Estimates Debate — Social Development and Housing Sector

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

As you have said, Mr Chair, the social services Estimates for 2017-18 comprise the social development portfolio, and the portfolios for vulnerable children, social housing, and other social investment and State services. At the select committee hearings, we heard from Ministers Anne Tolley, Amy Adams, Nicky Wagner, and Nick Smith about those portfolios.

I just want to talk about some key investments from the Estimates hearings. I want to start off with the key investment in the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki, which is $434.1 million. When we look at this, we start to look at why the ministry was transformed into Oranga Tamariki and why young people did not have a voice in the previous organisation, but now they have. They have advocacy services through VOYCE and they are now centre of the operations at Oranga Tamariki, or the Ministry for Vulnerable Children—that is $434.1 million.

As I said, as I start to break this down, we have got $26.4 million to support around 4,500 caregivers of children in care, as well as to help those caring for higher-needs children. We have got $94.4 million to meet the new ministry’s cost pressures through the transformation that Minister Anne Tolley launched on 1 March this year. We have $71 million to extend the support for young people in care, and $28.1 million to extend Family Start, which is really important because Family Start has had its ups and downs over its time with the previous Government. But this Government has come in and, through the transformation of the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, it has been able to work the programme out so that it is more responsive to the children in Family Start and their care. We have $11.7 million over the next 2 years to trial and evaluate community-based remand placements as well, through this funding for Oranga Tamariki.

As I start to move through the votes that we heard, I want to take a little bit of time to talk about the $2 billion Family Incomes Package. This was the centrepiece of the 2017 Budget, and—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will resume her seat.

OK.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I just want to make it absolutely clear to the member that she is reporting from the committee on the areas the committee is responsible for. That is not one of them.

OK—righty-o. As we move over to the $64.4 million of new money for new operating funding to help people to move off benefits and into work, this particular part of the Estimates has been really good for those who have been looking to get off the benefit and get into work. Just recently—just today, actually—we have seen that the unemployment figure has gone down to 4.8 percent, and that has brought us back into line with the 2008 figures.

When we start to look at the housing Estimates that we talked about with the Minister at the Estimates hearing, we can see that $100 million has been set aside for new capital funding, part of which is for 1,200 new houses as part of the Auckland Crown Land Development Programme. That was also discussed at that meeting as well. We have got $2.3 billion to support 310,000 households with accommodation, and that is however they would like to have that—whether that be in accommodation supplements.

I think the area I do want to finally mention—as I watch the clock ticking down—is the $321 million Social Investment Package. This really has been a really important package because it has helped people within the mental health services. We have put money aside for them there. We have put it into helping kids to get a better start in life, we are addressing barriers to employment and independence, and we are reducing offending and improving long-term outcomes through this package. Overall, within the Social Services Committee, we had some very interesting presentations from the Ministers, which I mentioned at the start of my speech. We had some very interesting questions posed to them and, as the chair, I felt that the questions were well received and well responded to. Thank you.

I rise to take a call in this Estimates debate. My specific area of concern is about investing in communities. This Budget sees a decrease of $4.775 million in the area of investing in communities, down to $39.163 million. The specific area that this affects is the appropriation that is limited to approving community-based social services; managing the relationship with service providers, including funding and monitoring; and the coordination of social support services to strengthen families and whānau. In my experience, this is the appropriation that supports the relationship between the Government and communities, and the Government and social service providers. It is the basis of the infrastructure development that might go into supporting those community organisations to support communities, and it is a very important part of enabling the Government to put into effect its policy for better social services for communities. It is a very important part of how communities engage with the Government.

It is to my distress that I see that there is a decrease in the funding to this particular area, because there is no doubt that it is hugely important to support the development of strong and resilient communities. One of the aspects of that, of course, is ensuring that people are able to access long-term, affordable, decent housing, whether they own it or whether they rent it or whether they are State house tenants. The ability to have long-term tenure in a house and the ability for families to put down roots and build social capital and to network into communities is very important for their social well-being long term—being able to reach out to the resources that are there within the community, such as the schools, the sports clubs, the churches, the coffee groups, and the community organisations and activities.

Community organisations achieve a huge amount within their communities, and it is the soft skills that they provide to people that is important. Often we look to crises and how we intervene in crisis areas, such as family violence. But if you build resilience within your community by building in soft skills, the ability to deal and cope with some of the issues—how you learn to deal with those things—often prepares you well for when times get tough. Places like women’s centres, where you get some social contact, you can build some self-esteem, you can work through your issues with counsellors and with people who have an affinity for you, allow you to actually put in place some steps and mechanisms to cope before you are in a place of distress.

The decrease in funding, and at such a large extent, really troubles me, as places like the women’s centre—and there have been a couple that have closed over the last year—will no longer be able to provide this kind of soft support that actually builds resilience and thereby saves people from the real hard-end harm that they may experience later. Can you imagine supporting kids to build their self-esteem and their social skills so that when difficult times come later, when they are teenagers, they are actually in a much better position to cope with that. That is at the real heart of where community support lies, and the decrease in funding puts us in a position where we are unable to prevent more serious harm from happening to people.

Families in crisis are in crisis because often they have not built up the ability to deal with issues along the way and become resilient. Community groups are at the heart of that. The result of the decrease in this funding will have a serious impact—will have a direct impact—on a community’s ability to be resilient. I would like to at some point later in this debate talk a little further about that. Thank you.

I just want to take a call as the Minister who appeared in front of the select committee, in two areas: first of all, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) and then the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki.

Just in response to the member who has resumed her seat, Poto Williams, can I say that that reduction in community services funding is a result of the one-off funding that was part of the community investment programme that ran over 4 years, actually, and was the last of that money that was provided to build capability, to help community services build the infrastructure that was needed in order to move to results-based funding. So it was one-off funding and it was always promised for 1 year, and of course it disappeared at the end of that year.

I just want to touch on one particular thing for MSD in the Budget, and that is the $19.5 million over the next 3 years to expand that intensive support for up to 1,500 young New Zealanders. This is a particular target group that we have been quite worried about. They are now aged 25 to 29, but they entered the benefit system under the age of 20, and they entered the benefit system at the time of the global financial crisis. This is not peculiar to just New Zealand. This is from talking with others around the world dealing with a similar age group who, had the financial crisis not happened, would probably have left their training and gone into work and sustained that employment. For some reason, they seem to be trawling through the benefit system, actually finding work, but not sustaining it, and are returning to the benefit system.

So this $19.5 million is particularly targeted at that group of young New Zealanders whom we want to assist. Well, first of all, we would like to find out what the barrier is to them being retained in employment, and, secondly, then put in place any steps that we can to help them maintain that employment—so it is a particular group, and I think it is going to be money well spent on that section of New Zealanders.

Of course, a large part of the time with the select committee, in the Estimates, was around the second year of considerable funding into the new Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki. There were a number of streams of work: first of all, an increase in base funding, to maintain the existing services. It is very important, when you are reforming a service and expanding their reach, that you maintain those essential services at the core, which are for about 5,500 young people who are in the care of the State. But in addition to that, we increased the age in the legislation last year, so $71 million went straight into the Budget in order to maintain those young people within the State services for another year.

There is $11.7 million over the next 2 years to trial and evaluate community-based remand centres for young offenders. There has been quite some publicity in recent months about young people being in police cells, and none of us want that. That is not a great place for a young person to be. Sometimes it is the safest place for them to be at a particular time. But despite the fact that we have youth residences of a very high standard, providing good services around those young offenders, we know that the best way to deal with some of those young people while they are on remand—so before they actually go into the Youth Court—is by keeping them in their communities. So it is by keeping them there where they have all the support from their whānau, from the wider iwi, and in many cases from their schools and that wider community support.

That is not an easy thing to put into place, and so we managed to convince the Minister of Finance that this was something that needed to be trialled and evaluated to see whether, in fact, we would get better outcomes for those young people by retaining them in their communities and wrapping that intensive care around them, from the time that they come to our attention. So, even before they go into court, making sure that we are getting some support into them, identifying education issues—money very well spent.

Thank you very much for the opportunity. I am not a member of the Social Services Committee, but I do have an interest because housing is a particular issue that runs deep in our communities. So I want to just direct my remarks on three points that emanate from the Vote Building and Housing report.

The first point is the KiwiSaver HomeStart scheme, the second point is the reference to methamphetamine contamination, and the third point is in regard to boarding houses. With the KiwiSaver HomeStart scheme, I note in the report that the appropriation was underspent by $11 million. The Minister for Building and Construction, when asked to explain the underspend, said that it was difficult to forecast the uptake of schemes like the KiwiSaver HomeStart scheme. I find that quite challenging, as to why it is difficult to forecast, when you can work on what you currently have now and what has happened in the past. When I have asked relevant Ministers how many Pacific people have taken up this particular scheme, I am not getting those answers. As I said, housing is of particular importance to the Pacific community because even the Minister for Pacific Peoples has noted that homeownership for Pacific people has declined, and has continued to decline in the last 9 years.

Another answer that concerns me in the report is that the anticipated average grant amount, in 2017-18, is $5,122. At today’s prices, how can $5,122 possibly contribute to somebody, a middle-income couple, perhaps, who have saved $10,000 or $30,000—how can that $5,122 possibly contribute to meeting the requirements of the bank, of 20 percent at least, in order to secure a mortgage for a house costing roughly $500,000 in today’s prices? I am hoping that the Minister can help the Committee understand how it is possible for people with $5,000 on average, from the KiwiSaver scheme, to buy a house.

We looked at the area of methamphetamine contamination. In my electorate there have been a number of people who have been booted out by Housing New Zealand, for the reason that Housing New Zealand has said that the particular house they lived in has been contaminated. In the report we note that the health risk from living in a home where meth has been manufactured is greater than living in a home where it has been used. But I want to ask—is the Government on top of regulating who it is who is testing whether these houses are indeed contaminated, and the extent of that contamination?

The second question I want to ask is whether the ministry, after kicking out people from these houses, due to contamination, shows them a pathway where they can get a house to live in? My experience has been that even elderly people have been kicked out of Housing New Zealand houses, and there has been no pathway for them in terms of going into a house. It is one of the reasons why Te Puea Marae in Māngere last year took in people off the streets, and today, a year later, it is taking in people off the streets, because of the lack of a pathway when people are evicted by Housing New Zealand—and one of the reasons they have given is meth contamination.

The third area is boarding houses. I note in that report that the Minister references five changes that the Government has made to improve standards for boarding houses. But the committee also acknowledges that those changes—it is difficult to know who is enforcing them and who pays for the cost of enforcement. But despite those changes that the Government refers to—and I want to lay it on the table in this Chamber, so that the Government knows I am raising it—boarding houses are a ticking time bomb as long as the national housing crisis exists. Boarding houses are a ticking time bomb. One of these days somebody in this House has got to take responsibility for deaths, for rape, for abuse, for violence towards young children or couples. Those houses were never meant—never meant—to house families with children. But that is the case we have today, as a result of this national housing crisis.

I rise to answer some of the questions but also to talk a bit more about the housing programme that has been taken under Budget 2017. The member was talking about the KiwiSaver HomeStart package. He is correct. In the Estimates it talks about, in a sense, the ability to engage more. The product itself has a forecast of around 90,000 people whom it can help into homes and mortgages.

Just for the member’s information—he was asking in regard to the number of Pasifika. In the first reading that we had, in regard to the first year of the KiwiSaver HomeStart package that was delivered, there were just over 11,000 who accessed that package. Those who identified as Pacific, and only those—there were possibly more—were around about 544. Just for the member’s information, that is information I can give to him. In the first year it is 544. We are going to try to get another reading, and, again, as the member knows, it is voluntary in regard to the people identifying themselves as Pacific. Potentially, there were more. So I think that would be helpful for the member.

The thing about this package—the member will remember that there was a time in the 1970s when people could actually capitate their welfare for their children, and through that benefit that was part of a contribution to the deposit on a house.

💬 Aupito William Sio: And that’s not happening any more.

Well, that actually went out under a Labour Government, so I will not say that, just so the member knows. It actually went out under a Labour Government, not under a National Government. It abolished it, and for good reason. It was unsustainable. If the member looks back at the history of it, it was unsustainable, so, as the member said, it was taken off.

The point that the member makes, though, about this is that we want to encourage more people to gain access to that. I think part of it is around the information that we give to people. Many people may not know that part of the eligibility criteria that the Government has given is if a person is 18 years and over, and if a person does not own a home or land. So there are a number of criteria, and I think we can do better at getting that information out so that more people can access it. We are proud of the fact that so far there are around about 27,000 people who have taken up that opportunity and who now have a mortgage as well.

The member was also raising the issue around the Government taking up the cause in regard to methamphetamine. There were some constituents, potentially some people whom the member may have known, who had concerns around the methamphetamine readings that were inside their Housing New Zealand homes. Just for the member’s information, the Government has been working with Standards New Zealand. It put together a key stakeholder reference group. That reference group has now put together a report.

In that reference group there are those from the insurance industry; there are those who actually monitor and measure; there are those who are in the regulating authorities, so the territorial authorities; and there are those in the development sector as well. So it is a cross-section of those in the whole of the building and development sector as well, and the tenancy management space. Out of that there has been an agreement, so the measure that there is—before, there was a graduated measure of three phases, three steps. It is now set at 1.5 micrograms per 100 centimetres squared. So that is the recording aspect of what they have. The agreement right across the board is that this is a standard that the whole of the sector can now work with. So just for the member’s information, that has been completed now and it has been taken on board as the standard that can be used in regard to methamphetamine.

The member talked about potential constituents whom they have been working with. As the member will know, he will advocate for those. I am sure that the Government is more than happy to be able to address those issues if there are constituents who feel that those issues have not been met. I think that is really important.

But I just want to talk about—there are many great things that have come out of Budget 2017 and the Estimates hearing. In particular, there were some speeches that talked about the issues around the challenges that are currently faced. Under this Government, we know that we support the whole of the housing continuum, from our most chronically homeless to those who are in need of a little bit of extra help. In that regard it is important, again, that one of the announcements that I think is critically important is the $16.5 million to expand the Housing First initiative. Members of the Opposition will know that this was part of the inquiry that they had taken part in, and it was one of the first recommendations that was made in regard to addressing the issues of homelessness.

Prior to that inquiry, though, there was a 2-year pilot. That pilot was in the Waikato area. We know that The Wise Group, with people like Julie Nelson, who were taking the lead in that space, truly had some remarkable ability to be able to engage with those who are chronically homeless. The retention to residency rate was at 95 percent. So because the results were, for us, astounding—they were truly making a difference—we have now taken that on board, hence the announcement in the 2017 Budget was to be able to expand that further on as well. That has now been expanded into the Auckland region. So that is an announcement of $16.5 million. I can say to members that the target is 400 and out of that so far we have just under 100 that have now been taken on board, and, again, the retention to residency is around 100 percent. But here is what I think is actually critically important: the ability to be able to engage not in social housing or emergency housing but actually in private rentals by the Housing First initiative, which is at 92 percent. There is 92 percent private residency, as we are now seeing those who are chronically homeless in that place as well. We think that is quite a critically important announcement as well.

I want to talk about the $175.2 million that was put in funding for emergency housing and transitional housing. We know that last year the announcement was made that the $304 million—the first of any Government to say that we are going to take up this challenge, we are going to be serious about this. So, therefore, we know that is continued on in Budget 2017. So it is $175.2 million for funding in emergency and transitional housing. For the member who is sitting for Māngere, I just let him know that on Friday, in the partnership with the Penina Health Trust, the Pasifika health trust that has come on as the first community housing provider, we will be launching an announcement of some of the tenancy management that it will be taking on board as well.

So this Government is doing great things in regard to working in partnership with community housing providers, and I know the member will be interested. This is a Pacific—and the first Pacific—community housing provider that is taking on this partnership. Penina Health Trust is making a difference—

💬 Aupito William Sio: How many people are going to live in that?

It is 21 rooms under that facility, which will truly make a difference. The member will know that there are other community housing providers such as STRIVE Community Trust, which is doing some great work—so, Sharon Wilson-Davis and her work—and Bill Peace, whom the member will know. They are doing great work in their community. What this Government realised is that it is actually the partnership with those community providers that is truly making a difference, and we think that is critically important as well.

We know the fact is that we need to, through this emergency housing and our goal—we set targets and goals so that by the end of this year it is 2,150. We are currently at close to 1,600 places available now for emergency and transitional housing, and that is the commitment that this Government has been making as well. We know that by 2020 this Government will have increased the supply of social housing from 66,000 to 72,000 places in Auckland alone. We will deliver 13,500 new social homes. Can I remind the Opposition that in the inquiry the second recommendation it made was to increase the State housing stock, the social housing stock. Again, this Government has seen that anyway, knew that was there, so in a sense, in the arguments from the Opposition, we know that we are making a difference, we have increased the housing stock, and that is making a difference as well. So that is an extra 13,500—13,500—that it is going to be increased by 2020.

We also know, when we look at the Crown land capital funding, that is an extra $100 million in new capital to be used to fund 1,200 new houses as part of the new Crown land development programme in Auckland alone over the next 10 years. I think it is important because these figures—not so much for the members across the Chamber but for those who are listening, they will be wanting to hear what things we are committing ourselves to in the Estimates and the Budget to make a difference to address the challenges of housing that exist in our community as well. The Crown Land Programme is fiscally neutral over its lifetime. Upfront funds are used to cover the cost of the housing and the land as well. Once the homes on this land are built and sold—or, in the same instances earlier—the Crown recoups the prices of the land as well. The Government has committed to 20 percent of the homes being available for social housing and a further 20 percent as affordable—defined as more than the KiwiSaver HomeStart package.

I want to give another example. Again, the member who spoke previously will know that in Manurewa there is the Waimahia Inlet project where we are again working with the New Zealand Housing Foundation, and out of that we know that there were families that were housed. There were families who came along and thought at first that they were not going to be affordable. Well, with the New Zealand Housing Foundation and a commitment from the developer and also from the Government, which put its contribution in, we were able to see over 200 families be able to access affordable homes in that area as well. People said it could not be done. This is the commitment that this Government has made over that period of time.

We think that these are significant. They are important. They are taking up the challenge that we know is critically important to all New Zealanders—that we provide a home that is warm and that is dry for our families.

I rise to take a call on the Estimates of Vote Social Development. This is the portfolio that has primary—though not exclusive—responsibility for ensuring that we are all safe and well fed, and that New Zealanders are able to live in dignity. This vote covers Oranga Tamariki, Work and Income, access to emergency housing, disability services, social service agency funding, and youth development—to name just some of the key areas within this vote. It essentially relates to the safety and well-being of our children, our families, and our communities, and I really think that the last speech, by Alfred Ngaro, demonstrated for me the fact that the Government seems to home in on certain bits to prove its case while missing the big picture.

I was visiting a community organisation last week up in Kāpiti—Birthright, which works with young mums supporting their babies and wanting opportunities. They said in the last year, and this is in Kāpiti, that 20 percent of the families they had been working with were homeless. That is mind-boggling in a community that has never been on the list of communities that are struggling round this country. That they are seeing that level of deprivation—it just shows me that Government members are missing the point in their agenda. They have waited until there is a crisis and then they show their half-arsed response to that crisis as proof of how much they care.

This vote also relates to the Government’s No. 1 priority in Government. For those people outside of Parliament who may be watching this speech, let us reflect briefly on what the Government has chosen as its No. 1 priority. It is not improving the ability of New Zealanders to participate in their community, it is not eliminating poverty, it is not even reducing poverty, and it certainly is not eliminating or reducing child poverty, because it has refused to define that. It is not ensuring that children in this country have their basic needs met. It has refused to even add such a purpose to the legislation around child protection or the Social Security Act.

Neither is it improving the employment outcomes for people with disabilities or anyone else who has been consistently locked out of the employment market. It is not even ensuring that people who are unable to be in paid work for any number of reasons, like sickness, disability, or domestic violence, have enough to be healthy. Sadly, it is not even reducing child abuse or the number of children being abused in care, because suddenly in recent times the Government has stopped recording that, so we cannot even track it. It is not preventing gender-based violence or even creating pathways out of violence, reducing the impact of domestic violence on victims.

I could go on and on about some of the really important goals that the Green Party supports that could make a difference to this country. But let me put on record now what this Government’s No. 1 goal is. The thing that it thinks is the No. 1 priority for this country—well, it is reducing the number of working-age clients receiving income support by 25 percent. It thinks that is the most important thing for us as a country.

Maybe after years of hearing that receiving a benefit is as bad as smoking a packet of cigarettes a day—and yes, that Government did spout that rubbish—or that people getting benefits are lazy and hopeless drug-taking bad parents, there may actually be people out there who think that this goal has some logic or appeal. But, hopefully, the moral bankruptcy of this goal becomes evident in the fact that the National Government does not know or care what happens to people after they stop getting a benefit. All it is concerned about is that they stop getting it in the first place.

For this Government, someone ending up in prison is equal to someone getting a degree. The way National measures things, someone committing suicide is a better outcome than a mother being at home for her child who is constantly being sent home from school because the school is not resourced to support that child’s autism. Think about that for a second. In the way this Government measures things, that is the reality of what it considers is good. The way the National Government measures things, someone living in a shed with a baby, not getting income support because she cannot deal with the stigma and shaming, is a better outcome than someone with a disability who is unable to work full time being able to live in dignity. That is what this Government’s priorities force them towards.

While you might think this is harsh, how else do we explain some of the stories that we have been hearing? We have heard examples of someone having to haul a person into Work and Income, while they were on an oxygen machine, every 2 weeks just to prove that they were sick; of people having to wait an hour or more with their children with wet pants because the toilet within the Work and Income offices is not available to clients, and because they know if they leave to go to find a toilet or a changing room somewhere else, they could miss their appointment and get their benefit cut; of people not having enough money to cover increased housing costs, and Work and Income refusing them that additional money—so they become homeless.

How else do we explain the fact that there is now a recognised problem that women on income support are unable to afford sanitary products, and are missing days of work if they were working as well as being on a benefit, because they cannot afford the absolute basics? How else do we explain the fact that, despite a growing surplus and strong job growth in this country, so many of the children in this country are going without the basics of food, warmth, and shelter, let alone those things in life that we all used to assume were just givens, like birthdays or a replacement for shoes? How else do we explain the fact that those workers at Birthright in Kāpiti talked about their clients going in, and shaking and perspiring, and being completely bamboozled by the process? How else do we explain the fact that those workers describe going in to Work and Income as the place that you should go if you ever want to see what bullying looks like? How else do we understand and explain the fact that somebody who gets off the benefit and into 20 hours of work a week is financially worse off after she has paid for childcare for her children over the year?

The system is not working. The priorities of this Government are wrong. That is why the Green Party is prioritising, in this election, a promise to eliminate child poverty, to make sure that our children in this country have enough, and a promise that the people who are unable to be in paid work have their dignity restored to them, that we support them into paid work when that is appropriate for them, and enable them to keep the financial benefits of that work so that they gain value in being in paid work.

We have costed these policies. And you know what? They do not break the bank.

💬 Hon Member: Ha, ha!

They are not unaffordable. When we hear laughter from that side of the House, suggesting that that may not be true, I really just do come back to this—it is not, ultimately, about money. When something matters to you, you find the money. For the Green Party, the well-being of our children—ensuring that we keep our children out of hospitals, from low income - related diseases, and that we stop them dying from low income - related diseases—is something that we will find the money for. It is something that we absolutely have a commitment to—getting people off the streets and into homes, so that we can all walk along with our heads held high, with a sense of dignity and understanding of what it is to be a New Zealander.

I rise to speak to the Vote Building and Housing appropriation, and to oppose the appropriation put forward by the Government in this area. The Labour Party does not oppose the appropriation because there is something wrong with the amount of money; we oppose the appropriation because despite the amount of money that is there, despite all of the talk, despite the multiple volumes of reports from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, this is a Government that is singularly failing to do anything useful when it comes to providing decent building and housing for the people of New Zealand. I want to work through some of the specific appropriations that speak to that massive failure.

When we are talking about failure, what really, I guess, grinds our gears on this side of the Chamber is hearing members from the Government benches celebrating what is happening in this space in respect of this appropriation. We hear daily in this House the Government celebrating the fact that it is building 10,000 houses a year in Auckland, and we are supposed to go “Wow!” at the same time as we know that Auckland actually needs 13,000 houses per year. So the best that this Government can do—its point of celebration—is to build 3,000 fewer houses per year than we actually need. That is a failure of its policy. We heard it today from the Minister in the chair, Alfred Ngaro, and we hear it from other Government speakers every single day. They celebrate spending $300 million in their plans on emergency housing to deal with the awful homelessness crisis that has arisen on their watch.

So instead of providing the decent, affordable, safe, warm, and dry houses and services in the first place to prevent homelessness, we have a sticking plaster at the end that we are supposed to be grateful for. We heard it from the Minister in the chair today when he celebrated some worthy but incredibly tiny partnerships with community groups—10 and 20 houses here and there. They are good projects—nothing wrong with them—but we need hundreds, we need thousands of decent, affordable, social and public houses to be built in Auckland and all around New Zealand. Yet we have 3,000 fewer of those houses at this point in time than we did at the beginning of this Government’s term in office.

There is $386 million appropriated in Vote Building and Housing. Let us work through some of the key appropriations within that. The KiwiSaver HomeStart scheme, which my colleague Aupito William Sio spoke about—it is pretty incredible that while this is trumpeted by the Government, it was underspent by $11 million last year. Let us actually delve into what it does. What it provides for your average couple who might go into that scheme is up to $10,000 to buy an existing home. The average grant, as Aupito William Sio said, is actually $5,100. So $10,000, when your average house in Auckland is $1 million and, based on the loan-to-value ratio restrictions, most of those couples will need about a $200,000 deposit. Again, we are supposed to be celebrating that, according to the Government. It is a drop in the bucket. It is a token measure, when what we actually need is a comprehensive approach to solving this housing crisis, starting with Labour’s KiwiBuild plan to build 100,000 affordable homes for first-home buyers in our country.

Let us move on to the supply of land for social housing, which is mentioned in Vote Building and Housing. This was an extraordinary section of the report. Various underspends are documented in the report. This part of the appropriation appropriates $167 million. We are told that there are eight sites for building for the vacant or underutilised Crown Land Programme, but no one could actually tell the Social Services Committee where those sites were. We know from Nick Smith’s shambling efforts over the past few years that they could very well be on motorways or cemeteries—another example of the Government’s total failure to have a thought through response to the housing crisis. Instead, what we get are gimmicks to make it look like it is actually doing something. It is a total failure.

The Auckland vacant or underutilised Crown Land Programme—let me quote directly from the report. “None of the $100 million appropriation for the 2016/17 Auckland Vacant or Underutilised Crown Land Programme was spent.”—not one dollar of it spent. Instead, what we have got, about 3 or 4 months ahead of the general election this year, is another splurge of money that has popped out of the Budget to make people think that this Government is actually interested in doing something in terms of building the social, affordable, and public houses that our people will need. This record and this vote show that this Government has singularly failed over 9 years. What we are going to get after this September is a new progressive Government that will use this money to actually build the houses that people need and to stop the homeless dying on the streets of our city. I oppose this vote.

Nothing in the Government’s projected expenditure on housing gives us any confidence at all that after 9 long years this Government has even begun to solve the nation’s housing crisis. It has done little more than window dressing in many areas, and one of those is the $1 billion provision to assist local government with infrastructure. It sounds like a lot of money, and it actually is a lot of money, but in relation to the size of the problem it is nothing more than a drop in the bucket.

As is referred to in the Social Services Committee’s report, many councils have actually reached their debt limits and are unable to take advantage of this, and I wanted to read the particular portion from it. It says: “Some of us are concerned that councils who need to access the fund have already reached their debt limits. The Minister assured us that he is aware of this matter. We heard that the bids are oversubscribed for the fund. The Government is considering alternative approaches for supporting housing infrastructure.” So it is a half-baked policy that some councils will be able to access and some will not, and there will not be enough money there, anyway. So that is supposed to be one of the things that the Government is doing to solve the housing crisis. It cannot even do that properly.

After 9 years in power, the housing crisis has simply worsened every year because the Government has failed to address the real causes. They are (1) immigration and (2) inadequate Government investment. Those are the two fundamental problems.

The Government has even blown its budget on emergency housing. It is adding another $175 million. Homelessness has doubled in the last year, from a reported 428 to 898, but that is actually only the tip of the iceberg, and I am absolutely sure that there are a lot more than that—people who are forced to live in cars, tents, and substandard accommodation in Auckland this winter, especially.

Turning to HomeStart, there is another failed policy. HomeStart is welcome enough as far as it goes, but a $102 million allocation for 2017-18 is hardly going to go very far. In the face of a problem where hundreds of thousands of young people are trying to find a home—their first home—this will cover an expected 20,000 grants, and the actual grants average only $5,122 each. This is even less than a drop in the bucket in trying to address those issues. The Government is simply not on top of it, and is not investing nearly enough in even basic programmes like HomeStart.

As I have said, immigration is not the only cause, but it is certainly one of the causes. You cannot continue to bring in a net additional 70,000 people a year, year after year, and not expect that that will make the housing crisis worse. Of course it does, and that is exacerbated by the Government’s failure to stop overseas speculators. It has not even been able to do that over 9 years. A curb on immigration and a prohibition on overseas purchases of homes is needed, and that is what New Zealand First would do.

The Government’s house building programme has not nearly kept pace with demand. Thousands of houses a year more are needed in Auckland than the Government is capable of seeing get built. At the last housing peak in the 2004-05 year, 31,000 houses were consented, but in the year ended 2012, that had dropped by half to 14,500, and it is not increasing much above that right now. So the Government has only fiddled where, in fact, bold measures have been required. Not nearly enough houses are being built or consented in New Zealand, especially in Auckland. And what has the Government done? It has sought simply to blame local government.

The truth is that the Government is not investing enough. It is not investing enough in the purchasing of housing land or in developing housing. New Zealand First would ensure that that happened. The Government is not investing nearly enough in supporting infrastructure—I have covered that $1 billion; it sounds like a lot, but it is not. It is not doing nearly enough to assist people to purchase their home and it is not doing nearly enough as far as social housing is concerned. A 37 percent increase in applications shows the size of the demand, and that is a demand that is not being even nearly met by the Government or its provisions in this Budget going forward.

Let me, firstly, thank Alfred Ngaro, the Minister in the chair, for responding to some of the questions I asked earlier, the reason being that I think the Committee recognises that we do have a national housing crisis. But also because he is the Minister for Pacific Peoples, I want to take the opportunity to really ask him about what it is that we can do for the Pacific community. In terms of the housing crisis there are two critical things for our people, for our communities: one is the low homeownership and the second is the excessive rents, which are forcing people into cars and into a homeless situation.

That is why I asked about the KiwiSaver HomeStart grant scheme, and I hoped the Minister would table the numbers that he referred to. I hope also that the Minister would give a little bit more detail about the kinds of incomes those couples provided, because $5,000 out of the KiwiSaver to go towards a deposit—and the average home in Auckland, which my colleague Michael Wood referred to, is $1 million. I will try to give you an example: a two-bedroom do-up for $500,000 still requires a $100,000 deposit, and $5,000 is 0.14 percent of that. But the figure of 500 people who have been eligible for the KiwiSaver amounts to 0.0014 of our total population.

I want to say to the Minister that I am concerned and I am worried that the homeownership rate for Pacific Islanders has been declining more rapidly in the last 9 years. In fact, last year, when I spoke to the Pacific Business Trust, I asked “What’s your statistic?”. The statistic for Pacific homeownership is 16 percent—this was from the presentation that it gave me. Whilst the Minister has every right to celebrate the millions and millions of dollars that has been allocated in the Budget to address this issue, what is unclear to me is a pathway from those millions of dollars to the KiwiSaver grant to a couple whose combined income could be $70,000, $80,000, or $90,000. How do they then buy a house? That is the first point.

The second thing is that I asked about the boarding houses, and the Minister responded. I asked also about the evictions that Housing New Zealand is doing, using meth contamination as a reason to evict people. So where do they go? Where do they go if Housing New Zealand is no longer providing the service that it was set up for—to provide help to those who cannot buy their own house until such time as they can buy a house.

In fact, Housing New Zealand was set up specifically—we had policies under the Labour Government that said that no more than 25 percent or 30 percent of one’s income should go towards the rent. But we know from the reports that have been provided to this House from statisticians and reports from organisations outside that many working families—many working families—are now spending anywhere from 50 percent to 70 percent of their incomes on rent alone. Families cannot sustain that long term. When I asked about it, the Minister celebrated the fact that we are getting one—one—Pacific home provider, which will provide 21 rooms, or 21 beds; I cannot remember.

Minister, I want to say to you: yes, you have every right as the Government, with the powers that you have now, to celebrate that. But here is the challenge—I know that you know how difficult the situation is out there, and our communities cannot be condemned to live in social housing. Our communities cannot be condemned to live in boarding houses. Our communities cannot be condemned to be brushed off to live in garages and cars, and to say that that is normal and that is acceptable—it is not, Minister. It is not.

That is why I think that you now—you have the ranks of power. You have got both of your hands in the pūtea. Show the pathway. How real is it, from the millions of dollars that you celebrate in this Budget, from KiwiSaver into homeownership, and from rental accommodation and support into homeownership, because despite all those millions of dollars, why do we still have a national housing crisis? Why are there people still increasingly in a homelessness situation? That falls squarely at the doors of this Government, and certainly in the front door of your office, Minister.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. E ngā mema o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. I am pleased to take a call on Vote Social Housing for Minister Ngaro’s information. I want to focus on this part of the debate on the Estimates for 2017-18: Vote Social Housing. Specifically, I want to talk about three issues: homelessness; the social housing register, particularly the waiting list for social housing; and, if time permits, emergency housing and the purchasing of social housing in so far as income-related rent subsidies are concerned.

When I looked at this particular vote and what the Social Services Committee reported back to the House, I was looking for some innovation—some kind of fresh ideas around this Government’s so-called commitment to addressing the growing homelessness in this country. I was looking for that, and when I looked at this report—I will take the Minister in the chair, Alfred Ngaro, through the committee’s report to raise some questions, and maybe he could answer them—what I found was anything but innovative, caring policies to address the burgeoning, growing population around this country in terms of homelessness. I want to say that in my electorate, in one of my four electorate offices in the Hawke’s Bay, my office has dealt with 70—70—homeless families in this year alone. Not seven, not 17, but seven zero—seven zero—in one electorate office in the first 6 or 7 months I think is an indication of your complete failure in your policies around dealing with the issue of homelessness.

Let us look at what the Minister said when he was examined by the select committee. I want to acknowledge that this is a new vote, and even though we are talking about $2.2 billion, Minister, you clearly have taken money out of the Ministry of Social Development and Vote Minister of Social Housing. So to me that implies that there has been some thinking in the background by those two respective ministries to inform the Minister: “We have to bring this out.” I have got to give you the benefit of the doubt. And so when I look at what has been done here and I look at the areas that this particular vote is addressing, you actually come up rather short.

Let us look at homelessness. You say that we have got 898 identified in 2017. We all know in this House that 898 people identified as homeless is so far off the mark it is not even funny. My question to the Minister is what process he goes through to identify homelessness. The Minister himself—actually, in the report—said these figures may not be accurate. The Minister, in this report, actually says this figure of 898 may not be accurate. Oh, well—there you go. There you go. There is this commitment from this Government, which actually did not know whether this figure of 898 was accurate, in the committee’s report.

Social housing—I want to talk quickly around social housing and talk about the register. It is my experience with the 70 whānau that have come to my Hastings office that a lot of them do not even get on the social housing register. If you are in a cramped one-bedroom or if you in a car, as far as Work and Income is concerned you have got a house—you have got a house. That is how it is determining whether you actually get on the register. If you are in a cramped situation or, worse still, you are in and out of social housing with somebody in an overcrowded situation, as far as Work and Income is concerned you are housed—you are housed. So the social housing figure that you have got here really needs to be tested. You also talk about priority A candidates, actually suggesting that you will house people—this is your target—in 50 days. That is what you are saying—50 days. But hold on, it gets better, because further down it says by 2021 we will reduce the waiting by 20 percent—20 percent. So instead of waiting 50 days you are going to wait 40 days, and we should be happy about that. That is the message that this Government is sending, but you have got to wait till 2021 before we reduce it from 50 days to 40 days.

I will just flag that I am going to look for another call. I am going to talk about emergency housing. In the report back to the House under emergency housing, the Minister, in terms of using his own figures around targets in terms of the emergency housing commitment by this Government—we have heard the stories in this House, and I want to particularly acknowledge Te Puea Marae. In the heart of winter, in the kindness of those people’s hearts, they opened their doors last year. It was only a temporary stop, but they got full straight away. And they had no plan to do it this year, but here we go again—Te Puea Marae is opening its doors again to address homelessness in Auckland. Again, I come back to the Estimates. Where is the pūtea for places like Te Puea Marae to support what this Government has absolutely failed in providing—emergency housing?

I then want to go down, Minister, to the purchasing social housing component of the report. I want to talk about buying motels—buying motels. If there was ever a cop-out for progressive policies around housing, is buying motels not it? Buying motels is not sustainable. It is not sustainable, but this is what this Government wants us to believe: it is making a difference by putting our people in motels. So I need to ask the Minister where his long-term plan is. What is clearly not evident in the Estimates that we are debating in this Committee is a caring government, a kind Government that has the best interests of our most vulnerable people out there in the country at heart. Clearly, under this Social Housing vote, it is not evident.

Worst of all, when we come to income-related rent subsidies, I notice there is $8 million unallocated. The Minister in the chair may want to tell us why, in an area, social housing, that I know is hugely under-resourced, he has got under income-related rent subsidies an $80 million unallocated fund. Maybe you could tell us there is some special project that you have got in mind, but I think this Committee particularly needs some assurances from you that this is not going to be carved off as savings down the track. I would like the Minister to actually talk about that.

I opened this contribution saying that I was looking for some innovation, some long-term planning from this Government around social housing, and it is clear in Vote Social Housing that it falls well short. I say that because in my electorate of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, and particularly in the Hawke’s Bay area, there is a group of well-intended community people—counsellors, people working with the homeless, the people of the local churches—who have got together in an organisation called Community Housing Action Team. They are fed up with this Government. They are fed up with this Government for non-delivery of quality social housing for all New Zealanders. This active group of people from the Hawke’s Bay, from the Napier area, and from the Maraenui has got together and said enough is enough. Come Sunday, at 2 p.m. there is going to be a public rally at the sound-shell in Napier, and it is happening because this Government has failed to hold up its end around good quality social housing. There are people in our community who currently work at that level—at the coalface—and they said enough was enough. So at 2 o’clock on Sunday at the sound-shell in Napier a public hui is being called because the people of Hawke’s Bay have said: “We’re over this. We’re over working with this Government. We’ve got to take back our country. We’ve got to take back Hawke’s Bay and say that we want decent housing in this country, and we’re going to tell you how to do it.” Kia ora tātou.

I rise to take a call on the social development Estimates. I would like to follow on from and pick up on a point from my colleague Jan Logie about the inhumanity of the target of reducing people on benefits by 25 percent. Why do I say that? Because a huge number of people on benefit have disabilities or are deaf or have major challenges in accessing employment.

It is all very well to say “Oh, we’ve got this target.”, but if you do not have the reality of our lived lives, of these challenges that are faced by people who are disabled in accessing work, you will not get to where you want to be and will not recognise the absolute cruelty of forcing them to apply, time and time again, for jobs that they know they are not going to get and they know they are not going to be offered.

Just a few weeks ago a young man who is profoundly deaf and who really wants to work and is very skilled applied for 50 jobs. He did not get a single offer of an interview. So he went to his CV and he took off his CV that he was deaf. He immediately, the next day, was contacted for three interviews. That is the level of attitude and discrimination out there by employers: if they just know that someone might be deaf, they will not even give you a foot in the door. That is the reality of the challenges.

So what did the Minister say? She said: “Oh, some employers are reluctant to take on workers with a disability or health condition.” No kidding? They are. But to help, there is now a telephone hotline for employers who need advice about their workers. Well, that assumes they have already got into the employment force. The reality is that hotline is not going to address the problem. The problem is much more structural and much more systemic and is going to require much more intensive affirmative action to get people into jobs who want them.

So instead of forcing people to apply time and time again for jobs that are not there for them, how about supporting them to be well, to be healthy, to gain the skills and the confidence that they need, and not force them into multiple rounds of rejection, which destroys self-esteem, which destroys confidence and belief in oneself, and absolutely just say: “We will help you apply for this job that suits your skills.”? One reason why certain people are coming back on to benefits after being forced into jobs that do not match their abilities and skills is that, actually, they are getting sick. Their mental health is at risk. They cannot do the job, because they have been forced to apply for jobs that do not match their skills or abilities. There is no point being forced into fruit picking if you have got asthma and poor health and you are going to be out in cold conditions. That job does not match your health condition and skill. We need to stop propping up this myth that jobs are available and it just requires forcing people to apply for enough jobs to get there.

That is not the case, and the frustration and the humiliation of being told time and time again that you are not doing enough fails to recognise the real barriers that are there. And there are also major barriers in just accessing the services at Work and Income New Zealand (WINZ) for people who are deaf. They cannot just ring and make an appointment easily; it just does not work like that. If they are told their benefit is cut, they do not know how to access the support they need to find out why their benefit is being cut, because every step of the way is harder.

They often cannot compete even for rental housing on the open market. For a deaf person, if they are trying to pick up the phone and ring up the property manager and say “Can I apply for the rental housing?”, they cannot even get a foot in the door. That is why deaf and disabled people are so over represented in these poverty statistics. We do not get a fair chance. The Government really needs to recognise that and start with looking at the accessibility of its own services and the culture at WINZ to be more inclusive, to be more understanding and supportive.

It is a pleasure to take a call on Vote Social Development and Vote Building and Housing. I would like to start with social development first, because it is a great pleasure and an honour to be involved with Oranga Tamariki, which has $434 million from this vote going towards that process. I was also involved with the bill going through the Social Services Committee and it was a phenomenal piece of legislation, I believe; a major step-change in the way we look after the most vulnerable tamariki. I think it is phenomenal to back that up with such a large vote, of $434 million.

What came through very clearly through all of the submissions on that bill was that a major change needed to happen, and it was not any good just fiddling around the edges. In order to make that change, of course, requires a large investment, which Minister Tolley made a successful bid for and that came through in the vote. So I would like to congratulate her on that.

I guess the centrepiece of the whole Budget, really, was the $2 billion Family Incomes Package, particularly Working for Families and the accommodation supplement, but also the tax bracket changes, or tax thresholds. Bracket creep is something that has been building up for some time; to make that major change is a really good reset for that tax system. And that benefits everybody, because we all pay tax. So I think that is a phenomenal step forward for our economy, as well.

I would also like to touch on social investment, $320 million—$321 million, to be exact—going towards the social investment approach. Yet again, it is another completely separate or new way of looking at things, because we are relentlessly positive over here. When we are looking at social investment, rather than saying “Let’s just put more money in the vote.”, we are saying “Let’s target things in the vote that are going to make a difference.”—a material difference to people’s lives—and get around the people whom we can identify through the data that is now available, to identify those who need it most and put those wraparound services around those young people, in particular, and get ahead of the problem. Too often, all we have done is throw money at it and think that the best way to be a good Government is just to hand money out to people—

💬 Matt Doocey: Willy-nilly.

—yes, willy-nilly—but we are not taking that approach at all. The Ministers in this sector are relentlessly positive. They have stepped up and made a big change in the way we think about social development, and I think that is to be applauded.

I would also like to touch on what was mentioned before by the previous speaker, Mojo Mathers, about jobs and how hard it is to get jobs. Well, I would actually challenge that. We have, in fact, the highest labour force participation rate that we have ever had and we are among the highest in the OECD. I think that is something to be applauded. Today the unemployment figures came out—down to 4.8 percent. That is a phenomenal achievement. We still have people who are unable to get jobs, for lots of reasons. It is not because there is not the work there—there certainly is—it is because they have all sorts of issues going on in their lives, and that is where we are going, through this social investment approach, among others, to help those people get jobs.

I would like to talk about the 3K to Work programme. It was just announced today that 1,200 people have been supported off benefits in the last year and into work. The best way to help those people is to help them help themselves, or enable them to help themselves. I know from being a former patron of the work scheme that goes through the military that it has been phenomenal to see how those people—their heads go up, it completely changes their lives, they feel a lot better about themselves and their families, and everybody benefits from that.

I would just like to finish by saying that a fresh approach is what has actually come this way. We are relentlessly positive over here, and it is a great pleasure to have taken this call.

Tēnā koe e Te Heamana o Te Komiti. When looking at the Estimates for Social Housing, one thing does occur to me: we definitely have a housing crisis. And not only do we have a housing crisis but from what I can see in the committee’s report, we are not really having the answers to address the crisis that is facing us. Within my electorate, the No. 1 issue that constituents come to my office for is housing.

First of all, I want to talk about homelessness. Homelessness exists in places like Wanganui as well. I know that one of the local camping grounds is where some of our homeless people are sent, to go and live at the camping ground. I want us to think really carefully about the impact on children growing up in those circumstances, because that relates directly to Vote Social Development as well.

We can talk about $400 million, as members opposite have, but think about this: we are also giving the top 10 percent of earners in New Zealand the same amount of money that we are going to give to vulnerable children and the issues that they have. I think that in this House we should think again and think about why we are not giving that $400 million that we are giving to the top 10 percent of earners in New Zealand—that we make a real difference in the lives of children. They are children who are growing up without homes of their own, and growing up in garages and cars in cold weather like we have around the country this week.

I feel really sad about the people who come to my office, and I cannot really help them. All I can do is try to give them a sense of hope that in 55 days we might have a change of Government, so that we have a Government that actually cares about those people and cares about putting policies in place that truly do help them.

What we have here in Vote Social Housing is not enough. If one goes through the Budget and sees how much money has been allocated for emergency housing, it does not take a mathematician—and I am certainly not a mathematician, but I can certainly add up and work out how many houses can be provided for that amount of money, and I can tell the House it does not add up. It is not enough. I say to the House—I can hear those bells going—imagine if you are living in cold, damp houses. When the alarms go off, you know, that is a warning for all of us, actually. Maybe that is why those bells are going off. I hope—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): We are just checking what that is—whether it is a fire alarm or not. Carry on, though, please. [Interruption]

Ha, ha! Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you very much for the warning.

I also want to talk not only about those who are living in crowded conditions and needing emergency housing—and, clearly, this Budget will not provide adequate answers to address that issue—but also about the Estimates for Vote Social Development, and in particular the part about helping unemployed youth into work. Boy, have we not got a huge job there. Depending on whom you believe, it is 90,000 or 70,000. Whatever figure it is, it is too high and we need to be doing more.

One thing that occurs to me, in looking at the report, is that it is too little—not enough. They are quite boutique kinds of programmes that do not really address the long-term issues facing rangatahi. They deserve better.

The extent of what there is in this particular section of the Estimates appropriations this year for this sector alone could occupy, I believe, the entire debate. There is so much going on in this space. With this Government, based even on the last couple of years, you would think is it even possible to do more than put benefits up for the first time in 43 years. Is it even possible to do more than what we have done? But wait—but wait—there is more, and we have done it.

There is some great stuff going on in here. Other members have touched on it, and I will touch on it again. What we have seen in the last little while, with the complete overhaul of Child, Youth and Family and the forming of new Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki, was a big step made by the honourable Minister Anne Tolley. I think that what we are going to see are much better outcomes for those young people who are most at risk in New Zealand. We would all agree that the outcomes that were being achieved were not acceptable, and so drastic steps have been taken to completely overhaul this, and, of course, there is budget to back this up.

I think one of the really important parts of this was actually the raising of the age of care, from 17 years of age to 18. I know that as the Social Services Committee, we have heard from various people over the years, and I think in particular of some young people from the Dingwall Trust who came to us and spoke of their experiences as 17-year-olds of being exited from care and having to suddenly fend for themselves and do a whole lot of things for themselves. They were, basically, pleading with us to raise the age. The Minister has taken that on board, and so out of the $434 million in the package for new funding for Oranga Tamariki, there is $71 million around ensuring that we support young people who are in care, not just until the age of 17 but, now, until the age of 18. Also—it is a little bit like one of those ads on TV that says “But wait, there’s more.”—there is the possibility for young people to receive further care beyond the age of 18, to 21 and even to 25 in some cases.

This is a Government that is prepared to look at where the system has not been doing the best for these young people, to respond to that—not just tinker with the edges but take the bold steps forward—and to do something completely different to ensure that we are looking after those young people. It is a continuation of the social investment strategy that this Government has been working to.

I hear from across the other side of the Chamber from time to time, and I hear around the place, that this Government is just driven by numbers and just driven by data. Data can tell us certain stories, and, actually, if you just ignore the data and say that it is just numbers, well then, that is just being blind. Actually, we do attach a meaning to those numbers, and what we have been able to determine through taking this social investment approach to it is that if we can get some early intervention in place and if we get to some of these children at an earlier stage, yes, there is money to be saved in the long term, but, actually, there are also greater benefits for them in the long term. So in this Budget there is $321 million as a part of the Social Investment Package. That is just the money that is associated with some of those particular initiatives, but, of course, it reflects the entire strategy that goes right across our communities.

Finally, I just want to touch on the $2 billion Family Incomes Package, and I keep hearing from across the other side of the Chamber: “Oh, this is just tax cuts for the highest earners.” That is not what this is about. What this is about is changing thresholds. It is about ensuring that more New Zealanders, and particularly lower-income New Zealanders, get more of their own money back to be able to provide for their families. Whether it is the redistribution through the, ah—

💬 Hon Member: Working for Families.

—Working for Families—thank you—which is part of it, or whether it is actually just lowering some of those thresholds, some of those people who are on the fringe of earning not quite enough will now get that extra money. It was heartening to see, when this Budget was announced, those people on the news saying what a difference it will make to their families. I look forward, over the next 12 months, to seeing the benefits that those people will reap from this Budget.

I have got a couple of areas I want to talk about. The first area I want to talk about is family violence. The Minister for Social Development, when questioned about the response to family violence services and funding, talked about a programme that is being piloted in Christchurch and in the Waikato called Integrated Safety Response. It is a great programme. It involves about four statutory agencies—Police, Corrections, Oranga Tamariki, and some community agencies—and it looks at helping families to navigate their way through the family violence support services and set up a real plan for them to start to lead safe lives. The difficulty is that the funding for this pilot programme has come out of existing funding for family violence services, and why that is difficult is that this particular programme is not cheap. When you look at the intensity of response that is required within this programme, it is pretty good. It is gold standard—it is not cheap; it is expensive, and it has taken resources away from other services in the sector.

So there is no new money, but there are new programmes. The report of the Social Services Committee on the Estimates for Vote Social Development states: “In the next Parliament, the Minister would like to continue the development of broader changes to family violence services. She would like to have a framework for that in place by the 2018 Budget.” But she also says that there is no extra funding for services such as Women’s Refuge to carry on with their business-as-usual work. Between 33 and 39 percent of woman experience physical or sexual violence, and in 1996 a researcher called Suzanne Snively actually estimated the cost of family violence as somewhere between $1.2 billion and possibly $3 billion—20 years ago. Women’s Refuge actually gets about 60,000 inquiries in a year, and that is on top of the 110,000 police call outs to family violence incidents—41 percent of police work is in family violence. It is a huge cost—huge cost.

For the last 9 years of this Government there has been no real increase into the community response for family violence, and the Minister says no real cost to the community response for family violence. I am talking about the NGO response, and the Minister says she is not going to do anything until the 2018 Budget—10 years of no real increase.

💬 Hon Nicky Wagner: That’s not true.

Do you want to put that on record, Minister? There will have been no increase to the NGO service in terms of real funding for 10 years by the time the Minister gets around to doing it in 2018.

And what does that mean for our people? What does that mean for people who experience family violence, and what does it mean for those women and men who are in services to change the behaviour of offenders, to support children who live in homes where they witness and experience violence, and for women who are victims of violence? I am not talking about the top 1.5 percent that might be going into Oranga Tamariki or into other services like that. I am not talking about those people to whom a lot of this funding has been reallocated. I am talking about those people for whom we can actually make a difference if we engage with them early and we provide sustainable and effective community responses, but these services are being starved by this Government, and they have been for the last 9 years. It looks like, by what the Minister is saying here, they will continue to be starved.

That is not what we call delivering for New Zealand. That is not what we call delivering for New Zealand, and I am here to say that I want the people of New Zealand to realise that this Government is actually bleeding money out of systems and services that would actually support them to get to much safer lives. We will not be supporting this Budget appropriation.

Before I start, I do just want to congratulate Jacinda Ardern and Kelvin Davis on their promotions. It is a pleasure to be speaking in this Estimates debate, and I want to start this discussion just talking around the announcement that occurred today, which is the announcement that New Zealand’s unemployment rate is 4.8 percent. The reason I make that start is that, of course, getting New Zealanders into good jobs, paying jobs, with all the pride that comes with it and with all the security that comes with it, is actually essential in terms of trying to get people to buy their own home and establish their families over time. That is why it is so crucial that we have a successful economy where everyone can participate.

In terms of the housing policies, which I would like to talk about, obviously it falls into three areas: first is emergency housing, second is social housing, and the third is that broad category of market housing, if I can use that term. If there is any assertion that this Government is not concerned about the most vulnerable in this society, then I have got to say to you that that assertion is totally incorrect. This Government, this year, will spend $2.3 billion helping over 310,000 families in need with their social housing and housing needs. We are committed to helping people, and the Budget that was just announced was very substantial in terms of some of the new initiatives. For instance, already we have committed $175 million to emergency housing, to be spent over the next 4 years, another $155 million towards emergency and transitional housing—in total, just over $300 million.

Also, other initiatives—and I would just like to highlight the one around Te Puea Marae, which some members have referred to earlier tonight. We welcome the initiatives and the support Te Puea Marae have made and continue to make, but I would just say to you that the Government has now stepped in to assist them, work alongside the marae, and provide wraparound services for those people who want to access housing support and all the social supports that go with it. In fact, there are five relocatable houses on that marae as we speak.

I just also want to draw attention to the tax matters that have come through in the Budget. We have had the Family Incomes Package, and some of my colleagues have highlighted it; the changes in income threshold, which mean that all New Zealanders who pay tax will benefit, particularly the poorer members of our society; the increase in the Working for Families package, which is quite substantial depending on the number of children—it could be anywhere between $9.60 and about $24 or $25 per child—and, of course, the substantial increase in the accommodation supplement, which may in fact be as much as a hundred dollars per week, depending on the circumstances of the family in need. It is very, very substantial.

One of the speakers earlier referred to the issue of P. Members may be aware that I put forward a member’s bill on this very issue. The big issue around P is that we did not have clarity, in terms of testing companies, on what the appropriate methodology was. There was uncertainty around the actual level of contamination. Thirdly, we did not know or have a mechanism to ensure that if a house had been decontaminated there was a methodology for approving or assessing that. I was slightly alarmed that some members do not seem to be up with the play and do not know what is going on, so I just thought I might take the opportunity to remind some of our members that progress has been made. The main thing is that the standards committee has reported back, and we have adopted a higher rate, rather than 0.5—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! This is not part of this sector debate. You must bring it back to the sector that we are debating. That is very wide of the debate.

Thank you. I will just finish off my time around the issue of how we get new people into housing, how we get our first-time people into housing. As the Prime Minister noted today in question time, 27,000 people have already benefited from the HomeStart loan package, and we intend to get 90,000 people accessing new homes over time.

Kia orana koutou katoatoa. Happy Cook Islands Language Week. Thank you so much for this call on the appropriations bill as it deals with the social development and housing sector. The areas that I would like to talk about—and I can see that the time is going to run away on me—are homelessness, waiting lists for social housing, boarding houses, and emergency housing.

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

Kia orana koutou katoatoa, and thank you, Mr Chair, for this opportunity to speak on the Appropriation (2017/18 Estimates) Bill as it relates to social development and the housing sector. But before I do, may I just take a moment to congratulate Jacinda Ardern, the new leader of the Labour Party, as well as Kelvin Davis, our new deputy leader. I look forward to working under both of them for a better and a fairer New Zealand.

This National Government claims that it is working to build a better future for New Zealand, and the Associate Minister for Social Housing, the Hon Alfred Ngaro, earlier on stated that it is his intention to focus on addressing the challenges of housing and delivering for all New Zealanders. Well, I can tell you that right now this National Government is not delivering for all children and for all families in Manukau East in South Auckland. This Government’s policies and its Budget is not working for all of our children and families in South Auckland, and, as it relates to this bill, I would like to talk about homelessness, waiting lists for social housing, boarding houses, and emergency housing.

I will start with homelessness. We know that homelessness is a big issue for New Zealand. The University of Otago tells us that we have over 41,000 people who are homeless. But can I talk about my office. When I became a member of Parliament 3 years ago we were dealing with approximately 20 families who were homeless in any one week. But today, only 3 years on, that number has tripled. We are dealing now with 60 homeless families. Just today three homeless families came through my office, and I will give you just one example of one particular family.

Both parents are working full time. The father works for 60 hours a week. The mother works too. They have three children. They do not qualify for assistance from the Government, and what this family has done is they have put their three kids with relatives; they are couch surfing while the parents are living in a car. This is not a situation that anyone in this Chamber should be proud of—the fact that we have too many of our families who are homeless and cannot afford the rent.

One of the reports that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment did just a few months ago was the housing affordability measure. According to the Government’s own report, the least affordable area in this country is Manukau ward, which is the area that I cover in Manukau as well as Aupito William Sio in Māngere. This is one of the most socio-economically deprived places right now in Aotearoa New Zealand. How can we be proud of that?

When this Government in its Budget says that it is putting aside millions and millions for emergency housing, putting our families into motels, I can tell you that in Manukau ward we have over 110,000 people who are already living in overcrowded conditions, and when we put families into emergency accommodation, that usually means motels. That usually means that you have four to six, and sometimes more, from one family living in an overcrowded room for up to 3 months at a time. That is not something that anyone in this Chamber should be proud of, and the fact that rent is so unaffordable, and the fact that we are not building affordable houses for our families to move into, but instead we are selling off our social houses and our State houses—that is also not something to be proud of.

When we look at this report and it tells us that there are 3,400 people who are priority A on the waiting list for social housing, that is also not a number to be proud of. We know that there are over 5,000 who are on the waiting list for social houses. But can I say, this is a Budget that I do not support. We should be caring much more for our families. Thank you.

Votes agreed to.