to see the look of absolutely stunned mullets across the other side of the House was quite an amazing sight, really. To stand up as a Government, and particularly a National Government, to actually raise the benefits for the first time in 43 years—I think New Zealanders really stood up and took notice of what great leadership John Key brought to this country. He will be sorely missed and will go down as one of our great Prime Ministers. On that note, I would like to commend the reports to the Committee. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Thank you for this opportunity. What I get asked by my constituents across Tāmaki Makaurau is when will this Government stop pointing the finger to administrations past and actually have a good hard look at its time in office now.

Let me tell you a story about a family—a mother, a father, and seven tamariki—who were put through the stress of having to move out of their home, just like the example given by my colleague here, Mr Faafoi. They met with Housing New Zealand 16 times—16 times; seven tamariki, all still of school age—and were constantly being denied and told that they were not a priority and that there was not enough availability. They begged the principal of the school to take them in, let them put a roof over their heads, let their tamariki have a shower, and let them be able to give the necessities to their tamariki. Well, they could not stay at the school for ever, and, in fact, what the school was doing was breaking the law. But that is what it had to do to make sure that this family could have the necessities.

The family came into my office, frustrated and angry. The parents were in tears—tears of embarrassment, tears of frustration, and tears for the fact that they felt inadequate because they were not able to provide for their tamariki.

I am proud to say that my office has helped 122 families into accommodation. Some of it was emergency accommodation, where we knew that they would be there for only a temporary time, but most of them have got into homes through the hard work and advocating done by my staff.

The sad thing about that—the sad thing about that—is we know that the Government has sold off the Housing New Zealand stock, and, in fact, it did it with the support of the Māori Party. The Māori Party has said that this will provide Māori housing providers with the opportunity to provide social housing for our people to be able to manage housing stock with values of tikanga, as espoused by our Māori people. Here is a number for this Government: how many of those Māori housing contractors have been able to pick up a contract for social housing in this country? Zero—none. That was supported by the Māori Party. The housing stock was sold off—no Māori social housing providers.

I want to ask the question of where the Māori Party is in this particular debate, because I blame it for this State housing sell-off, and for the fact that more and more Māori people are ending up in my office looking for support, looking for somebody to listen to them, and looking for somebody to actually advocate on their behalf with Government departments. The point has been made quite well on this side.

I was sad to see one of the exchanges earlier, given that the Minister of Health turned a blind eye to the fact that the state of a lot of rental properties today means they are incubators for illness. The tragedy in this whole debate is that, on that point, those illnesses are preventable. They are preventable. That is what the problem is. Those illnesses are preventable, yet we are quite happy to ignore the fact that a lot of the social housing that is available to our people now is actually substandard. Those properties are incubators for illness and they are not making our people better. We all know that what is going to happen when a family moves into a safe, warm, dry home is that the life of that family will be improved exponentially—exponentially—and what this Government fails to see is that for the many families in Tāmaki Makaurau, in particular, but also right across the country, its policies have got a negative impact on them.

Minister Anne Tolley mentioned that the Government’s increase in benefits has been welcomed by the people of Kaitāia and Tokoroa, and she mentioned a couple of other small townships. Well, in my constituency of Tāmaki Makaurau, it means nothing. It is barely even a bus fare. It is not enough for a kai. It is not enough to give the tamariki the educational resources that they need to thrive and to be successful at school.

So I ask what this Government has done, and so do the people of Tāmaki Makaurau. I will be telling them that there are zero Māori housing social providers, that over 120 families have come into my office looking for assistance on housing issues alone, and that this Government has turned a blind eye to the critical issues of the people in Tāmaki Makaurau.

I would like to start by talking about the work that we are doing for children and young people. It is understood that every family wants to do well for their children.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Sorry, I had better warn the member that this debate finishes at 9.08 p.m. So just forget what is on the red clock; worry about the clock above it.

Thank you, Mr Chair. All families want to do well for their children, but then there are circumstances when families are unable to do that, and it is about breaking that cycle. We want to see that every child is safe, healthy, and attains some formal qualification—and this is for all children, whether they come from welfare-dependent families or they come from families who have never been on benefit. These families sometimes need some direction or they need some assistance to get off benefit, and that is what this National Government has been doing. We have been seeing some really good results. We have seen that there are 57,000 fewer people on the job seeker benefit in September 2016 compared with September 2010.

During the select committee process there was a discussion about what happens to those people who go off benefit. There are several reasons why people go off benefit when some assistance is provided to them. The good thing is that there was already some baseline work done, by collecting information from people who have gone off benefit between July 2010 and 30 June 2011.

Another great outcome that we have seen is that there are 8,000 fewer sole parent beneficiaries. This is from 2014 to 2016. Looking at the working-age group who are on benefit, we recorded the lowest number of working-age people on benefit in December 2016. This is the lowest proportion since 2007, and that is before the global financial crisis—a very good outcome. This has been possible because we have been investing hugely to help people get off benefit.

Our focus has been on young people. We know that if people go on benefit at a younger age, they tend to stay on benefit for a longer time, so we have been investing. There was a package of $41 million to help 19-year-old beneficiaries with children, and also 18-year-old beneficiaries who were considered to be at risk of staying on benefit for a very long time. A very gutsy step this—

I apologise for interrupting the member, but the time for this debate has expired.