Annual Review Debate — Social Development and Housing Sector

Kia ora, Madam Chair. Talofa lava. Ngā mihi ki a koutou. Kia ora. As chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee, it’s a huge privilege to facilitate this process, which plays a key role in the scrutiny of public spending and outcomes for New Zealanders and public entities. I’d like to thank all the entities involved and all the members of the committee. I think we’ve got the best little committee in the precinct thanks to some great members. We might not agree on everything or most things but I think we do it in a very constructive and positive way.

As chair it falls to me to, in a non-political way, outline the annual reviews. We heard from a number of entities and published reports summarising what we heard and our recommendations. It would be impossible for me to cover all the key aspects let alone the substantive detail of each of the reports, but I’d like to highlight just a few.

The first and the largest entity we reviewed was the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). A major item the committee was interested in discussing was housing-related, from the social housing register, housing supply, and the transfer of the new Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, who took over many of the ministry’s public housing and transitional housing functions.

We were concerned to learn of instances where sex offenders were housed in transitional housing facilities in the same accommodations as vulnerable families. We did hear, however, of moves to avoid this in the future, such as the memorandum of understanding, and we were reassured to hear that corrections no longer place the sex offenders in motels.

We also heard about the changing office design and culture in MSD offices to make them more welcoming and user-friendly. The committee previously had the benefit of seeing upfront and personal a redesigned office on Willis Street in Wellington, and the positive changes we saw as a result.

Following on from this, we heard from Oranga Tamariki—Ministry for Children, who look after our country’s most precious resource. As of 30 June 2018, there were 6,350 children and young people in the ministry’s care. Oranga Tamariki was created as a Government department on 1 April 2017 to support the wellbeing of children and young people—taking on the functions of the Ministry of Social Development’s Child, Youth and Family business unit; children’s teams; and a large portion of the community investment teams. We heard of the large number of notifications of concern that it received. In 2017/2018, it received 92,247 notifications of concern; about 64,950 individual children were 41,780 of the notifications requiring further action. We heard how Oranga Tamariki is responding to this large and very important workload. We also heard about this housing provision that’s worked, partnering with iwi and NGOs, and implementing the Child Poverty Reduction Act.

The act of terrorism in Christchurch took place after our hearing with the Chief Censor, as part of the hearing into the Office of Film and Literature Classification. In the committee, we discussed the challenges of regulating offensive content such as the Facebook Live video of the atrocity, and the modern digital environment, with legislation dating back to 1993. We noted the wider regulatory review work of the Government. We also heard about the office’s worsening financial position, with this financial year being the third year of deficits, and their current work to address ongoing forecast deficits.

In its opening statement, Heritage New Zealand outlined some of its key achievements of the last year. It’s recently restored several heritage sites including the Melanesian Mission in Mission Bay, Auckland; and rebuilt the Timeball tower in Lyttelton in Canterbury, which was destroyed by the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes. We inquired into a number of heritage issues from Ihumātao Stonefields site where Fletcher is planning to build 480 homes, acknowledging the 250th anniversary of Cook’s landing, and the seismic strengthening of Turnbull House across the road from us here.

We also inquired into the published substantive report to the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa, known as Creative New Zealand; and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa board, who told us about their highlights in the last year and a host of issues they face.

In the reviews of Sport and Recreation New Zealand and Drug Free Sport New Zealand, we discussed drug testing and the impact of possible legislative change relating to cannabis, the wellbeing and integrity of athletes, and the demographics in achieving gender equity in sports.

We also conducted hearings and published reports, tabled to the House, on the Social Investment Agency, Social Workers Registration Board, Tāmaki Redevelopment Company, Ministry for Pacific Peoples, and the New Zealand Lotteries Commission. I will not have time to highlight the key areas, here.

To wrap up, as part of the annual review, we also tabled reports on the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the Children’s Commissioner, the Families Commission, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, the Ministry for Women, the New Zealand Artificial Limbs Service, and the New Zealand Film Commission—but we had no issues to bring to the attention of the House. I’d like to thank everyone involved from the entities, the submitters, the select committee members, and the staff who have been part of this process.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to acknowledge the chair of the Social Services and Community Committee, who is a very nice chair to deal with. I attended the hearing of Housing New Zealand Corporation and some of the other entities in relation to this.

Speaking to Housing New Zealand Corporation: it’s New Zealand’s biggest landlord—it’s a big, wealthy landlord with $26.7 billion of housing portfolio, and a shareholder equity standing at about $22.3 billion—in other words, it’s got that much in it in terms of net assets. So, really, I would’ve thought that Parliament might think that this great, big, enormous landlord might be trying to do the best it can. Well, some of us have got a lot of State houses, or Housing New Zealand houses, in our electorates, and I’ve got to say that would be the worst landlord we’ve got in the electorate of Papakura. We would have that as the worst one, because many people who go to Housing New Zealand don’t have much of a choice. So the report back mentions that in 2015, the corporation announced it was intending to sell social houses to community housing providers over a number of years. It is actually a very good policy, because what we’ve seen in New Zealand is, where the community social housing providers have taken those State houses, or former Housing New Zealand houses, they have done a lot more than just be a landlord; they have put around, in places like Masterton, where some of us have seen this operating, a real wraparound service, a social investment-type approach around helping families and people who are having to rent from the community services that help keep them in a really good space and deal with any issues around mental health or addictions or issues around anything else having to do with the poverty that people often find themselves in when they go to either community housing providers or Housing New Zealand.

I think it’s interesting to hear about some of the work that’s gone on around trying to make Housing New Zealand offices and Work and Income offices more friendly and user-friendly to the public. I would say to Parliament: when we are saying how wonderful this is, we also have to remember the health and safety obligations towards the staff and the people who work in those offices, understanding that they’re often dealing with people under stress, and that as we’ve seen in some parts of the country—particularly what happened in the Work and Income office in Ashburton—it is easy to say “Let’s all have everything open and easier and more accessible” until a tragedy happens and people are murdered, which is what has happened in Ashburton.

Looking at the supply of housing, it’s great to hear that Housing New Zealand say that they’re increasing the supply of houses. I just hope they’re not waiting for KiwiBuild to do it for them, because there’s not much being built there, despite the $2 billion put in—

💬 Hon Member: How many have been built now?

—last year’s Budget. Well, I think so far we’ve got about 83 or maybe a hundred; but the 16,000 we’re expecting in the term—the only term of this Government—has now dropped down to 1,535, as announced today by the Minister.

One of the things I was quite supportive of is this HUDA—the Housing Urban Development Authority; it’s a policy that the National Party certainly had in Government and were going to actually implement. That sounds like an excellent idea, doesn’t it—except that it is bringing together the Housing New Zealand Corporation and its subsidiary HLC; HLC was Hobsonville Land Company. Many in this House will remember that that was an excellent National Party project out in Hobsonville, and of course to take the name out, it’s now called HLC and it has now been put in charge of the Tāmaki redevelopment—also an excellent National Party project which has been continued under the current Government.

Then there’s, of course, KiwiBuild—no, definitely not a National Party policy. We’ll claim no credit for KiwiBuild, and we’re very grateful not to have to.

So I just wonder what’s going on here. We’ve got Housing New Zealand, whose job is to house tenants who otherwise may not be able to get private accommodation; then we have HLC, which is a developer of land; and then we have KiwiBuild, which is I don’t know what—I think it’s really just the butt of jokes, isn’t it? I mean, I don’t think it’s anything much else. I’m just wondering how these three entities are going to manifest. The only reason I can see for putting HLC, KiwiBuild, and Housing New Zealand Corporation together is to raid the balance sheet of Housing New Zealand Corporation—

💬 Priyanca Radhakrishnan: What nonsense.

—there is no other reason to do this. I see a member on the other side calling out to me. Well, she can call out all she wants, but I will not support her over here. I think the National Party doesn’t need her. What I would say to her is this: anyone who doubts this—anyone who doubts it—should just go back to the Budget documents from last year, which of course, this year’s estimates are based on. What that says is, pretty clearly, that Housing New Zealand Corporation will be allowed to borrow lots of money, and its accounts used to borrow money for the Government. I would say that is exactly why this merger is being undertaken, because it’s not as though Housing New Zealand isn’t already big—it has around 66,000 houses, give or take a thousand.

It is not the best landlord in this country. The best landlords are often community housing providers who don’t just provide a roof over someone’s head, or a family’s head, but help families through often difficult and trying circumstances. I’ve seen that work going on and I’ve seen the work that’s gone on with the New Zealand Housing Foundation, and the Waimahia Peninsula project and all of the people involved in that. That has actually created a community using what was previously Ministry of Justice land, which is unused, and building not just houses for people to live in as renters but also for people to buy—shared equity, kaumātua homes, opportunities for people to buy a house and to be part of a community, or, if they couldn’t buy a house at this stage, to become able to buy a house once they were able, financially, to do so. That’s where the focus should be: around community housing. That’s where the focus should be around the Housing New Zealand Corporation.

The Housing New Zealand Corporation is already enormous. If someone is a tenant and they now have a neighbour, or a neighbour moves into their neighbourhood and that neighbour is Housing New Zealand’s tenant and they create social issues for their neighbour in terms of noise, or in terms of dogs, or in terms of just general threatening behaviour, the answer is, apparently, now: call the police. That’s the only thing they can do. Housing New Zealand no longer evicts anti-social tenants, or tenants for anti-social behaviour. What that means is that more people turn up in our electorate offices saying, “I have a tenant next door to me. I’ve been living here for so many years. We’ve got a good community of other State tenants and we’ve got this person who’s turned up and Housing New Zealand won’t do anything about it”.

Well, actually, I’ve been a little bit remiss. I should have said they will do something about it—what they do now is they remove the good tenant and they put in more badly behaved, anti-social tenants. So the vast majority of tenants that Housing New Zealand deal with are very good tenants doing their best, bringing up their children, looking after themselves. They do not deserve to have a rogue landlord who allows its tenants to behave in a way that is awful for other tenants. That is one of the issues around some of the changes made and referred to in this report. We have here “The focus on the needs of tenants”—what a great headline, except when one considers: who are the tenants that they’re so focused on? Are they focused on the good tenants? Are they focused on the people who are just going about their lives, minding their own business and not causing trouble? I don’t think so. I think they’re focused on any tenant—whether that tenant is a good one or a bad tenant.

One of the things that I think this corporation needs to do is to turn up and face the media. The chief executive of Housing New Zealand Corporation refuses to turn up and front for the media on almost every occasion. This is a huge portfolio, a huge entity—front up, and the Minister could too.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Chair. Talofa lava. I greet you in Samoan both to acknowledge Samoan Language Week but also because the Ministry for Pacific Peoples is one of some 25 entities that the Social Services and Community Committee conducts annual reviews for. I want to begin, though, by addressing some of the—gosh, I don’t know where to start, really, with the member Judith Collins, who’s just resumed her seat. She must really hate poor people—that’s all I can say. The fact that she began with almost five minutes of how much she loves the previous Government’s policy of selling off State houses—which is just the State abdicating its responsibility—and was sneering at ambition, and aspiration; it was just woeful.

I want to begin, actually, with one of the points that the Hon Judith Collins mentioned, and that was about the merger of Housing New Zealand with its subsidiary Hobsonville Land Company (HLC), along with KiwiBuild to become the Housing and Urban Development Authority. We did hear about that at the select committee and the intention, we were told, was to use the combined assets, resources, and expertise of these three agencies to drive the development of programmes for new State-affordable and market housing. How is that not transformational? How is that not aspirational? It absolutely is, and sneering at that is sneering at ambition.

What about increasing the supply of State houses? Can I just, absolutely, underscore the fact that we heard that that mass State house sell-off has been stopped by this Government, which we on this side of the House, are absolutely delighted by. Not only that, but we heard that the corporation provides housing to a significant number of people, some 185,000 people who live in its properties. Of course, the Hon Judith Collins sneered at Housing New Zealand as well and said they were one of the worst landlords. I absolutely beg to differ. They have actually now become a compassionate landlord—thanks to this Government’s work as well.

But we’ve also heard that there’s been a ramping up of the building programme with 2,500 houses that are under construction—2,500 houses, about 1,511 in Auckland alone. Building houses—when we’ve seen over the past nine years people living in cars—and members opposite sneer. That’s all they can do: sneer.

Well, I’m here to talk about what has been happening, what we’ve heard at select committee that is actually working really well. We did hear that the building of new houses hasn’t been as fast as would be ideal. But there are a number of factors for this—there are a number of factors for this [Interruption]. We’ve heard “the corporation said that a number of factors affected its ability to build houses as quickly as it would like. It is a “brownfield” as opposed to a “greenfield” developer, and its consistently high occupancy rates (98 percent) reduce the number of opportunities to re-develop its properties”. Housing New Zealand also told us that “its commitment to quality urban planning also can affect the pace”. So they want to do it well, not just quickly and build any old houses for its State house tenants that members opposite continue to sneer at. The commitment involves going through a process with the community to determine with them what some of the best outcomes can be, and that, I think, we should be lauding.

In terms of buying houses now, Opposition members brought this up at the select committee hearing as well and sort of tried to look down on Housing New Zealand, in a sense, for buying houses. But at the end of the day, what we heard was that the corporation has been changing the way it works, and it actually said that “the Government sets targets for how many houses it must have available for people to live in. Some of this target is met through [new builds]”. The numbers that cannot be met through new builds must be met by buying houses. I don’t see what’s wrong with that. At the end of the day, it’s about people having a roof that is warm, dry, and safe over their heads. So let’s not quibble about how that happens—the fact remains that it is happening under this Government, and we did hear that.

The other point that I’d like to make is also about the changing of culture, and this sits across both Housing New Zealand as well as the Ministry of Social Development who, of course, we heard from as well. In terms of Housing New Zealand, and this goes back to one of the previous points made by the Hon Judith Collins, Housing New Zealand actually is taking a much more compassionate view of its tenants. I just want to, actually, elaborate on what we heard in response to the Hon Judith Collins’ view that tenants who are destructive or disruptive are no longer being evicted, because that’s not actually true. We heard that from Housing New Zealand who have told us that they actually have intensive tenancy management teams, who work with those people who have been disruptive in the past to help them to manage their behaviours. Evicting tenants just shifts the cost—

💬 Jan Tinetti: To somewhere else in the community.

—to a different pool of Government money in some other part of the community—that’s absolutely right, Jan Tinetti—towards emergency accommodation, for example, like motels. How is that the better solution? How is working with these people to change their behaviour not the better solution? But of course we didn’t hear that from the member, did we? She also didn’t talk about the fact that Housing New Zealand now has a much more focused approach when it comes to the needs of tenants. It’s actually much easier for tenants to interact with Housing New Zealand. They have an expanding range of services to support the needs of various groups of tenants, and they match homes built with those needs as well. So a much better approach is what we’ve heard in terms of the culture change at Housing New Zealand.

The same applies to the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), where changes have been made. We heard through the annual review process about the Client Commitment Charter, with goals of giving people the best possible services and providing them with information that they need to access services. This is key, because we know—we’ve heard from members opposite—the fact that, for example, their applications have increased on the social housing register over the review period. That is true, but that’s partly true because these people who need to be on that register have a greater awareness of what support is available—something that they didn’t have, necessarily, in the past. We also heard that an increasing number of households are moving from private rentals to public housing—an increase in need—and fewer people are exiting public housing. That goes right back to the issues around supply and housing that Housing New Zealand is trying to address as well.

The other point I want to touch on that came out from the MSD portion of the annual reviews is an increase in the number of 18- to 24-year-olds who are receiving jobseeker support benefits. In response, what has been proposed, what has been implemented? The Mana in Mahi programme that we heard about as well, which supports employers to take on apprentices. Up to 4,000 young people will benefit this year alone from that one programme. So what we’re seeing is an issue, and we’ve seen a response over the annual review period.

The other package that we heard about was the Families Package: 384,000 families with children better off by $75 per week on average, major changes to the Working for Families payments, the biggest boost in household income in a decade for thousands of families, the introduction of the Best Start payment, and the introduction of the winter energy payment that helps a million people stay warm this winter. Officials told us that there was a huge amount of work that went into ensuring that these were rolled out as well.

So, really, what we’ve seen from across agencies through the annual review process—some 25 or so entities that sit within the purview of this particular select committee—is that the work that they are doing absolutely backs up the fact that this Government is transformative, it’s aspirational, and I would encourage members opposite not to sneer at ambition. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair. It is a great opportunity to speak in this annual review debate. It is actually the 2017-18 year that we are referring to here, and although I would love to traverse some of the housing issues that that member talked about—and to say that the progress of building houses is a little slower than anticipated would have to be the greatest understatement not only of the day but probably of the year—I want to focus my efforts in this contribution into the review of the Ministry of Social Development. This is the agency that has the greatest level of expenditure across any Government agency, so it is important to traverse and spend some time on scrutiny of their annual review.

I want to start with one particular area, and that is what we heard in the annual review process from the chief executive and others, unfortunately, about the increase in the number of people on jobseeker benefits. In the report, as we heard, there was an increase of nearly 9,000, and it was somewhat interesting that they were forecasting that the number of people receiving jobseeker support would decrease. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The number of people on jobseeker benefits has increased. It is now over 11,000 more than there were a year ago. That is an absolute travesty that this Government, who supposedly is about kindness and wellbeing, is overseeing a significant increase in the number of people on the jobseeker benefit.

Now, why is that important? Well, this side of the House believes and understands that families are better off in work. If you look at many of these households, there are children involved, and we know—we know from the data, we know from the evidence—that the children in those households are generally worse off. So, yes, the Prime Minister may talk about children in poverty. Where the attention wasn’t focused, and we heard about it in this annual review, was the zero plan—zero plan—for reducing the number of people on the jobseeker benefit. What we’ve also seen is that the number of people 18 to 24, a critical age bracket—that has actually gone up. There are more people now between the age of 18 to 24 not in employment, education, or training. So the member may have talked about places for 4,000. Actually, in the annual review, the officials weren’t able to tell us how many of the NEETs were engaged in that programme, how many were entering the programme, what the capacity was, what the outcomes were—zero.

I want to talk about outcomes, because that was another element of the discussion in the annual review. If you think back, some of where the focus is in areas like jobseeker benefits, through what used to be in place but the Prime Minister cancelled, is around inter-agency work. Now, we’ve heard quite a lot about this in the last few weeks, because supposedly this is the first wellbeing Budget where agencies have worked together. Well, we know that’s absolute rubbish, and I want to talk about that in the context of family violence shortly.

But just sticking on benefit numbers for a moment, and talking specifically about those on jobseeker benefits, we’ve seen a significant increase, and the focus previously—because we know how important it is for families to be in work, for families to be in charge of their lives, to be independent, to be able to provide greater opportunities for their children, and not to have children living in poverty. The opportunity to a better future is through work. So the previous Government measured those things, because, actually, those outcomes are important. It wasn’t just a job for social development; it was a job for other agencies as well. So cross-agency work and inter-agency targets aren’t new.

So it was interesting in this annual review to have a discussion about outcomes, measuring outcomes, and developing impact indicators. The ministry hadn’t actually set any new ones, so, actually, I think in the meantime we may as well talk about the Better Public Services targets, because they’re ones that we understand and know about. The other side groan. Actually, I don’t think they realise that one of them was about reducing assaults on children. I would have thought that the other side had an interest in reducing the number of assaults on children. Oh, but no, they don’t want to count that sort of thing because that might demonstrate that their words are just hot air and they’re actually not delivering results for New Zealanders.

At the end of the day, annual reviews are about the select committee being able to scrutinise the performance of an entity, in this case the Ministry of Social Development. We saw a number of areas where, actually, they weren’t delivering for the most vulnerable New Zealanders. I’ve talked about it in the area of benefit numbers.

I want to shift to the area of family violence, because, as I said, we had targets around reducing the number of assaults on children, which we see as absolutely critical. We were actually quite pleased in the Budget last year, let alone what’s been announced for this year’s Budget, to see increased funding for family violence—actually, in fact, the inter-agency work that was started when Amy Adams was the Minister of Justice, where 12 Ministers sat in a room and came up with a significant family violence system reform, as well as legislation that’s now being passed in this House, and the integrated safety response, which we’re pleased to see that this Government has seen the merit and seen the value and continued to fund.

We actually did think for a period of time that they might not. As for the supposed success of the Families Package, well, not so long ago in this House we talked about 25,000 New Zealanders that were paid the winter energy payment unlawfully. They were paid unlawfully.

💬 Andrew Bayly: And how did that happen?

So, yeah, I wonder how that happened. That kind of occurs when you have work that’s put in place that is absolutely rushed, not thought through, and it means the Auditor-General has had to criticise not just the Minister for Social Development and the department for unlawful spending—and, actually, even the fix now means that taxpayers are paying twice. There is a group of taxpayers—a group of recipients, I should say—who are getting their housing costs paid for, and they get a winter energy payment as well. But, actually, you know, the Government doesn’t seem to worry about that. They don’t worry about the fact that they are getting paid twice by taxpayers, but, actually, taxpayers do care. They care about the fact that their funds, their hard-earned tax, is making a difference, which is why we want to see from the Ministry of Social Development what those outcomes are—so, of the $28 billion that they spend a year of Kiwis’ hard-earned money, who’s getting the support, what support are they getting, where are those people that are being supported, and what is the impact that that spend is having? Unfortunately, in too many of the areas that were scrutinised—and this is only one of 25—those answers weren’t able to be provided.

So, yes, the Social Investment Agency still exists—long may it last. Long may the Government see the use of data and evidence to solve very, very complex intergenerational challenges—and no, this is not the first Government to talk about wellbeing. No, this is not the first Government to talk about inter-agency, cross-Ministers, cross-department—actually, delivering of outcomes is the key. So whether it’s reducing the number of people on benefit so that there are 60,000 fewer children living in poverty, and, actually, when it comes to—and I’m sure my colleagues will talk about children living in poverty, because far too many of them are in benefit-dependent homes. That’s the unfortunate reality. There’s nothing unkind about it; it’s called the truth. Actually, in five years we lifted 85,000 children out of poverty. The Prime Minister’s new target is for 80,000—less than that—in 10 years.

So don’t talk to this side about not being ambitious. Don’t talk to this side about not being aspirational for New Zealanders. This is a side who will hold the Government to account, who will hold the Government to account for delivering value for taxpayers, ensuring, whether it’s family violence or getting people off benefit into jobs, into opportunities, we will hold the Government to account for every dollar spent to make sure that lives are improved as a result of what is spent in the Ministry of Social Development, amongst others. So whether it’s reducing the number of people on benefit, whether it’s reducing the number of children in poverty—that side may laugh; actually, we think it’s a serious business to reduce the number of assaults on children and to reduce the number of children living in poverty, so it’s sad to see that that side don’t.

Faatalofa atu. Manuia le Vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa. Happy Samoan Language Week. It is an absolute pleasure for me to speak on this year’s annual review. The House has heard from the chair, Gareth Hughes, that we, the Social Services and Community Committee, reviewed 25 entities. I want to take this brief moment—it’d be remiss of me not to respond to the things that came from across the floor. I want to first of all refer to the member for Papakura, who spoke about the Housing New Zealand Corporation as the worst landlord ever. I think that’s outrageous, because that means that she’s confirming that they were the worst landlord in nine years—in nine years—when they were in Government. That’s confirming that.

We also just heard from the member that has just left, Louise Upston. She spoke about the targets and numbers.

💬 Andrew Bayly: Ah-ah, ah-ah!

I didn’t mention—oh, thank you, Hunua, for that—noted. We also heard that it was about targets and numbers. I am somebody who worked in the Ministry of Social Development—a diligent public servant who turned political because of the fact that we were counting numbers and not focused on people.

I want to just get back to this annual review. The thing that was prevalent in all the entities that came before the Social Services and Community Committee was the fact that it was focused on people. It was focused on people, whether it was the Ministry of Social Development that talked to us, that shared with us that they now have a thing called a client commitment charter, where they’re teaching their staff at the front line—and the front line includes the security people—how to be empathetic and how to treat people with respect, teaching that. That is actually the front door before you start counting whatever’s behind the door. Whether it was about Housing New Zealand talking about providing better services for tenants—and when we talk about tenants, they were talking about employing recruiting staff who reflect the community that they live in. Housing New Zealand had talked to us about that. The Ministry of Social Development talked to us about how, when they were recruiting staff, they were recruiting people who reflect the community. I think one of the members across the floor talked about how there were more people now coming to the Ministry of Social Development for assistance, and maybe they’re coming out because there actually is a human being behind the reception. There is a human factor in this. Maybe that’s why they’re coming out.

I am relentlessly privileged to be in this as a member of Parliament, under the leadership of the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern and, of course, the Minister Carmel Sepuloni. Actually, the Minister brings insights into being a client in the Ministry of Social Development.

So I just want to make a point that with the entities that came along, the thing that was prevalent for me was their focus on providing social services for community. When you unpick that, who are in those communities? People—it is people who are in those communities. I want to thank everybody who’s counting the numbers and reaching the targets. Those people have done well; they’ve contributed to New Zealand, but I tell you what: everybody is a taxpayer in this country, and everybody is hard-working. Nobody wakes up in the morning and wants to be on the unemployment benefit—nobody—because we know that having the opportunity to work is a principle that we all enjoy in this House. It is a principle that we enjoy in this House, and that is what providing social service is all about.

I know I’m almost running out of time, but the thing that Housing New Zealand told us—they told us that 2,188 homes—they reiterated the numbers; 2,188 homes more that they’ve added to Housing New Zealand’s portfolio, more than the last Government did, which was on top of that 644 houses. I know that we’re having a focus on people, where all the entities told us that having a focus on people—we are now having a conversation, a conversation of how we can better serve the people of New Zealand, listening with a compassionate heart. Mr Chair, thank you very much. That’s it for me tonight. Mālō ‘aupito.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. I wanted, in my contribution tonight, to focus in specifically on the aspect of the report dealing with fraud investigations and prosecutions, because I think it speaks clearly to the legacy of the previous Government and how much work this Government still has to do. We’ve heard, from the previous speaker from the National Party, Louise Upston, an attitude about how people really need to be in paid work to have any hope of living a decent life in this country.

I just want to speak to that and acknowledge that there are some people who are not able to be in paid work, for reasons of illness or disability, or the disability or illness of their children that they are caring for, and that when you continue only to focus on paid work, you are leaving them to lives of pain and illness and a loss of dignity. This Government is committed to changing that.

Specifically, it was encouraging to see in this report that there has been a two-thirds decrease in the number of people who have been prosecuted for benefit fraud in the last year. That’s important because we know that beneficiaries have been unduly targeted, that most of those investigations have not resulted in any evidence of fraud, and that it has made every single beneficiary’s life feel precarious and under scrutiny. We see that in the comparison between the treatment of tax evasion and welfare. Welfare fraud accounts for $30.6 million a year. That’s significant, but when you compare it to the significantly underestimated $1.2 billion a year in estimated tax evasion, we get the significance of the difference in the response when 1,000 beneficiaries are prosecuted every year and there are only 60 to 80 cases of tax evasion. There has been undue focus to serve a narrative to bash the poor. That has served the previous Government, and when they say they have a commitment to wellbeing, it just makes my blood boil, because the experience of people in my community has been so at odds with that.

We saw the Privacy Commissioner’s report last week about the treatment and the process of fraud investigations that were brought in by that previous Government in 2012, and he found that there was systematic misuse of investigatory powers—that it was intrusive, excessive, and inconsistent with legal requirements. Somebody turned up to a meeting and had an intimate photo of themselves presented to them, in front of officials, that had been sent by text to somebody in their life—that was presented to them. Who of us in this room would think that that was in any way acceptable? But that was an outcome of the policies of the previous Government that we are still living with the legacy of and that we need to undo with urgency.

I want to recognise that the Welfare Expert Advisory Group (WEAG) has called on this Government and our society to change those policies, and that they endorsed the Ministry of Social Development’s current three-tiered approach towards alleged fraud that has been brought in now. But they also called on there to be an independent review of proceedings prior to the benefits review committee for prosecution of investigations—that there be external oversight, because, clearly, those protections have not worked—and prosecution practice to be explored and aligned with IRD so that there actually can be some consistency across our country, and we clearly need to address the definition of “relationship”, because there is a danger at the moment. I read in the WEAG report that people supposedly have six months of living with somebody, but that is not happening in practice.

So work needs to be done by this Government, and we are really proud in this party to have put this in our confidence and supply agreement, and we will keep pushing, because people in our community deserve dignity and the right to be treated fairly by this State.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Talofa lava. It’s great that we’ve got Samoan Language Week. One of the joys of being inside the Social Services and Community Committee is that when officials come to visit us and we do a round of introductions—our chair introduces us—when they get around to Ms Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki, it often surprises the officials, because they’re not sure about how to address her, because it just seems such a long name. But we often laugh a lot. We’ve got good collegiality inside our select committee, and I want to acknowledge our chairperson as well, and the team there.

I want to start off my contribution by being a little bit more positive than that last contribution that was just made, because there are some good things that have been had. Actually, when you look at the annual report, there’s some good things that are here, and I just want to highlight some of those good things that are in there.

If I go back to the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company, what a great opportunity in which a company is not only—and by the way, this was the transfer. It wasn’t a State sell-off; it was a transfer of stock of over 2,000 homes into the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company so that they could have a community-based approach of wraparound services. If anyone wants to go there—we’ve been there—you would’ve seen that not only did it create employment for local people but it also created an opportunity to have a community-led development approach. It’s a great project. We thank those who are currently there, and—that’s right—it was started by the National Government. It’s a great initiative, doing very well.

Let’s keep positive. We had the Social Workers Registration Board come through, and what did they talk about? The mandatory registration of social workers. We know that there were only 3,000 registered social workers, around about over 7,000 in total. There were 4,000 social workers that needed to be registered. It was something that was needed, and it was the time to do that. That was positive. That’s right: again, it was started by the National Government—a very good thing that was done.

Let’s then talk about Oranga Tamariki in particular. In fact, let’s wait for that. Let’s go back to housing. One of the big issues that has been a concern for the whole of the country has been homelessness. I know that the current coalition Government talked about homelessness—that they were going to fix homelessness. When we heard at the annual review when they talked about it, the key plank initiative was Housing First. What a great initiative, because, again, it was a community-led development approach where providers came together. They dealt with the intensive care and needs of those in a homeless situation, and, again—oh, that’s right—it was started by a National Government.

All the good news that we’re hearing in this annual review has all been by a National-led Government and its approach. So, fancy that. Thank you, National, for all the work that you’ve been doing. It just seems like, on the other side, they didn’t come into Government with any new ideas, so that’s a real concern. They can crow all they like—in fact, they’re silent as the lambs now. Why? Because they know this is the truth. It’s in the book. It is in the annual review. This is what people have been talking about. Give us one new idea—something of difference, something of importance that they have come out with. But it’s a bit of a sad story.

I’m not a baker, but here’s what they say out there in baker land: the proof is in the pudding—the proof is in the pudding. In other words, if you’re going to put up, you’ve got to be able to show that you’ve made a difference. So let’s talk about the proof in the pudding. One of those areas is that they said they’re supporting core poverty—“Poverty reduction: we’re going to make a huge difference.” But when you’ve got some of those people who were in the bakery, helping to bake the cake—and here’s what they said. They said that the current target by the current Government, by the child poverty reduction Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, is underwhelming. This is Alan Johnson from the Salvation Army. He was there, baking away, mixing away, hoping that they could make a difference. When it came to it: underwhelming.

Here’s why it’s underwhelming: because the target was 23 percent. That’s right; they said they were going to reduce it by 23 percent. Well, hello, another failed target—another pudding that’s flat. In other words, there’s no yeast in there. There’s no substance; it’s just a flat pancake. So that’s what they’re selling on the other side. It’s not cakes; it’s pancakes. In other words, it’s fallen flat again. So-called lifting the poverty reduction of children by 130,000 children in poverty won’t happen, so what have they come to do? Right before Wellbeing Budget week, they’ve turned around and said, “Look, we’re sorry; we didn’t quite make it.” Why? “We forgot the yeast. We didn’t put the yeast in there.” So what’s going to happen? It’s just a pancake. It’s underwhelming, and when you get Susan St John, who is actually from the Child Poverty Action Group, we expected more—we expected more.

In my final 20 seconds, the Welfare Expert Advisory Group—42 recommendations, and how many did they introduce? Three. So I have to say, with this annual review, the only good news is all the things that were committed by a National-led Government. Underwhelming—a bunch of pancakes.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. All that baker needs to worry about is why his flat Christian party cake didn’t rise. That’s the biggest issue in his debate. That member goes on to talk about all the things that the National Party supposedly did to improve the lives of our people, yet they still find themselves on that side of the House. What that tells us is, actually, there is a lot more work that needs to be done than just simply setting targets. It actually takes work to do that.

One of the biggest things that we’ve heard, in the time we became Government, was clients saying that the biggest hurdle to them finding work was a system and a service that did not cater for them. It actually used more stick than carrot—more stick than carrot. Guess what? Some of those scabs have been exposed from the last Government. Some of those supposedly good things have been exposed. All of a sudden, benefit fraud numbers, and the benefit fraud practices have been exposed. Who was in charge when that was made? That side of the House—that’s exactly right. So that side are saying that only some small number of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group (WEAG) report—actually, no. If they read the papers properly instead of cherry-picking, they’ll find that before the WEAG report came out, 15 recommendations were already under way. The work was being done in that space, but we know that it’s going to take time. It takes some time and effort to unwind the practices that the former Government put in place, and that’s a reality.

Some of those ways we can change the practice and the service that our people receive from a Government institution is a particular service that I think the Minister for Social Development is doing well, and that is to make sure that the services that our people receive actually reflect who they are. There is a kaupapa called Te Pae Tata, one that actually brings a stronger Māori focus to the work that the Ministry of Social Development are doing. We know the numbers in this space. We know that Māori are disproportionately represented in benefits statistics, and unemployment statistics. So therefore it’s important, and Pūao-te-ata-tū, all the way back in 1987 and ’88, recognised this. The Government needed a workforce that reflected the people they were serving. I’ll repeat that: the Government needed a workforce, and practice, that reflected the people they were.

So Te Pae Tata is definitely a move in the right direction. If that side of the House had heard how many of those beneficiaries have explained their interaction with their agency, with the agency of the Ministry of Social Development, they will know that there were serious problems with the service that they receive. This Government set out right from the beginning to change the culture of the Ministry of Social Development. We did that with simple things. That side might laugh, but, actually, the people matter. Simple things like the opportunity to drink water, access to the bathroom, an area that will allow tamariki who don’t want to be in there, who find themselves carried to the desk and have to sit still in front of a case manager, an area to allow those tamariki to be tamariki. They sound like novel ideas to that side of the House, but to us that is a particular change in the culture of the way we serve our people.

So we are excited on the side of the House. The Ministry of Social Development is only one part of this particular debate. There are so many others; housing. That side of the House is trying to say that our housing policies aren’t up to the mark. Well, actually, it’s really easy given that that side of the House set a really low bar. It was really easy to say, actually, we can do more. The member Alfred Ngaro who sat down before I stood to take the call, he said that, “Actually, the Tāmaki Regeneration Company was the way forward for us to do that”. Yes, there are some good parts of it. I’ll admit to that. But what he didn’t say was who actually owned the Tāmaki Regeneration Company. He stated that it wasn’t a sell-off; it was a transfer. Well, one need only look at the ownership model of the Tāmaki Regeneration Company and the answer sits right there.

We are excited on the side of the House. This is only the beginning, because, what we know, and that side knows too, from the internal polling: we’re here to stay—we are here to stay—[Interruption]—and there’s so much more work that we have to get done to make sure that we unwind all of the negative policies from the last Government, and they might laugh now, but their internal polling tells them; they know it.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. How great to be able to take a call in this annual review debate, and what a privilege it is to be part of a Government led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, a Prime Minister who is bringing kindness back to our national life, who makes us proud on the international stage, and is willing to tackle the difficult, long-term challenges that were ignored and neglected for so many years over the last nine years.

If there’s one issue that is emblematic of that failure to tackle the difficult long-term issues for so long, it’s housing, and our Government is tackling housing in a more determined and wholehearted way than this country has seen in a very long time, and there’s a huge need for support. There is a huge, pent-up need for people who have been shut out by the system, and we’ve seen, over the financial year that we are discussing in this annual review, the public housing waiting list continually rise as the hidden homeless have come forward. Thousands and thousands of New Zealanders have been living in overcrowded housing, in cars, in garages, and in campgrounds, because for years they knew that there was not a Government there that would provide support. Under Jacinda Ardern’s Government, they have people who have said, “Come forward. If you don’t have proper shelter, we will make sure you get a roof over your heads”.

Now there’s been quite a lot of talk in this debate about public housing, and I want to make a few comments about that. In Budget 2018, we committed $234 million. Housing New Zealand are investing $4 billion off their balance sheet to increase the stock of public housing by an average of 1,600 every year, 6,500 over the four-year period. We are well on track to deliver that 1,600 in this financial year, and that stands in stark contrast to the record of the former Government, who sold down State housing so that there were 6,500 fewer State houses in New Zealand by the time they left Government with—

💬 Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Shameful.

They should’ve crawled shamefacedly away from this Government, but they didn’t. We stopped the sell-off of State houses, and more than 1,900 more families are in public housing now than there were when we took office—

💬 Simon O’Connor: Over 11,000 on the list, Minister.

—1,900 extra families. I know that Simon O’Connor thinks that that’s a sign of failure—that putting people in State houses is a sign of failure, because, somehow, that means they’re dependent on the taxpayer, and that is the mentality that we’re trying to overcome.

I’m very proud to say that not only are we building more State housing now than at any time in decades; we’re building public houses in parts of New Zealand that haven’t seen new public houses in decades. Housing New Zealand, under our Government, is a compassionate landlord. Now, when we became the Government, when I became the Minister, I was told by Housing New Zealand staff that they were told not to do pastoral care work with their tenants, that they were doing pastoral care work in their own time. Well, they are a compassionate landlord now under our policy. They are working directly with their tenants to make sure that they get a fair deal.

Our Government busted open the methamphetamine rort that was allowed to go on for years under the National Government. Housing New Zealand was spending $25 million every year on methamphetamine contamination testing and remediation that never needed to happen; a hundred million dollars wasted by that Government, and, in the time that we’re debating under this annual review, we fixed that and we’ve compensated 963 households to an average of $7,800, because they were tossed out under that Government for methamphetamine testing that never needed to be used as an excuse to evict State house tenants. So that is the shame of it.

Housing New Zealand is making great progress. They are building more public housing than we’ve seen in decades, and they are truly a compassionate landlord, looking after the tenants, doing the right thing, instead of demonising them and stigmatising them as we saw yet again tonight.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m very grateful that you’ve taken my call. First of all, I’d like to acknowledge Minister Twyford for having the courage to stand up and defend himself. I think one of the most remarkable things, watching tonight, is how, after a short period of time—only 18 months—those members over the other side there on the Government side have now got to the point where they’re having to defend themselves. It’s a very defensive posture you guys are showing tonight. Where are you proud about what you’re doing? That is just missing tonight in these speeches. What we’re hearing is, “Oh, yes, yes. We’re going to do that. We’re trying to blame National for what they did 18 months ago.”

Well, in the year of delivery, I now understand why. One of the areas that I think needs our attention most of all—an industry that needs some oxygen—is the building and construction sector. It’s interesting that the biggest thing about the building and construction sector is its volatility. We’re seeing these huge troughs and peaks, and what is happening now is we’re seeing these companies go into receivership. That’s really bad. It’s bad for the people who want to build houses and the owners who’ve put their money on the line. It’s bad for the employees of the builders, but also what we’re seeing is these larger builders going out of action and creating mayhem in this industry—creating mayhem in New Zealand.

I can tell you that we are not over it yet. We’ve already seen a whole lot of receiverships being announced, but we can guarantee that we’re going to see some more. And if there’s ever a time where we want to see a Government doing something, delivering on its promises, actually delivering something, now is the time. Unfortunately, we’ve got a housing Minister who’s struggling to deal with his own housing portfolio under KiwiBuild. But the biggest thing we want is someone to actually look after the wider industry—the building and construction industry.

The first thing is we’ve got a shortfall of apprenticeships in New Zealand. We have a 50,000 shortfall in the building and construction sector. You would think we’d be looking at ways we’re going to drive that forward, how we’re going to bring in new people, how we’re going to attract people out of the schools and into that wonderful array of industries in the building and construction sector. But what have we got? We’ve got a Minister of tertiary education who wants to think that the only way to look after the building and construction sector is to centralise everything back into Wellington, because that’s the way it should be. That is not going to address the construction sector shortfall and apprenticeships—the people we want into that market to do the work that we need to build those houses.

The second thing: seismic issues. We’ve got huge seismic issues. We’ve got a library just down the road—big issues with hollow-core flooring. We’ve got a Minister who doesn’t want to even acknowledge it. We’ve got issues with the system for accrediting people in this whole industry, and we’ve got this wider issue of what’s called “non-structural elements”. That is stuff that falls out of the roof and hits people, and we’ve got a Minister not even worried about that.

Then we’ve got this whole issue about contracting. Guess what? After 18 months, we had seven Ministers—I think it was seven—turn up in Auckland to announce another working group to look at how we procure and contract. I’ll tell you what; it’s not a working group because it’s called “an accord”. It is an accord. It is the Construction Sector Accord—18 months after she becomes a Minister, the Minister for Building and Construction announced an accord. When’s that going to happen? In 12 months we’ll finally get some outcomes about how we’ve got to improve procurement and contracting.

Well, I have to tell the committee tonight that there has been a lot of work already done on that. If you google “3910”, that is a procurement method that has already been through the rigour of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. That is the way we are meant to procure. If we actually started adopting that, that would probably go a long way to solving this issue. But just don’t google “3910 contracting model”.

Then the whole issue about risk sharing. We’ve had Auckland—[Time expired]

Mr Chair, thank you. I was listening to the shouty member who just took his seat, Andrew Bayly. No. Good passion there. It would be lovely to see passion across the House—including the previous Government’s passion, which we didn’t see—around income adequacy. I’m speaking to the select committee and the annual review of social development, and understanding that what I welcome is the Welfare Expert Advisory Group’s report, which made it incredibly clear that too many New Zealanders lead desperate lives with seriously inadequate incomes, and this must change.

Now, the Welfare Expert Advisory Group’s report pulled together a diverse panel of people, chaired by the incredible Professor Cindy Kiro, representing communities, backgrounds, and specialties, and brought people together to come up with a blueprint that completely squashes three decades, at least, of a punitive approach, to make sure that people can live with dignity instead of trying just the narrow outcome narrative that says “Get people off the benefit.” Instead, it starts with a point of making sure people are treated and can live with dignity.

So it was really important for me to be able to look over the annual review of the Ministry of Social Development, understanding that this report is one of the most important pieces of work that the country and that this Government has seen for at least three decades. And I’m proud that the Green Party put this agreement into our confidence and supply agreement. I am pleased that the Minister saw the wisdom of pulling together this diverse panel, where you end up having people like business leader Phil O’Reilly staunching all over the media saying “Incomes are not enough”, and that they urgently have to increase now—alongside the agreement of the rest of the panel.

The Greens are very, very clear that this report, which canvassed across the country, which pulled on a range of researchers from both here and around the world, and which pulled together the leadership of the 11 panellists, came up with some consensus, agreed issues that need to be addressed. The Greens are very clear that we are here to support and implement those recommendations into existence so that we can move beyond a safety net, and actually towards a system that upholds the mana and the dignity of all people.

I was so excited about getting up to talk about this that I forgot to address the House and celebrate our Samoan Language Week with talofa lava, so I’ll do that right now as well. There is a fantastic phrase that I’m going to give my best go at that I think captures where our ministry can head if we have got any sort of leadership and vision for how our country can truly be. I’m going to give it my best go: “E tua le fale tele i le faleo’o”, which, if I said it right, is supposed to say, “Even the mighty need others”. What that’s talking about is that not any single one of us made it to any platform of success or dignity or wellbeing without help. What we are doing here is not just picking up a few things that need to change in our social support system but transforming our entire approach to the Government’s responsibility for making sure that people have enough to live good lives.

The welfare report suggested that, across different benefits, the increases of base-benefit amounts can go up anywhere from 12 percent to 47 percent in order to make sure that people are in the best position to be a part of their community. The report was also very clear that there are many ways of contributing to being in your community—they don’t all include being in paid work. We have to make sure that we value the work and the participation that takes place in our homes, in our schools, in our social places, in our sporting places, in our marae, in our churches, and in our community places.

It’s a privilege to be able to speak in this debate tonight, and can I acknowledge the co-leader of the Green Party for the speech that she’s just given and also the fact that the Green Party, in our confidence and supply agreement, prompted the overhaul of the welfare system that this Government has committed to. Can I just say that I’ve been listening to the speeches in the committee tonight, and I’d like to respond to some of what is being said.

Firstly, I want to start by acknowledging the Welfare Expert Advisory Group and the amazing job that they have done—11 members of that expert advisory group, who were deliberately selected because of the fact that they represented a broad spectrum of New Zealanders. We know, as a Government, that a broad spectrum of New Zealanders have to access the welfare system at some point in their lives, and so it was appropriate that we had that representation. The fact that those 11 members could come to a consensus on 42 recommendations really shows that, when you take an evidenced approach to something like this, that is this important, then actually you can get agreement. When it’s not political ideology, when it is in fact an evidence-based decision-making process with a group of New Zealanders who perhaps never had that much to do with each other but are all looking out for the best interests of New Zealand, you can get consensus. So I want to acknowledge all of the members of that expert advisory group and particularly the leadership of Professor Cindy Kiro in bringing that group together and the amazing report that we were presented with.

Can I say that, really, coming into Government—and this is reflected in the last year of action in the Ministry of Social Development (MSD)—the overhaul didn’t start from the report, but we needed the report to inform the work that the Government is doing. We started it immediately, and what we could do immediately was actually begin the culture change—service delivery change—that needed to happen in the Ministry of Social Development. It’s very clear to me that, actually, both sides of the House do believe and support one thing we have in common, and that is that New Zealanders need to be supported, where able, into work and that employment needs to be a focus for us. We don’t dispute that on this side of the House; in fact, we support that wholeheartedly, but the motivation—the agenda—behind that perhaps differs on the different sides of the House.

We saw, with the previous Government’s welfare reforms, that actually what happened when they were introduced was that, within 18 months of people going off benefit—because that was actually their target; just reducing the number of people on benefit—50 percent of those people were back on benefit. I don’t think any New Zealander would think that that is actually the optimum outcome. In fact, that really underpins our drive, which is to make sure that, yes, we support New Zealanders into meaningful and sustainable work, where they are able to take up that employment, but it has to be meaningful and sustainable employment, because we don’t want to see the churn on and off benefit that we saw under the previous Government.

So our focus has been on how we create meaningful and sustainable employment opportunities for New Zealanders who do enter the welfare system, so that we can assure them that they are getting all the support that they need to actually do better for themselves and better for their families and to have better long-term prospects—much better, I think, than the previous Government, who were focused on short-term numbers, getting people off benefit and trying to report on the fact that that was a positive outcome, when in fact it’s proven not to be. So I don’t apologise that, for the last year, MSD has been focused on improving their service delivery, improving the culture at MSD offices around the country, because every New Zealander who needs support from the welfare system deserves to be treated with dignity and to have their mana upheld.

💬 Simon O’Connor: So does the taxpayer.

I just heard from National that they’re saying, “Well, the taxpayers don’t necessarily think that.” Well, I’m sure that, actually, the taxpayers do think that. For the 1.1 million New Zealanders who have to access the support of the welfare system, many of them are actually not on main benefits. There are actually 290,000 main beneficiaries—[Time expired]

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m really quite interested to get back to the annual reviews rather than the speeches we’ve been getting for the Minister looking forward, but I do want to draw on one thing that the Minister resuming the chair was focused on. It’s always big into those current buzzwords about consensus and diversity and bringing together 11 members of a diverse consensus public—to do what? To bring about 42 recommendations. That was, arguably, a very diverse range of conclusions, but, do you know, of those 42 recommendations that the Minister has waxed lyrical about the hard work, three—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: That can’t be true.

One, two, three—it is true. It’s shockingly true. And the problem is, of course, is that the fruit of diversity? Is that the fruit of a broad, consensus-based group? No, that is the fruit of incompetence, and we are seeing that more and more, of course, as we move towards the Budget.

Looking across the annual reviews—

💬 Andrew Bayly: The “Fudge It”!

Not the “Fudge It”; the Budget. Housing First—I think we acknowledged, as we went through the select committee, it is a positive project. I think we have to acknowledge Amy Adams in particular in the National Party and the Canadians for introducing it—great to see that the Labour Party’s picked up on that. But where the wheels very, very quickly fall off, actually, first and foremost, starts in my own electorate of Tāmaki. We had a huge hoopla at the last Budget, announcing—big press release from the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Phil Twyford—“2,100 more homes in Tāmaki” and, as the member for Tāmaki, I decided to dig into that. Actually, there are not more houses; it’s just going into the same number already. I would suggest a false statement, and I challenged officials in the House, and particularly when the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company came in front of me, because I said, “The Minister made a big announcement—extra money, 2,100 more homes, here’s the press release.” What did they tell me? No, that’s not the case—not the case. That, for me, just sums up this Government.

I’m not even going to get on to KiwiBuild; it’s not even worth it. In fact, I’ve probably used, in this short sentence, more words than houses that have been built by KiwiBuild, but I will pick up on the whole meth-testing side of things. It’s a challenge to the Minister that, as the pendulum swung from the accusation of National that we were too hard on a Government that’s now basically making excuses for everyone—yep, 963 families. Soft on drugs: potentially there. Yep, some might have been falsely accused, but all 963, including those who were regularly smoking meth, have not only been let off the hook, not only been taken off the hook, but paid out—paid out.

💬 Hon Phil Twyford: False standards set. Shameful.

I’m hearing the other side talking about standards. There are no standards, there are no regulations; we’ve been asking questions about where these regulations are. They’re not there. There are no regulations, there are no numbers, there’s no nothing. It’s as bad as the 43 or the 42. In fact, no evictions, no tenancy reviews, private landlords leaving the market. What has become abundantly clear, when we went through this review, is that the housing market is getting completely, completely out of control. In fact, there were two things which illustrate it. When we did this review, when we were bringing MSD and the Ministry of Housing in, there were 6,600 people on the waiting list. That was only last year. It’s now over 11,000.

💬 Maureen Pugh: What?

Indeed. It’s now over 11,000. So it’s almost doubled—almost doubled. In fact, in my prediction, the next quarter will be worse. [Member coughs] There’s my voice. It’ll be worse. In fact, I’m trying to do an Andrew Bayly, clearly. It’ll be worse. Now, the big thing here is that so much has been said tonight by those on the other side about the amazing work they are doing, but it shows in the numbers that it is not working. The decisions around no tenancy reviews, the decision not to evict when there’s been horrendous behaviour, and particularly those of us who are constituent MP who get the complaints, and there is absolutely nothing we can do when flaming phone books are being thrown over the fence, when people’s houses have been bottled, when children are being abused by blimmin’ drug-ridden, meth-ridden tenants, then we’ve got problems. But this Government ignores that, and they just talk a big game about their diverse, broad, consensus work groups that are, first and foremost, doing the work the Government should have done and then delivering nothing—42 recommendations, three implemented.

Finally, the last real humdinger, and I hope it’s not stealing my colleague’s—

💬 Maureen Pugh: Yes.

Well, anyway, I’m not going to do it, because I would have stolen my colleague’s—in fact, I’m going to finish with stealing, though, because, fundamentally, this Government to date, whenever there has been some success in housing, has effectively stolen the National Party’s ideas. It doesn’t matter if it’s the work that Nick Smith did with housing on Waimahia. It doesn’t matter if it’s got to do with Housing First; we’ve done a fantastic job and I’m pleased to see on the good parts that this current Government has only continued to do what National did.

Continuing on from my last five-minute speech, can I just say that it is, for us, about changing the narrative about who’s in the welfare system as well. Over one million people access the support of the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) every year and, as I said, only about 290,000 of them are main beneficiaries, and we believe, on this side of the House, that they should be supported to access opportunities that are meaningful to them. But, also, not only them but every superannuitant in this country, every person with a disability that needs to access the support of MSD should be able to do so, feeling comfortable that they will be treated with respect and their dignity will be upheld. I don’t think that’s too much to ask, actually. Common sense tells me that if you treat people well and you actually support them to take up opportunities, then you’re more likely to have success than what you are when you put the boot in while they’re down, which was the previous Government’s philosophy.

I’m really proud of the fact that, as a Government, we’ve been able to have a public discussion about welfare and about the changes that need to occur in a way that does not polarise New Zealanders and, in fact, in a way where most New Zealanders are sitting back and saying, “Actually, what you’re proposing makes sense, and actually this is the right thing to do.” I think that’s the first time, in my memory, that I can remember that happening and I think we’re in a really good space with regards to making sure that we help people get ahead.

There is a lot in the Welfare Expert Advisory Group’s report that will inform what we do, moving forward, and it needs to be well-thought-through. We need to canvass all of those things, but I’m really proud of the report that we have been presented with and the fact that we have a Government that is absolutely in solidarity on the changes that need to occur.

We’ve been criticised, from the other side of the House, for things that we’re doing in the employment space. Can I acknowledge not just MSD but also our employment Minister and everyone else that has a role in this—the Minister of Education, the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, and others who are actually actively working to make sure that we are proactive on the work front, and we are being proactive. Actually, the stats show us that. Our unemployment rates that we were presented with recently showed that we’ve got a 4.2 percent unemployment rate. That is better than what was achieved under the previous Government.

They talk about job seeker numbers, but when we look at the number of working-age New Zealanders who are unemployed, then actually we see that the stats—I think, most recently—were at 9.3 percent of working-age New Zealanders on benefit. Now, that’s actually better than what the previous Government achieved, as well. So perhaps there’s something in our approach—perhaps something in our approach—with regards to how we treat people, how we make them feel welcome when they come into the office. And we’ve already announced in this year that we plan, moving forward, to have a much stronger work focus in our Work and Income offices, which under the previous Government diminished because they did not put the investment in the places that they needed to.

So please, to the general public, I hope that they are feeling very optimistic about what this Government has to provide, and not only as a Minister for Social Development but as the Minister for Disability Issues, who’s very cognisant of the fact that 53 percent of those on main benefits are actually people who have an illness or a disability or are caring for a person who has an illness or disability—that we’re cognisant of the evidence behind why we’re making decisions, as opposed to being led by some ideological view that you need to put the boot into people that find themselves in a difficult situation.

We’re very optimistic about the future for New Zealand, and I get the sense from those that I come across that they are very hopeful that with a Labour - New Zealand First coalition, with the Greens in support as our confidence and supply agreement partners, we will actually be looking out for the best interests of those that have to access the welfare system and for New Zealand overall. We’ve got a lot of work to do, and I’m not going to deny that, but the wonderful thing is that lots of the work was already under way before the Welfare Expert Advisory Group came along. They’ve challenged us and we are taking up that challenge.

Thank you very much. We’ve had some very robust discussion on this appropriation tonight, but I’ve got to say that the biggest highlight for me was listening to the Hon Phil Twyford when he talked about housing. I know that that side of the House isn’t very good with numbers and my colleagues over here are, so I’m going to ask my colleagues: how many times did we hear the Minister talk about KiwiBuild?

💬 Hon Members: Zero.

Zero—exactly. The biggest fail—one of the big flagship policies of that Government and the Minister couldn’t even mention it once in his speech tonight. That tells us a lot.

And the Minister in the chair, Carmel Sepuloni, who’s just resumed her seat—I’m so pleased that she talked about the working groups.

💬 Hon Carmel Sepuloni: I raise a point of order, Mr Chair. KiwiBuild is actually not within the scope of this appropriation, hence why you probably didn’t hear the Minister speak about that.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I thank the Minister for that intervention.

OK, so the Minister who’s just resumed her seat certainly did talk about working groups. Now, we know that that working group that was set up, the $2.1 million working group, which is one of the 200-plus working groups set up by this Government—after 18 months of work, the Welfare Expert Advisory Group came up with, we know, 42 recommendations. Three of those were adopted. But here’s the kicker: one of those was already under way, and that was the abatement rates that the previous National-led Government had under way. One was an election promise, which should have been happening anyway and didn’t need a working group to come up with that gem, and the other one was a retrograde step, because it removed the sanctions for mothers who refused to name the father of the baby, meaning that the father was not then liable to help make contributions towards the upkeep and the child’s maintenance, their own child’s maintenance—well, contributions in the legal sense—which would have then, in turn, reduced the burden on hard-working Kiwis who now have to pay their tax to fully fund that.

The irony in that is that in 2004, the then Minister for Social Development, Steve Maharey, said—and I quote—“Removing sanctions on women who don’t name the father of their child is a complete reversal of position for Labour. It is a rort, and I have said time and time again in this Parliament that fathers must front up to their obligations, and we will make sure they do.” Well, this Government certainly does not stick with their policies over time, and that is what leads to uncertainty in this country.

Now, I’d just like to make mention of some of the issues around change of policy direction, because they create real problems for real Kiwis. I’ve got to say that some of the change in direction in some of this Government’s policy is felt most harshly on the West Coast. What those policy changes do is they set us on a pathway to economic destruction, and we’re seeing that now, with the West Coast being the only region to fall in its GDP. So what that does is it means that we’re going to need more social support in places like the West Coast, where, in fact, what we need to be doing is investing in the economic viability of those places to make sure the economy thrives and make sure the locals are gainfully employed. That way, we need less social support, because they’re quite capable of standing on their own two feet, but they do need the Government to support them in the industries that they have now.

But we know that this Government is becoming synonymous—

I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but the time for this debate has expired.