Estimates Debate — Social Services and Community Sector and the Joint Venture Package on Family and Sexual Violence

Members, we now come to the votes in the social services and community sector, B.5, Volume 10. The debate on this sector includes debate on the joint venture package on family and sexual violence and the Finance and Expenditure Committee’s report on its briefing on the package. The question is that Vote Arts, Culture and Heritage; Vote Building and Construction; Vote Housing and Urban Development; Vote Oranga Tamariki; Vote Pacific Peoples; Vote Social Development; Vote Sport and Recreation; and Vote Women stand part of the Schedules.

on behalf of the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee: Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a great surprise for me to rise and speak in this Estimates debate on behalf of our chair and deputy chair this afternoon, and that is because I am the newest member of the Social Services and Community Committee. However, it has been a privilege to work with the members across the three other parties to review these votes.

The Estimates reviews, reports, and debates play a key role in the financial scrutiny of Government spending. I’ll quickly outline, in my limited time, how I understand that there was some vigorous and robust questioning and answering from members and Ministers. The chair has outlined the vast number of votes, so I won’t go through them; however, I will note we had Minister Robertson, Minister Salesa, Woods, Twyford, Martin, Sio, Sepuloni, Martin again, Henare, and Genter, as well as the under-secretary for family and sexual violence, Jan Logie, and Minister Little, who appeared.

I want to quickly run through the votes in this long list reviewed. First up: social development. In 2019, the total funding for this vote is one of the largest Government expenditures. Nearly 90 percent of this is for benefits and superannuation. As well as meeting immediate and essential need through advancement and hardship grants, Minister Carmel Sepuloni told us that the Government is also working to address cost of living increases. Some initiatives include the Families Package, the winter energy package, BestStart, increasing benefits in line with wage growth, lifting the minimum wage, and removing punitive benefit sanctions with the repeal of section 192 of the Social Security Act. This sanction, the Minister told us, did not incentivise the absentee parent to pay child support. The committee asked questions around reducing long-term welfare dependency and reducing child poverty. The Minister said that the key to reducing the number of children in poverty is to support families in the welfare system in upskilling. We heard about Mana in Mahi and Oranga Mahi. The Minister told us that more than half the people on main benefits have a health condition or disability. Budget 2019 provided $26.3 million over four years to improve the outcomes of those people.

We also heard from the Minister for Seniors about the $600,000 provided to community organisations such as SeniorNet to provide training and teaching facilities to help seniors use and keep up with digital technology.

A second major area we heard from was Ministers Twyford and Salesa on Estimates Vote Housing and Urban Development. A major point of discussion and questioning was around the Government’s KiwiBuild programme. The Minister explained that the Government will complete a KiwiBuild reset, which has now occurred. The Minister spoke about the establishment of the new housing and urban development authority Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities.

For Vote Oranga Tamariki, we heard from Minister Tracey Martin. Minister Martin spoke about the co-design solutions for iwi Māori. Partnering with iwi means that children who have been uplifted are more likely to be placed with whānau, and we look forward to seeing this work continue.

In Vote Women, we heard from the Minister Julie Anne Genter on the work to close the Public Service’s gender pay gap, which is 10.7 percent for women. The Minister considers that to make significant progress, an area has to be measured, managed, and prioritised. There has been some improvement and there continues to be improvement.

In Vote Arts, Culture and Heritage, the Associate Minister explained that there were not many salaried roles that are available in the creative sector and this area had been previously neglected. Tuia – Encounters 250 recognised 250 years since the first onshore meetings between Māori and Pākehā. Estimates vote Pasifika: a budget of $130 million over four years. The Minister for Sport and Recreation talked about the development of a lower decile school initiative to improve healthy eating, and also about the new strategy that champions participation and visibility for women. Thank you.

Well, it’s great to be up in New Zealand to talk about the KiwiBuild reset in this housing debate. Of course, KiwiBuild was the centrepiece—[Interruption] Sorry, I hear it over there—I hear some voices. KiwiBuild was the centrepiece Labour Party policy since about 2012. It started under a guy called David Shearer—actually the best Labour leader they’d had in a decade, I would say. They’d then gone through and KiwiBuild has been there and gone through some seven years and several leaders: I think, Mr Cunliffe, Mr Little, and now, of course, Ms Ardern. The KiwiBuild reset we had last week is, in fact, a full-scale retreat—that’s what it is. They’ve raised the white flag and they are entirely in retreat.

I think it’s something Phil Twyford once said—I may be paraphrasing him ever so slightly—“You can’t live in a reset.” You cannot live in a reset, Megan Woods. Don’t take my word for it that this is a white flag retreat we are seeing from the Government. In fact, you don’t even have to go to anyone on the centre-right. Go and talk to the woke young things that those men over there follow on Twitter. Go and talk to the serious, hard, rusted-on left and they will tell you how disillusioned they are with this Government and what it has done with KiwiBuild: the Bryce Edwardses, the Chris Trotters, the David Cormacks, the Bernard Hickeys, the Henry Cookes. The list goes on and on and on.

Here’s what Bryce Edwards had to say. He said, “There are a few positive takes on the ‘reset’, but generally it has been viewed as an embarrassing backdown at best, or at worst a sell-out.” Bernard Hickey didn’t like it much either. He talked about even the changes to it being a distraction meant to sell the capitulation, the retreat, to the public. He said it’s not just a dead rat; “It’s more of a rotting and hairy cat.”—meow. That’s what he had to say. Henry Cooke—and it must have pained Henry to be saying these sorts of things in a column—said it’s a “serious humiliation” for the Government. Well, this is what he said. I know he didn’t like it. Every word pained him, but that’s what he said. No Right Turn: this is a “broken promise” and the tinkering might actually make the housing crisis worse. Well, that’s what I found in about three minutes having a look at this. They go on and on and on. It is a full-scale, white-flag retreat from the Government.

Of course, it comes down in large part to targets. They set a 100,000 houses target—10,000 a year. Now it’s—what did the Prime Minister say?—“As many as we can.” “As many as we can.”—that’s what she’s saying now. Are they having a laugh? Are they having a laugh at New Zealanders when they say this? It’s a David Parker moment: “Trust me; I know what I’m doing.” That’s, effectively, what they’re doing. You know where that quote comes from? Sledge Hammer! Do you remember that show? If you go on Wikipedia and you look up Sledge Hammer!, you see that it’s a satire and a farce. That’s ultimately what we’ve got here with this Government with KiwiBuild.

There’s a serious point about this in KiwiBuild and housing and what they’re doing here, and that’s this: this is what they have done in every other area of Government. It’s the same pattern that we have seen in housing. They take away the targets so that there’s no basis to judge them on. There’s literally nothing there so that it’s appearances on social media, it’s trips to the UN—they’re the sort of things that matter, not actually the stuff that everyday New Zealanders need, like housing. “We’re kind and compassionate; we’re just not up to much.” That’s basically where the Government is at on this.

We’re seeing the same thing in health. We’re seeing the same thing in all the social indicators of food parcels getting worse, of hardship grants, of housing waiting lists. It is a tragedy. It would be satire and farce if it wasn’t so serious for New Zealanders. I’ll tell you what I think “reset” stands for: removing every single explicit target. That’s reset: removing every single explicit target. That is what the Government has done when it comes to KiwiBuild, and, actually, when it comes to health and all the other areas that are in this vote, because the Government’s like an invertebrate jellyfish. That’s what I think—it’s like an invertebrate jellyfish. In the year of delivery, it is marked by a failure of delivery. They simply can’t get it together, and they are failing to deliver on all of their promises. The most significant one was 100,000 houses in KiwiBuild. That was so incredibly important, because if they can’t deliver on KiwiBuild, they can’t deliver on anything—if they can’t deliver here, they can’t deliver anywhere. It was their big promise—I think their big lie, actually—in this area. Kerre Woodham got it right when she said it’s like you started the marathon in the weekend. It’s like the start of the marathon: you look over at that chap and you say, “He isn’t going to finish this.”, and they didn’t finish it in this area.

But, again, don’t believe me—let’s look at the evidence on KiwiBuild that they can’t deliver anything. There’s KiwiBuild, but I think that’s not their worst failure, actually, when it comes to public policy epic fails. I’d say fees-free is worse—$2.4 billion to deliver more students, and there’s fewer. Transport—a tram down Dominion Road. That will never start. And in a bunch of other areas, health, education, economy—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Order! I’ll just draw the member’s attention to the fact that we are actually on the estimates for Vote Housing, for a whole list, and transport isn’t one of them.

I raise a point of order, Madam Chair. The point is this: Mr Speaker today declined the snap debate on the basis that I’d come down and have a whirl here.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): That’s right, and I’ve allowed the member to talk about KiwiBuild, which was the point of the letter, and the reset—which isn’t in the Estimates, but I’ve allowed the member to do exactly that. I’m just asking the member not to go wider than housing or what’s covered by this vote.

They can’t get it together when it comes to KiwiBuild or, indeed, anything.

What we’ve got are working groups—they know how to do that. I’m actually surprised we don’t have a working group on KiwiBuild, Angie Warren-Clark. I mean, that could be one way to spend the $2 billion, because there’s $2 billion there that they don’t know how to spend. By the way, if you want to think about how they could spend this money on a working group on housing and KiwiBuild, just think about the health one they did, where they spent $9.6 million to do nothing. That’s $32,000 a page for “H2”—$32,000. Well, I say maybe what they’re going to do is have a working group on housing and they’ll get Heather Simpson, they’ll get Steve Maharey, and they’ll get Sir Michael Cullen in, and that can be how they’ll spend the $2 billion, because it seems that’s about as good as their ideas are when it comes to housing.

Where was—and I asked her this in the House today—the Prime Minister at Megan Woods’ announcement on the KiwiBuild retreat? Where was she? We see her here; we see her there; we see her everywhere. She wasn’t there, was she? [Interruption] I hear what they’re saying; I hear them. She was at the same place she was when Nigel Haworth was having to deal with her staff member—nowhere to be seen; missing in action. Because, seriously, that’s—he knows I’m right, actually, over there. We know Mark Patterson, actually, is one of us; he doesn’t like it over there. He’s been slagging off his Labour colleagues around the country; that’s what I’ve been told, quite clearly. That’s the truth—he knows it’s right. She was missing in action, the Prime Minister, when it comes to housing and KiwiBuild, just like she has been in so many other areas, ducking and diving.

But I say to Jacinda Ardern that it’s entirely marginal to focus on all these other things that she does and not on everyday issues for everyday New Zealanders, like housing and KiwiBuild and waiting lists that have grown higher than at any time in history in New Zealand under the New Zealand Labour Party’s watch—not under us. All their excuses wear a bit thin some two years in. The Prime Minister’s got time for talks with Twitter bosses and Facebook bosses, but, actually, these are the things that New Zealanders want her to focus on and want her to deal on.

We’ve got the plan. We know what to do. We’ll be releasing shortly an infrastructure document that will make clear what we want to do in areas such as Resource Management Act reform. This Government’s set up yet another working group in that area. She’s laughing, but David Parker himself has acknowledged the working group in that area won’t even report before the next election. They’ve kicked it into the long grass. Seven years of KiwiBuild, a reset, and then a working group kicked into the long grass. I say, in the words of Megan Woods—and this is what she said at the reset of her retreat last week—“This is actually about calling time on something that hasn’t worked.” Well, I say let’s call time on this Government, because it’s not working either.

Tēnā koe, Madam Chair. Thank you very much. First and foremost, can I take the opportunity to welcome the Leader of the Opposition back into the country. He must be slightly disappointed to come down here for a keynote speech and only find no more than nine fellow MPs to support him.

I want to acknowledge, first and foremost, as we look at this particular part of the Estimates debate, the role around Oranga Tamariki. Firstly, can I acknowledge the voices across the country who have expressed themselves with regard to Oranga Tamariki. They want our young people to have a safe and good and prosperous upbringing, and we support them in that. Madam Chair, you will find in the Estimates a clear commitment from this Government with our tamariki. We want to make sure that our young people grow up safe in Aotearoa and are our number one priority. All New Zealanders want to see fewer kids hurt; they want to see more of our tamariki loved and cared for. Under the last Government, we found lots of talk around legislation for Oranga Tamariki but, actually, no support and no delivery—no action.

We remember much raved about change in the legislation, but, actually, where the rubber meets the road, there was a failure. This Government has come in to make sure that that failure no longer persists, and we do that by making sure that our relationships with iwi aren’t simply a memorandum of understanding, because that’s not good enough. A memorandum of understanding does not look after our tamariki. Strategic partnerships that allow iwi, hapū, and NGOs to be involved in the caring and the upbringing of our tamariki is where it’s at, and this Government has delivered on that. We are recruiting more families to look after our people so that our young people don’t move into the institutions that have been pulled through huge debate over the past number of months, with regard to the care of our young people in State care. We are proud about the work that Minister Martin is doing with Tūhoe, and we are proud of the work that she is doing with Ngāti Kahungunu, first to front the issue, and, second, to actually put in place the kinds of resources that will make sure that the aspirations we have for our young people are met.

Speaking of young people, I want to now turn to one of my portfolios under Vote Social Development, and that’s for youth. We wanted to make sure that there was no division when we look at the way we care for our young people. We don’t want to say that once you’ve met a certain age you’re no longer part of the strategy. We want to make sure that children and young people are a part of the strategy, and that there is a coherent one for them moving into the future. I’m proud that as the Minister for youth development, we have grown our partnerships through the partnership board with communities far and wide. We made it clear from the outset that we wanted to have key focus priority groups for the Ministry of Youth Development. We understand we want opportunities for one and all, but I’ve made it clear to the officials, and in the work that we’ve done with regard to the Estimates, that we must focus on the key groups within the youth population that have for too long fallen through the cracks. We know who those groups are—Māori, Pacific people, women, ethnic migrants, rural communities. We also know, too, youth with disabilities, and one that I’m passionate about is rainbow youth.

We’ve managed, in the Estimates, to commit dollars to make sure that as this country grows, we also grow the awareness amongst mainstream Aotearoa of the rights and the aspirations of the rainbow youth community—and that’s important. That’s to make sure that we don’t just support the sector but we actually grow the understanding across this country so that they can help support the sector too and they can help support the aspirations of our young people. We’re committed to doing that.

We do have lots of challenges; there is no shadow of a doubt about that. We talk about KiwiBuild. We talk about Oranga Tamariki. We talk about the aspirations of our people. We know that in the long run, what we are doing is actually making sure that the long-term vision for our people is clear. Their aspirations can be found in this Estimates debate, and their voices can be heard in the issues that relate to them. I’m proud that on this side of the House, we’re taking it seriously. Enough rhetoric, it’s time to put the hard work in.

So it’s called the KiwiBuild reset, but, as the Hon Simon Bridges said, it should be called the KiwiBuild retreat. Surely there has never been a more well-pronounced flag-waving policy, from any political party, that has floundered so badly as this.

We should have seen it coming; we always predicted it was all over. We knew it wasn’t working well when after 18 months, it had only delivered some 70 houses, and many of those were just purchased and had been sitting in developer lots for quite a long time, unable to sell. We should have known it was coming, because even though Mr Twyford had set himself up as a bank of last resort for developers, the product was not coming through.

What was worse is we knew that there were subdivisions where houses were suddenly labelled as KiwiBuild homes that could have previously been bought off the private market for a price that was less than the KiwiBuild cap. So what we saw was, in fact, a KiwiBuild programme that was escalating the price of so-called affordable homes in New Zealand.

When we looked at the Budget documents, there was not a mention of it—not a mention of it—anywhere in any of the Budget documents. So for quite some time, the Government has known that this was a complete failure of a policy.

What did we get in the reset announcement? What are the new initiatives that are coming through? Well, there’s no detail—none at all. There’s nothing that would give anybody in this country any confidence that there was going to be a greater supply of land, for example, or affordable housing. Those details, apparently, are going to be filled in later.

When a crisis occurred in Christchurch some years ago, there was an immediate move by the then Government—the National Government—to make land available for houses. At the stroke of a pen, in conjunction with local authorities, 43,000 residential sections were created immediately. Was there ever a real crisis for housing in Christchurch as a result? No, there wasn’t. Whole new subdivisions sprang up very, very quickly, put in place by the private sector. What it shows is that if there is the opportunity to build, the private sector will build. The problem always has been accumulating the funds that are necessary to get into housing.

The only good thing that comes out of the reset is the lowering of the requirements around deposits. The only limitation on that is that it is now strictly limited just to the KiwiBuild product. So that doesn’t help young people who want to go and buy somewhere of their own choice somewhere else. It doesn’t help people getting into a second-hand home, second-owner homes. It is very, very limiting. So there is nothing in this new reset that is at all exciting.

It’s no wonder the Prime Minister didn’t turn up to the event, because there was nothing, really, to announce other than that the target itself had been dropped. We know that this is a Government that is very good at dropping targets—very good at dropping targets.

Then we look at the contribution from the Green Party to this reset: apparently, some kind of rent-to-own scheme. Well, we know that the former Minister, Mr Twyford—the architect from the start of this doomed policy—asked his department over 12 months ago for some kind of information about a rent-to-buy scheme. Who knows what it was that was proposed; we don’t, because we haven’t seen it—it’s not in here. It’s not in the Budget documents; there is no provision for it. But what we do know is that the official information was that it would help a very small number of people.

And why is that? It’s because this Government has gone out and said it won’t sell any existing State homes. So you can have people who’ve lived in that State home and paid the rent all the way through for 25 or 30 years. Calculate that against the capital value of that home and they’ve paid for it—they’ve paid for it. But they can never own it under this Government. There is no opportunity for them, in those often advanced years, to get anywhere near homeownership.

What I would say too is that if we are going to have a rent-to-buy scheme, wouldn’t it be most sensible to look at the areas where there is least demand for State homes yet a number of empty State homes, which we see throughout the country?

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I’m quite pleased to pick up on the theme of housing as the previous speaker, Gerry Brownlee, just finished on. I will start from the essence that housing should be a human right, and that we know in this House—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: No one’s arguing that.

—that everyone simply needs a home. Mr Brownlee has just commented that no one’s arguing that, and I’m going to pick up on this and drill down into it a little bit more. An understanding across this House that everyone needs a home is a core public good, especially right now in light of the waiting lists for public housing that we have got, and in light of the level of unaffordability that we have reached that has consequently put Work and Income and income assistance lines into perspective—into our conscience—that has driven and contributed to the highest levels of homelessness that we have ever faced, and that is also continuing to see an over-presence of unhealthy homes. We just, I think, a few weeks ago, saw research from the Otago University that linked unhealthy homes to children’s admissions to hospitals. We still have this continuing. So I start with that premise: people simply want—like all of us—to be able to put down roots in their community, in an affordable home that keeps their family well.

I think I’ll start with, after I’ve outlined some of the big challenges that we are facing, the Vote Housing and Urban Development, and that it mentions in the committee report that we saw an increase of 40 percent of the number of applicants on the public housing register. My understanding is that the household list is now over 12,000 on the public waiting list—that actually equals over 70,000 people. So for me, this highlights an urgent and large-scale need to increase public and State housing builds, especially right at this time. I would hope that we could get a cross-Parliament mandate to not just rely on the current model of redevelopment, which still relies on some of the land sell-off offset to be able to fund ongoing State houses. I simply point out that we are in a situation where a large and urgent upscale of State housing builds is certainly a decision on the table amongst all of us at this time.

I start with that conditional position, I suppose, and I then go into picking up on the delivery of the Greens’ confidence and supply priority, which saw the progressive homeownership initiative, the $400 million allocation—a reallocation decision made in Budget 2019—to commit that Budget amount to that supply and confidence priority. I absolutely appreciate working with Minister Woods and Minister Woods’ office in being able to announce that commitment.

It is very important that we take good time to design and come up with good models, and that is why we will look forward to the further details on that before the end of this year. What myself and the Minister have already signalled is that we have got well-established community not-for-profit housing providers who have already been doing this work and showing us that it is possible to be able to build affordable housing to allow those families currently not even hoping for a chance to not just pay off somebody else’s mortgage but actually put down some security and roots of their own to look to having the choice, at least, of owning a home. I again condition that, that this is not at the expense of public and State housing; that this is seen as another important difference that a Government lever can make to assist along the continuum—[Bell rung] Madam Chair? Thank you, Madam Chair; appreciate that—as part of being able to make a huge difference in allowing for more people currently who have given up their hope of owning a home to actually be in a position that, you know, some New Zealanders have the privilege of being in, many of whom require family assistance to even think about putting down a deposit, for example, or having some assistance to apply for a mortgage. When those people who are able to hold down rent at this time have stable but not high incomes, have no extra ability to save for a deposit, then we can put up both Government-backed and working with community housing providers and iwi, for example, to be able to provide that assistance that only too few have got at this very time.

I want to, in this situation, acknowledge Metiria Turei and the longstanding work that she championed to be able to put up this progressive homeownership type of initiative and long fought for, right back to the policy announcements in 2015 or 2016 or so, and it pleases me that we are seeing this come to fruition. It’s one of the proud policy achievements that I’m very, very pleased to be able to keep working on and keep pushing through.

What I then wanted to move towards is that I mentioned before that we have seen a link between damp, mouldy housing and hospital admissions for young children with respiratory infections. I welcome and worked excitedly with Minister Twyford on the healthy homes guarantee, improving our minimum standards towards homes that allow people to feel secure that it is not going to make their children or their elderly people sick. We are continuing to hear stories of people having to miss work, children moving from throat, ear, and nose infections through to rheumatic fever. We are still facing unacceptable conditions when it comes to far too much of our housing stock in this country. I welcome and hope that we will see progressive and urgent enforcement of the healthy homes guarantees that we have worked on, and, you know, I’ve been very public and clear that the Greens would like to see a warrant of fitness for these minimum standards so that in future votes we might look at how we would set up investigators and assessors to be able to—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): But we’re not debating that; we are debating the Estimates in front of us.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So that was looking through the Estimates for vote housing, still continued.

I hope this is OK—it’s related in vote housing that we then also go to Vote Social Development. I talked about housing unaffordability, and then I wanted to go into Vote Social Development. It is absolutely interconnected when it comes to people’s incomes, and even the Social Services and Community Committee noted that the Welfare Expert Advisory Group recommended an increase to main benefits of between 12 to 47 percent, and that this would make an incredible difference to helping to bring down living costs—or helping to meet high living costs, I should say—and to helping contribute to stability and dignity for people on low incomes. Again, the Greens have been very clear that we support the recommendations of that committee, that Welfare Expert Advisory Group, and that in the committee’s report—I’ve lost the actual page, but it said, from memory, that the committee noted that it does not yet have a plan in the details of when the recommendations from the welfare report are going to be put in place; that the Minister did relay that the Government is working on a three- to five-year plan to respond to the group’s report. I continue to look forward to that plan of how we are going to make a big difference. Again, when you’ve got people like the business leader Phil O’Reilly on mainstream media—who was on the expert group—championing an increase to main benefits because this will also allow not just for dignity but for cash moving around in communities, the Greens absolutely agree with that leadership. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would have thought that when the Green member spoke to this Estimate, there might be some attempt to fill out the missing parts of the KiwiBuild reset announced recently. It just confirms what a total retreat it is by the Government from providing affordable homes in New Zealand.

Where the member spoke about the $400 million allocated for some kind of subsidy on deposits for new homebuyers, let’s just look at that for a minute. Well, if that was to be shared on a 5 percent basis across the country for people buying KiwiBuild homes or homes that are inside the KiwiBuild cap, as I think we heard would be the case in the House this afternoon, then that would be around about 8,000 people or couples or families that might get a loan over the period of time that that $400 million is committed for. But here’s the problem—here’s the problem. The annual cost of that loan added to a mortgage, even though that part’s interest free, would mean that up to $500,000 capital commitment—$800-plus a week to buy the home.

Now, tell us here how that is affordable for any family in this country that is considered to be at the lower end of society, people who are doing great work out there, families that are contributing a lot to the country but not earning as higher wages as they might like, having to rely on things like KiwiBuild, which they presumably voted for because they were excited by that policy, only to find out that even after the reset, even after the failure of the 100,000 houses in 10 years—that’s 10,000 a year; in actual fact, in 18 months they got 258 done, and I’ll come to that in a minute, because many of those aren’t sold. Even after all of that belief and a reset, they find that the best they can expect is to stand in line to get a subsidy on a mortgage or on the deposit for a mortgage that becomes a loan, albeit interest-free, but still have to come up with about $800 a week to afford the home, particularly if they’ve got more than a couple of kids and they’re looking to buy a three-bedroom home, where the upper cap is $650,000.

These are big hurdles for people that the Labour Government said they would overcome. They haven’t. Is there anywhere in the reset or anywhere in any of the Estimates that might suggest they’re dealing with the issue of land supply? I spoke before about what had to be done in Canterbury. It works. It makes a difference. But over there, there’s this sort of philosophical view that the Government must not do that and that the Government must do all of the building, or it could negotiate with the private sector to get building done in the Government’s name, even though we’ve seen a complete failure of that concept through the KiwiBuild programme. There are developers out there right now who own some of those 258 homes that have been built so far that have got themselves protected by a $200 million underwrite from the Government. So even though the market is saying these homes are not what’s required, not what people want, the Government has said to the developers, “Don’t worry; right here in the Budget documents, there’s $200 million for the Government to subsidise or guarantee or underwrite the KiwiBuild price.” The joke is that many of those houses were built prior to the scheme even starting.

Then, there was the claim in the House today by the housing Minister that—what was it—25,000 first-home buyers bought houses under their Government. Under what scheme? Under HomeStart. Well, when did that start? Not in the last 18 months—let me make that clear to the House. It’s a previous Government initiative. There was also the claim that this Government has built more public housing than any other Government in New Zealand’s history. When did all those start? The vast majority—the vast majority—were during the term of the last Government.

Then, we come to this: “We’re making houses more healthy. We’re giving people a better environment to live in.” Well, why is public housing exempt—exempt—from the—

💬 Marama Davidson: It’s not exempt, Gerry. They’re not exempt, Gerry. Come on.

—insulation rules that are now being faced by the private sector? The member for the Green Party screws her face up and says that’s not true. It is true. Public sector housing does not have to comply the same as private sector housing does, and I think that is an utter disgrace. Then, of course, we’ve got the heating expenses due to come—a good thing. Social housing should comply as well.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thought it was time to take a call and clear up some confusion that seems to be reigning, particularly from Mr Brownlee. One of the things that Mr Brownlee has talked about in the two calls that I’ve been in the Chamber to hear him take was the lower deposit rates, which he acknowledged were a good thing, but he seems to be suffering under the misapprehension that these schemes can be applied only to KiwiBuild houses. That is not the case. In the same way that the HomeStart grants and the Welcome Home Loans could be used on any home in the past, these can—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Yeah, with a cap.

—also be. There has always been a cap, Mr Brownlee, around those homes. So I think that any idea that these can be applied only to KiwiBuild—I think the member can assure himself and sleep easy tonight knowing that they’re not going to apply only to KiwiBuild homes.

One of the other things that I’ve been hearing from members of the Opposition a lot in the speeches—I heard it from Mr Brownlee; it was certainly in Mr Bridges’ speech: calling this retreat. I’d just like to spell out for members of the House that fixing the housing crisis is not an easy task. We’ve never pretended it is. The party that was previously in Government should know that, because they tried and failed. Now, actually, some of their members are more willing than others to acknowledge this. We’ve had Chris Bishop come out in the last couple of weeks and say that one area where we could’ve done better is housing. Indeed, Simon Bridges said there was actually a housing crisis under National, although he does say it’s hard to be perfect on everything. Well, they certainly weren’t on housing. But in the appropriation that we are examining here, there are a number of things that start the process of addressing a housing crisis, which we have in this country.

First of all, I would like to talk about the KiwiBuild reset and the $2 billion that is appropriated for this Government to be active again in the area of housing—something that hasn’t happened in several decades in New Zealand—and the scale of which we have seen Governments throughout our history who have seen they have a role to play in introducing more New Zealanders to the opportunities of homeownership.

So one of the things that I am absolutely proud of as a Government is that we have had the courage to say, “We need this to work better for New Zealanders.”—that we’re not going to just stay bloody-mindedly going down a certain track because we said it three years ago. What we’re going to do is we are going to make the necessary changes to help more New Zealanders into homes. What I want to know from the Opposition is the money that is under this appropriation that we are talking about—there are 534 affordable KiwiBuild homes currently under construction, 1,546 homes that have been contracted, and a further 8,363 houses that have been committed. Is the Opposition saying they are going to walk away from these homes? Is the Opposition going to say they’re going to stop these homes being built? I would like to know what the answer is to that. On this side of the House, we have made the necessary changes. KiwiBuild is a lever, and to mistake it as a target is a mistake we made and why we have had the courage to reset that.

One of the things that we do want to track are the changes that the private sector are delivering based on this policy. What we are seeing are more and more developers understanding there is demand in the affordable housing sector, in the affordable end of the housing market, and they are starting to deliver houses at these and below the KiwiBuild maximums. When I drive around my home town in Christchurch, I see billboards for home and land packages for $460,000. I see things on Facebook for $415,000. This is the first time the market is starting to believe again that there is going to be demand in the affordable sector.

Now, Mr Brownlee did say that he didn’t see in the appropriation or the reset anything about land supply. Well, I’d like to reassure you again. You can stop being so stressed, Mr Brownlee, because this is a stream of work that is under way by the Hon David Parker. Again, we know that the previous Government tried it for nine years and couldn’t get it across the line. Reforming the Resource Management Act was something the previous Government failed at and something that we have made a commitment to deliver for New Zealanders. Along with that, we also have the work under way by the Hon Phil Twyford around the urban development authority, and this is about providing shortcuts for people to be able to get—[Bell rung] Madam Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I call the Hon Megan Woods.

Thank you. And this is about making sure that we do have that land. The Opposition seems stuck in a rut. They think all that you have to do—because it’s what they did in Government—is free up land and, magically, affordable houses—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: It worked.

—will appear. No, Mr Brownlee, it did not work. You had a target of 39,000 houses under the special housing areas. You delivered 3,100, of which 100 could be classified as affordable. The previous Government failed to deliver for New Zealanders affordable—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Yes, but the previous Government doesn’t actually feature in the Estimates debate.

No, but we can compare that to what is in the Estimates.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): You can do that, certainly.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Now I would like to move on to another area that has been brought up: the appropriation around public housing and the issue of waiting lists. We have had speakers question why it is that we have an ever-growing waiting list for our public housing. Well, I would like to draw the committee’s attention to the number of public housing spaces that we are building and we are delivering. Now, there’s been a suggestion that these were all planned by the previous Government. This simply is not true. All of the large-scale developments that we looked at when we came into Government—we have put additional public housing places into them, because they are a priority for us.

So when I look at—not the 1,600 we have delivered this year alone—the 2,200 public housing spaces that this Government has delivered for New Zealanders, I am immensely proud. When I reflect on that appropriation, I think of the fact that we have seen, in our recent history, the previous Government finished with 1,500 fewer public housing spaces than they started with. But not only that, there was the opportunity cost that they did not build any either. So let’s do the back-of-the-envelope on that. If 1,600 spaces had been delivered over the nine years they were in Government, plus the 1,500 fewer we ended with, we’d have 14,000 extra public houses in this country. That is our entire State house waiting list. So I think it is important for all of us to reflect on that—that we are a Government that is prioritising housing.

We are making sure that we are addressing homelessness. We are making sure that we are putting in the work that is required to get people into stable housing. We’ve seen the announcement by Ministers Faafoi and Sepuloni around the work that we need to do in terms of stabilising tenancies so that we can get more people into rental properties and that they stay in them. That is one of the critical things that we need to do in the fight against homelessness, and one this Government is committed to. If we work right through that continuum, we’ve got a large body of work around how it is that we can stop paying to put people up in motels, which I know was an emergency measure that the previous Government had to come up with because they had failed in the area of housing.

We had people living in cars. But we are not content for that to be the future for too many of our people and we have committed to a programme of work to put in long-term solutions. There certainly weren’t any waiting for us when we came into Government. We had to come up with it. So in terms of the homelessness we went through, we are a Government that is absolutely committed to social housing, not selling them off but actually adding to them every year, and that is fundamental to what we are doing in addressing housing issues in this country.

We can be proud, on this side of the House, that we are committed to expanding opportunities for homeownership for New Zealanders as well. Not only have we made the changes around lowering the deposit required in a Welcome Home Loan with a HomeStart grant but also we are putting $400 million aside for progressive homeownership.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: What are the conditions?

Mr Brownlee asked for some conditions around that. Well, Mr Brownlee, progressive homeownership is something that’s been up and running in this country for a while. I don’t know if you’ve ever been and visited one, but it can operate in a variety of ways. If we look at the model that the Housing Foundation operate, that is shared equity. If we have a look at some of the other schemes like Habitat for Humanity around rent to buy, there are a variety of conditions. The number that we have said that we will help through this $400 million is between 2,500 and 4,000 families a year over four years. This is substantial, and this is a game-changer.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, we waited and we waited and we waited, and I think we’re still waiting, Madam Chair. Nine months in—you know, five postponements, and, of course, we were waiting for those targets. Guess what! No targets. In fact, this has got to be the biggest anti-climax from any Government for so long that most people can’t remember. This is absolute damp squib - type of material. It is unbelievable that we’ve had a Government in power for over 20 months who have delayed and obfuscated and mucked around, only now to finally come to the realisation they can’t deliver it. They’ve mucked around and now they come out with a pronouncement saying they cannot say how many they’re going to build.

I’ve just listened to the Minister talking before, talking about all the stuff that she used to give us a hard time for, and certainly the former Minister of Housing and Urban Development, the Hon Phil Twyford, who used to say those rejoinders like, “You can’t live in a consent.” Well, in fact, that’s just what I’ve heard. I’ve just heard the Minister talking about how many houses are being built—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Planned.

Well, where you can’t—and planned. You can’t live in a plan. You can’t live in a consent, and that is the issue. When this Government, this New Zealand First - Labour - Greens Government, made this wonderful pronouncement prior to the 2017 election that they were going to build those 100,000 homes over 10 years—you know, it’s one of those pronouncements that you think can sound great, a fantastic sound bite, wonderfully worked out by some PR agency, but unfortunately you actually have to do a bit of work to make it happen. Well, haven’t the turkeys come home to roost.

It’s no surprise, because for these types of things only God can make pronouncements like that—that we’re going to build 100,000 homes over 10 years—and actually do nothing about it. This is the issue—this is the issue. This is a Government that does not know how to implement. It’s good on the rhetoric but poor on the detail. And here we are, 20 months later, 258 houses—a miserable, poor outcome. Unfortunately, we actually wanted them to build houses. New Zealanders want us to build houses. We all recognise that, and the more houses we build, the better. But this is a Government so inept at implementing and planning, it’s in fact—another word for it—incompetent. The reason it’s failed is—I think that a good analogy is a CEO going into a boardroom and saying to all the board and the management team, “We are going to triple sales over the next three years—triple sales over the next three years.” Everyone in that room would be asking questions like “What products are we going to sell?”; “How are we going to manufacture them?”; “How are we going to distribute them?”; “How are we going to price those products?”; “Do we have enough staff to build them?”

Those are all the types of questions that you would have got in a business world. That’s the type of thing that this Government should have done back in 2017. But, unfortunately, no one in that Government sought to ask those hard questions. That just shows how inept they are. We’ve got New Zealand First saying, you know, that they’re the pragmatic, business orientated party, yet they didn’t ask any questions. They didn’t. It’s all show and no doing—no doing. That’s the problem. So in the context of this sector—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Speaking of context, it would be nice if you just mentioned the Estimates at some stage.

Right.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Explain the $200 million underwrite.

Yeah, and the Estimates—that’s right, Madam Chair—it’s huge things. If you talk about the 2 billion bucks, if you’re going to build the $2 billion, spend it on these homes. Why aren’t you dealing with some of those issues that any business person would have asked themselves: where are we going to get the shortfall of people to build those homes? And I haven’t heard any of the Ministers, either the Minister of Housing or the Minister for Building and Construction, talking about it. In fact, all this Government’s done over the last 20 months is—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Is it going to be better in the next 20 months—12 months?

No, Mr Brownlee. It’s going to get worse, because this Government’s going to rip apart the only organisation that’s good at training apprentices, the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation. They are going to get ripped apart. So we’re now in a situation where we won’t have the people. We’ve got issues with consenting—heard nothing about that. We’ve heard nothing about promoting new products and technologies, and we’ve heard nothing about off-site manufacturing.

I would like to address some of the issues that the last speaker, Andrew Bayly, has spoken about, especially as it pertains to building and construction. So I’ll focus on Vote Building and Construction initially, and then I’ll touch on housing.

We are tackling long-term issues in building and construction. When we came into Government, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment told us that we were short by 30,000 skilled people in the sector. We know now that in five years—what we’re told is—we will be short by possibly 80,000 skilled people. This is what we were handed by the previous Government. But we’re tackling those long-term problems. It is one of the reasons why we are ensuring that as we procure—one of the things that we have done in Government, and this was launched by the Prime Minister in April of this year. We know that we cannot address this issue on our own in Government. Yes, we’re going through legislative changes in terms of the Building Act 2004, because there are long-term challenges there too. We have been landed with all sorts of issues in the building and construction sector, but in the previous Government, they actually didn’t tackle those issues. We are.

One of the things we’re doing in procurement, and Cabinet has approved this, is as we procure the $41 billion that we procure in Government, we will ensure that we are taking on people to train them, because this is our way in Government of ensuring that we try to level that playing field. We know that only about 10 percent of industry is taking on people to train right now. This is something that our procurement guidelines, which Cabinet has agreed to, will ensure: that we in Government—because we have that lever—are utilising that lever to ensure that we train more people.

In terms of the number of houses that we have, I will go with the words that our Minister of Housing actually said earlier on. We are building over a thousand public houses a year. If the other Government had actually built 1,600 public houses per year, that would be 14,400 public houses. We wouldn’t have such a huge waiting list in terms of all of the folks that are homeless right now. We are here as Government to deliver. We’re here to build and to ensure that more of our people actually get into homes. We are a Government that is delivering and making sure that we have the houses, that we train up our people, that we ensure we utilise our own procurement processes to train more of our apprentices. We are indeed looking out for New Zealanders.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is, of course, the Estimates debate for social development and housing, and I’m going to focus my comments this evening on social development. It is $28 billion per annum of taxpayers’ money, so I do think it deserves a bit of attention in this—this in the year that the Prime Minister has, quite blatantly and repetitively, said is the year of delivery. So what has Labour delivered? An increase in 15,500 job seekers, an increase of 17 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds on benefit—an increase of 17 percent—and a 43 percent increase in benefit advances. Now, those are people that are going further into debt under this Prime Minister’s watch. That’s 172,000 benefit advances, but not just that: half a million hardship grants, and the largest reason—

💬 Simon O’Connor: How many?

—half a million—is for food.

So this, supposedly, is Labour’s year of delivery, but what’s even better is one of the Government’s own partners, the Greens, have called Labour out for their failure to deliver for those New Zealanders who need them most. That’s before, of course, we go into the KiwiBuild debacle and the complete retreat of the 100,000 houses. There were many Kiwis out there waiting for those houses to be built, because they knew that was an opportunity for them and stability for their family.

But let’s have a look at a couple of the examples that came out in the Estimates hearing. One of the beautiful ones is Mana in Mahi. Again, the Prime Minister launched it over a year ago, and there were going to be 4,000 places. These are those 18- to 24-year-olds in which I’d said there was a 17 percent increase on benefit—27,000 New Zealanders in that age bracket. Anyway, they launched, with big fanfare, 4,000 places in Mana in Mahi. Oh, less than a year later, it’s a bit of a reset, sounding a bit like KiwiBuild—sounding a bit like KiwiBuild. It’s down to 2,000, and it’s down to 2,000 in four years—oh, but, by the way, of the places that are already there, they’ve got a drop-out rate of 32 percent. This is a Government that is failing to deliver for the very New Zealanders who need them the most. These are young people, 18 to 24, that absolutely—we want them in work, we want them in opportunities, because that’s where their brighter future comes from. So not really the year of delivery for the Prime Minister.

But let’s have a look at the hardship grants. Half a million hardship grants have been given out and the majority of them for food. So what does that tell you? That tells you this is a Government who was having blatant increases in the costs of living for hard-working New Zealanders. So rents are up $50 a week on average, petrol prices—man, don’t even get me started on petrol prices, because that is a significant reason behind why people are getting half a million hardship grants in New Zealand—and, of course, food. But what is the Government’s answer? Oh, they’re going to change the way that the benefits are indexed, and you get excited because you think maybe they’re going to do what the previous Government did under the wonderful Minister Anne Tolley and they’re going to lift benefits. No—not going to do that. What did we end up with? Eleven dollars a week on average per household in 2023. That was their big announcement for families who are currently doing it particularly tough. So it’s not really the year of delivery.

The Prime Minister always talks about how her Government’s a kind and caring Government. Well, actually, it’s not. It is not, because the very New Zealanders who need them the most are being failed by this Labour Government. Children in poverty—8,000 more children living in benefit-dependent homes in the last year, 8,000. We know if a child is in a benefit-dependent home, they are 60 percent more likely to be living in material hardship. That’s an outrage, but that’s these results. That’s the results that this Government’s delivering for New Zealanders. I don’t think it’s much, and I don’t think it’s much for vulnerable New Zealanders who need them most.

What they could’ve done is picked up the social investment approach, which actually targets support to those individuals and families who need it the most. They have the data, they have the information, they have the ability to actually deal with the underlying causes of dysfunction, and they haven’t even done that. They haven’t sorted out and given assistance for their day-to-day issues.

Kia ora, Madam Chair. Thank you very much. It’s a great privilege to rise and speak in the Estimates debate, because what it talks about—it is interesting, and I acknowledge the member who’s just resumed her seat, the Hon Louise Upston. I don’t doubt some of the figures that she’s put out. I do doubt the reason behind them that she’s articulated, but I don’t doubt some of the figures, because what this Government brought to the people of New Zealand, many of them who were desperate—who were desperate—was actually hope. The reason why the waiting lists grew for housing was because they knew that under the previous Government—I know in Warkworth, for example, home builders in Warkworth just used to tell people, “Don’t bother putting your name down on the waiting list for housing under a National Government, because they’re not going to provide you with housing.” The reason why people have come out for food finally is because they know that this Government will make sure that it is provided to them. They were hopeless under the National Government, and the National Government was hopeless at supporting them, but now they have hope, and we’re actually seeing the depredation left behind after nine years of a Government that cared more about dollar signs than they did about people.

But I want to talk about Oranga Tamariki. I want to talk about the work that was begun by the expert advisory panel in 2015 and the legislation that was put in by the honourable member in the Chair, by the commitment made by this country to change from a child crisis service to a child protection service. I want to acknowledge that the expert advisory panel always said that the work begun by my predecessor, the Hon Anne Tolley, and picked up by myself was going to take a minimum of five years. The expert advisory panel also said that it was going to take a Government that was prepared to invest the dollars needed to truly support change—$1.1 billion was invested by this Government into the change for Oranga Tamariki. We have entered into strategic partnerships, making sure that we have recognised the responsibility of the chief executive under section 7AA. I will put it on the record: I believe every chief executive in Government should have a 7AA clause that they are responsible for and accountable to.

So as we move, we now have four strategic partnerships working with iwi in that prevention and early intervention space. The $1.1 billion committed by this Government to the change needed—

💬 Brett Hudson: Could the Oranga Tamariki Minister be talking about working with iwi? Because they don’t see it that way.

—for a true child protection service in this country. Mr Hudson probably doesn’t really care, but there are a lot of people who truly do care. The reason why $1.1 billion was invested by this Government into the operating system of Oranga Tamariki was because we need prevention and early intervention, as recognised by the previous Minister, and as recognised by the previous Government, actually—not sure whether Mr Hudson was up to speed on it, but it did come out of the previous Government.

Prevention and early intervention with systems designed to support families—and so we come full circle. It was recognised that the families of New Zealand, before they reach crisis, need to be supported by their Government. That is why this Government makes sure that they do get food parcels when they don’t have food to put on the table. That is why this Government says, “Come out and make sure we know if you have housing issues, because we’re going to do our damnedest to make sure that we can support you.” We are going to work with iwi and hapū and urban Māori organisations to make sure that there are services designed and delivered by Māori for Māori. We’re going to work with our ethnic communities and our Pasifika communities to make sure that before they end up in crisis, where Oranga Tamariki has to step in and actually work with them to place their children into the care of others—remembering that at least 70 percent of the Māori children in the care of Oranga Tamariki are still with whānau but are supported by Oranga Tamariki—that still is not the preferred option for this Government. We want to stop our families coming into crisis, and in this Budget, that is exactly what we invested in.

It was predicted, and requested by the expert advisory panel. It was acknowledged by the previous Government. This Government had the hutzpah to say, “We’re going to put our money where our mouth is. We’re going to”—

💬 Brett Hudson: No, no. Putting other people’s money where their mouths are.

—“invest in our children. We’re going to invest in our families.” Mr Hudson is currently taking issue with the fact that we’re investing in our children and our families, but this Government does not resile from it. No matter how many times Mr Hudson shouts out that we should not be investing in prevention and early intervention, we will continue to do so, because we will continue to make sure that we fulfil the vision of the Hon Anne Tolley, of that part of the National Government that actually knew there needed to be change, and thank goodness Mr Hudson wasn’t there, because, obviously, he would have been unsupportive.

Just for those who are watching at home, I just want to reflect on some of the contribution that was made by the last speaker from the Opposition, Louise Upston, because it has become clear to me over the last three or four months that the Opposition doesn’t care about facts. It is trumpeting a lot of misinformation and has gone full Trump in its desperate efforts to try and discredit a lot of the good work that this Government is doing, and the one example that I would like to bring to your attention is that Louise Upston said that there were originally 4,000 places in Mana in Mahi and we’ve backtracked that to 2,000. That is an out and out mistruth. She knows what she’s doing, and—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Order! Order! No, you can’t actually accuse a—

OK. Well, that is not correct, and everything you hear tonight from the Opposition—I suggest everyone at home who is listening to this take it with a grain of salt, because I would like to give credit to my colleague the Hon Willie Jackson for the Mana in Mahi programme, which started out as 150 places. We’ve increased it to 2,000 places, not what Louise Upston said, where we’ve scaled back from 4,000 to 2,000. That is the extent of the desperation from the other side of the House, where they would blatantly go out and misinterpret or put misinformation out there to make the good work of this Government that we’ve done in the last 24 months look bad. But I think getting called out by that is one of the only ways that we can counter that.

So I’m really looking forward to the rest of the contributions from the members on the other side of the House, to see what other misinformation they may be putting out there, because I want to give those people on that side of the House one figure that you cannot argue with, and that is 3.8 percent unemployment—the lowest unemployment in 11 years, lower than it was in the previous nine years of the National Government, and you cannot argue with that. We are making sure that people have got jobs and are able to support their families, because we have delivered the lowest unemployment rate—3.8 percent.

I am proud that we are tackling the long-term issues, and one of my recent, new responsibilities is around housing, and we are doing an excellent job of ensuring that public housing spaces are available for New Zealanders that need it. We inherited a position where the previous Government was selling off State houses, not building them. The waiting lists are growing, and we are building more houses, and we’ve got a goal of 6,400 more public houses over the next four years to ensure that people have a safe, warm and dry, and affordable home to live in. In fact, that’s 1,600 on average per year, and in the previous 12 months to June, we overshot that mark by about 700. So we’re doing an extremely good job of building homes faster and making sure that they are affordable homes for New Zealanders to live in.

So what did we inherit? We inherited a housing crisis that the previous Government said, and it promised around special housing areas, that it would build 39,000 homes. What did they deliver? Three thousand homes, and only 100 of those homes were affordable homes. That is a fact, and let’s see what they say on the other side of the House, as opposed to what this Government is doing, and delivering those 6,400 homes to make sure that those people who desperately need a home are going to get it. We aren’t a Government that is going to sell off State houses; we are a Government that is going to build State houses. We are not a Government that is going to sit back and watch foreign investors come into New Zealand and ramp up the prices of those houses and make those houses unaffordable to Kiwi first-home buyers. So we have already, in our first 24 months, ensured that foreign buyers cannot buy homes here in New Zealand unless they want to build, and add to the housing stock.

This is a Government that is focussed on the long-term issues for New Zealanders, which is why my good friend and colleague Megan Woods, in the reset, is doing things to make sure that homeownership is more realistic for New Zealanders, by giving them some assistance. I have been with her over the last couple of months, talking to community housing providers, talking to banks, talking to those in the sector to make sure that New Zealanders have a better pathway to homeownership, and we are dealing with the issues that the previous Government ignored, which means that waiting lists are going up and will probably get worse before they get better. But we are doing something about it, when that previous Government did absolutely nothing.

Oh, I’m quite excited about this. I’ve been up and down like, I don’t know, a yo-yo for the last, well, few hours. Look, if delivery by this Government was based on rhetoric, working groups, spends of money which achieve nothing, and empty promises, then I am the first on this side of the House to admit the Government is delivering, for, indeed, that’s all it has. Everything else, anything of substance, has been, and continues to be, an absolute, utter failure. This was incredibly, incredibly clear when we went through the Budget documents and the Estimates discussions, particularly around social housing, which I’m the spokesperson for, but right through the social development side of things.

In fact, even some of the facts that the Minister supposedly just put on the table make absolutely no sense. First-home buyer rates are as high now as they ever have been, regardless of any changes to foreign buyers. In fact, the other side of the House knows darn well that, actually, first-home buyers had been doing quite well, thank you very much, for many, many years. Those percentages have not changed. The area where the real challenge has been is homelessness, transitional housing, social housing, and beyond, and this Government has delivered absolutely nothing. When you went through the Budget documents, that was absolutely evident. [Interruption] The Minister scoffs, and I will actually touch on one thing they are delivering: it’s a cash load of money, which is just a sign of failure.

But, fundamentally, in homelessness, the Labour Government is just doing what the National Party did: more money into Housing First. Thank you, National. That was something we introduced. So thank you, Minister, for continuing that. We’d love, at some point, the recognition to come to this side of the House to say, “Thanks, National. You introduced that.” It would be jolly decent of you.

In the social housing space—other colleagues have touched on it—there was the absolute failure of KiwiBuild. It was an absolute bribe to the public of New Zealand in an election period—100,000 homes over 10 years—which has absolutely, fundamentally, not been delivered. That was very clear. We knew it was coming. Amongst other reasons, all the rhetoric changed. The Prime Minister couldn’t even mention the K word, “KiwiBuild”. But in the Budget documents, it was very clear it was all being wiped away in fact. In fact, on Budget day, as we moved into urgency, what we saw was a new piece of legislation slid in. Nice little Māori name there, Kāinga Ora, where KiwiBuild, Housing New Zealand, and HLC were all just going to be all blended in together, just to fudge it all quite nicely.

💬 Hon Carmel Sepuloni: It’s a “Nice little Māori name”.

So let’s have a look—yeah, Kāinga Ora. So very interesting, because it’s gone under the radar of most New Zealanders, deliberate as it was. Huge failure. Then we had, of course, the reset. I think of it as the great retreat. A reset, I said, certainly around KiwiBuild. Now there’s just a target to build as many houses as we can. Well, sort of, I don’t know, news, perhaps, to this House: every Government’s target is to build as many houses as they can, as quick as they can. What a massive, massive retreat—massive, massive retreat. There’s a huge talk about the houses that have been built. Well, you can’t correlate that with the fact that the housing register, the number of families waiting now, has over doubled in 18 months—in 18 months. It’s doubled. It’s over 12,000, and, as I said to some people the other day, it’s easy just to get, sort of, caught in the statistic. That is 12,000 New Zealanders who are struggling, and what is the answer from the other side? Rhetoric, and absolutely nothing.

In fact, that’s not fair to say just rhetoric, because the other thing we discovered when we were going through the Budget documents is that the amount of money that this Government is budgeting for emergency social housing grants is about to go through the roof—about to go through the roof. That is an admission of failure in black and white in the document, because if it was true that this amazing—well, supposedly amazing; I shouldn’t mislead the House—Government was going to solve the social housing crisis, house those 12,000 people, solve everything, then why is it that in the social development budget, over $118 million has been budgeted, and $120 million in subsequent years, for emergency housing grants? Bear in mind we spent about $27 million to $30 million in the last year. This is a blatant admission of failure by the Government that not only do they have no solutions other than throwing some cash around—and by the way, New Zealanders, that’s your taxpayer cash—they’ve got no solutions. When they talk a huge game about all these houses they’re going to build, why is it that they need over $120 million a year more?

Can I start on a positive note and say that it’s a privilege to be able to present to the Social Services and Community Committee as the Minister for Social Development and also the Minister for Disability Issues. Can I thank the select committee for the questions and, I guess, the interrogation which really is the Estimates hearing. But it’s a good opportunity for us to be able to talk about what we’re doing and why we’re doing what we’re doing.

I might just reflect on Simon O’Connor’s words where he said that we should be thanking National. Well, can I just say, Mr O’Connor, that, clearly, given the housing crisis that we encountered when we came in, and the fact that we even have an emergency housing special-needs grant in the first place—those would be two things that we would need to thank the previous Government for. Because of the fact that there was so much inaction over nine years, we have been left with a system where so much has been neglected and it’s our responsibility to fix that up. So we do take that seriously.

We heard from the other side about the housing pressures, and we certainly feel that in the welfare space with our social security system. Wherever there are large numbers of special-needs grants given out, by and large, they are given out in areas where there are housing pressures. So in response to the people who come through the welfare system, it is important that we do have a cross-Government response to respond to all of the needs that they encounter. Housing, by and large, is the biggest cost, expense pressure, that many of the households who are in the welfare system experience.

Can I say that what we put through this Budget and we spoke about at Estimates really did build on the Families Package from last year. That was a $5.5 billion investment, money that went into the pockets of low to middle income households, and they were in desperate need of that investment. So reflecting on that, of course, there was the Best Start payment, because this Government is about investing in our children. We saw the winter energy payment—that goes to almost or just over one million New Zealanders every winter.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): That’s not actually in this. Come on, let’s focus on 2019-20.

Many other—many other—positive things came out of the Families Package, but this year we built on that. This year, what we saw, finally, was the removal of the discriminatory deduction from benefits for sole parents who didn’t name the other parent of the child. This benefits around 12,000 sole parents, with around 24,000 children in those households. On average, they will be better off with that one shift by around $34 a week.

We also saw the historic and systematic change to our welfare system which was the indexation of main benefits to wages, which will see over time benefits continually increase. We need to remember that what has happened is that because they haven’t been fixed to the Consumers Price Index, they haven’t kept up, so people in beneficiary households have been left behind.

We also saw the investment towards work that this Government has focussed on. Firstly, with the lift of abatement thresholds for those on benefits who work, in line with minimum wage increases, which will ensure that those that work can keep more of what they earn, and will benefit around 73,000 low-income individuals and their families. Also, what we’ve seen is a refocus back on to work, through the Ministry of Social Development and our Work and Income offices—an additional 263 front-line staff who will be focussed on work—because we know that the vast majority of people who come through the welfare system, of course, need stabilisation of their financial situations but also do want to work, and they just need that support to do so. Unfortunately, under the previous Government there was a steady decline in the work focus because there wasn’t that investment in the space that those on benefits and through the welfare system needed.

On top of that, I’m really proud of the fact that we’ve invested an additional $26 million over the next four years in Oranga Mahi, which will see a focus on those with disabilities and health conditions who face additional barriers to employment getting the support into employment that they need. We need to remember that in our welfare system—and this is overlooked all too often—around 52 percent of those on main benefits have a health condition or disability, or are caring for someone with a disability or a health condition.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m pleased to take another call. I want to respond to the accusation that was laid by Minister Faafoi about the facts that I provided in my earlier contribution. I just want to give credit to the Ministry of Social Development and their quarterly statistics, to the Minister that’s just resumed her seat, Carmel Sepuloni, and to the Prime Minister for the figures that I used in my contribution. So, of course, benefits statistics come from the quarterly statistics—you might like to read those, Minister Faafoi. For your information, that does show 15,500 people increased on job seeker benefits in the last year. He thinks that’s boring. I don’t think taxpayers will think that’s boring, particularly when you use this House to allege incorrect information.

The Prime Minister’s quote, when she launched Mana in Mahi, “Thousands of young people will be given the chance to gain valuable qualifications”—you might want to read this in case you haven’t already. “Thousands of … people will be given the chance to gain valuable qualifications and meaningful work”. Here we go, a few paragraphs down: it’s going to start with 150 people and be up to 4,000 in a year’s time—in a year’s time. That year’s up. Oh, guess what! The number’s reduced to 2,000. So check your facts out, Mr Faafoi, before you make accusations in this House. There are 8,000 extra children in benefit-dependent homes—your own ministerial colleague. Check your facts.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It’s been a very interesting and spirited debate on the Estimates for this year for one of the big ticket items of any Government, the social sector. It does deserve a good hearing, which we have seen.

In the social development and housing sector, we have a raft of votes including arts, culture and heritage, sports and recreation, vote building and housing, Oranga Tamariki, Pacific peoples, and social development, within which are a number of other portfolios like social housing and Vote Women.

The year 2019 was named the year of delivery. Apart from the original announcement about 2019 being the year of delivery, I don’t think I’ve heard it mentioned again. As we look through these Estimates, it’s actually clear to see why, because this Government is actually failing to deliver on their own policies in their year of delivery.

The Estimates show, and over time we have seen this, that the more and more you throw money at a particular policy area, unless it is delivering actual outcomes, all you’re doing is wasting money. That was a very clear message that I received when I became an MP. That was when we started talking about social development. Because we have got such an enlightened group of people on this side of the Chamber, we realised that the more money you threw at an organisation that wasn’t producing outcomes—it was clear there needed to be change, and so was born Oranga Tamariki. Billions of dollars are spent in this field, but what we needed was the change for those members of our community who needed it the most so that they got appropriate and timely support, while always noting that our children were always to be at the heart of this organisation.

So it’s very good to see that the Estimates do still continue to support Oranga Tamariki, but we have heard many times during this debate about the waste of billions of dollars that we have seen invested into KiwiBuild. Again, it’s one of those areas that has not been delivered on by that Government over there, and it has not delivered the relief that was promised for those wanting to access affordable homes. Now, National is a party that supports homeownership. We can see that there is need for support for first-home buyers, but even though KiwiBuild was held out to be the saviour, this has not been delivered.

I’ve heard in these debates today the criticism of selling off social housing, and National did sell off social housing, but what they’ve failed to explain in that rhetoric is that, actually, those social houses were sold to social housing providers. Those social houses are still tenanted by the people who need social housing. The difference is the social housing providers wrap the support around their tenants that they need and deserve. So it is a complete package now. We don’t just send them away, put them in a State house, and walk away and forget about them, and that is what I mean by throwing more and more money at a policy and getting the same results. Unless you do things differently, you are always going to get what you always got, and I have to pay tribute to those NGOs that have gone out there and provided that social housing support for their tenants.

I’d like to turn my attention to the Minister who came to the meeting for the Estimates around the seniors. We heard that the Minister was very keen to create a position called the commissioner for seniors, but that, again, remains something that this Government has failed to deliver on.

What I’ve found really revealing about the lack of delivery from this Government was that in June this year, the president of Grey Power, who was also disappointed in this Budget, said “It is obvious that the wellbeing of seniors is well down the list of priorities of the current Government, with absolutely nothing for seniors.” Then he went on to say “The pre-election promise of the appointment of an aged-care commissioner”—promised to be announced in the first Budget of a Labour-led Government—“has been ignored. Meanwhile, seniors continue to suffer and make headlines for all the wrong reasons.” Again, another very disappointing outcome from this Government.

I know that we don’t have much time left in this debate, so I thought that I’d just say a few words to close. I just wanted to really start by saying that what will be evident in this debate tonight, and through the Estimates debate in general, will be that this side of the House is looking to tackle the long-term challenges that we face as a country, that we’re looking ahead 30 years and not just three, and that we’re taking seriously the future of New Zealand and New Zealanders.

Before, I was talking about the focus that we have now in the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) on work—a focus that was missing with the previous Government—and I really wanted to just expand on that a little bit. We have said, right from the beginning, that where people are able, we want to support them to be learning, earning, caring, or volunteering. It’s a much more fulsome approach to New Zealanders, if you ask me, and an approach that will ensure that we don’t end up with the same churn on and off and on and off benefit that we saw under the previous Government.

The investment in work so far is really starting to show off, and, in fact, the investment overall with regards to how we treat people at the front line who come through MSD offices. Just the other day, I was at the Māngere MSD office. They’ve gone from having 300 appointments a day to 180—180. Now, how they have done that is by making sure that when people come to them for support, they traverse their circumstances and they give them all of the support that they need, so they don’t have to go three or four times just to get the support in the different areas that they need it.

Then, what that means is that by doing that, they’re able to be much more proactive, once they’ve stabilised someone’s financial situation, with respect to the work focus. So the site manager there was telling me that now, they’re freed up to be able to make proactive phone calls to the people that have come through, just to follow up to see whether or not they have been getting the support into upskilling and training and work that they need. That is the culture shift that we were after as a Government.

That side of the House has alleged that we were all about being soft on beneficiaries, but, actually, what we know on this side of the House is that the punitive approach that has been taken for far too long over the last nine years is not what worked. In fact, treating people with dignity and respect, working to stabilise their financial situation, and then working with them where they’re at to get into meaningful and sustainable employment is what New Zealanders want.

So I’m very proud of the achievements that we’ve made to date in the MSD space. I’m looking forward to many more, and can I say that with some of the information I’ve seen recently, we can expect a lot more good news in this area. Thank you very much.

The time for this debate has now expired.