Estimates Debate — Social Services and Community Sector

Members, I understand that the responsible Ministers are available—thank you, Minister—to speak to the Votes in the social services and community sector (B.5, Volume 10). The question is that Vote Arts, Culture and Heritage; 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. Good morning, Minister. I call Gareth Hughes.

Kia ora, Madam Chair. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise as the chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to kick off this Estimates debate into this sector. Can I first up thank committee members. It’s an absolutely wonderful committee to work on, and I think the four parties’ representatives clearly and strongly articulate their views but do so in a positive and collegial manner. I’ve enjoyed chairing it, and I thank members for surprising me with a vegan cake yesterday to acknowledge my departure.

Estimates questions, hearings, consideration, and deliberation of reports all are a significant time investment by this committee. We scrutinise the largest share of Government spending, with superannuation, benefits, housing, and other forms of social support which are so important to our society. The Estimates we reviewed were social development; housing; urban development; Oranga Tamariki; arts, culture, and heritage; Pacific peoples; women; sport and rec; Estimates for appropriations within Vote State Services, supporting implementation of a social wellbeing approach; and Estimates within Vote Internal Affairs that are the responsibility of the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector and the Minister for Ethnic Communities.

Can I just also take the opportunity to thank the Ministers, their officials, and the excellent Office of the Controller and Auditor-General’s advisers, as well as the select committee staff.

Within Vote Social Development, the appropriation proposed in the main Estimates for Vote Social Development totalled just under $34 billion. Of that, 89 percent is for benefits and related expenses. A major point of discussion, as no one would be surprised to hear, was the response to COVID-19 and, in particular, the wage subsidy scheme, which has seen billions paid out to support Kiwis in work. As we see in other countries, when people have difficulties with their job or have lost their job, and the public health challenges that arise when they’re forced to go into some unsafe environments, I think is a good example of how fortunate we are in New Zealand to have had such a successful scheme. Members questioned the Minister around timing for main benefits, which rose by $25 a week from 1 April 2020 as part of the Government’s COVID-19 economic response package. We also heard that Budget 2020 allocates $250 million over four years for an additional 807 full-time equivalent staff to support the ministry in their work for COVID-19 in the response.

Carmel Sepuloni is also the Minister for Disability Issues and is responsible for the appropriation in Vote Social Development promoting positive outcomes for disabled people. Again, COVID-19 was a major focus for the committee, with our discussion along improving the distribution of funding and uptake of support for Māori and accessible housing options.

The Minister for Seniors, the Hon Tracey Martin, is responsible for two appropriations within Vote Social Development. In November 2019, the Minister launched the Better Later Life—He Oranga Kaumātua 2019 to 2034 strategy, replacing the previous New Zealand Positive Ageing Strategy.

The Minister for Youth, the Hon Peeni Henare, is responsible for the appropriation in partnering for youth development, and we questioned him on youth unemployment. We heard of He Poutama Taitamariki as a joint pilot project with the Ministry of Social Development. It seeks to improve employment outcomes for over 750 young people—and I’d note 82 percent Māori, 46 percent female, in Northland, which we found incredibly promising.

In this short contribution, I won’t have time to cover each of the Votes that we scrutinised, but I would like to acknowledge my colleague the Hon Julie Anne Genter, the Minister for Women. We heard the ministry has developed an action plan to support the Government’s target of having women make up 50 percent of State sector boards by 2021. We heard that this year it’s reached, in fact, 49 percent. We also heard that the ministry is now collecting data on the ethnicity of those boards for the first time. We also heard of work to address the gender pay gap and supply period products in high schools.

Vote Arts, Culture and Heritage is administered by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, and the Prime Minister is the responsible Minister. For our Estimates hearing, we met with the Associate Minister, the Hon Grant Robertson, and the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, the Hon Kris Faafoi, who’s responsible for one appropriation under this Vote. Again, COVID-19 was a major focus, and we asked questions around the $304 million response and recovery fund foundational package, $50 million media support fund, Creative New Zealand’s $29 million emergency response package to buffer and support the arts, as well as other significant investments in Māori and Pasifika arts.

I want to thank all members involved with this important governance role the select committee plays in scrutinising Government spending at a time of global pandemic and economic challenge. I’m proud of the “team of 5 million” approach our country has taken and the public spending we’ve all contributed towards to supporting Kiwis to get through COVID-19. Kia ora koutou.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to start my line of questioning around the wage subsidy scheme, and in particular the wage subsidy extension. I have a series of questions—actually, some raised initially by the union—around the number of businesses supported by the wage subsidy extension, and the proportion of the workers that are getting the 100 percent pay, 80 percent, or just the wage subsidy level of $585 a week, and what work has been done with those employers to ensure those that are paying the minimum are looking at how they can pay their employees the proper rate.

Also interested to know, in terms of the modelling around the economic impact of the wage subsidy extension, how many jobs have been saved. We’ve heard on lots of occasions that the wage subsidy is all around saving jobs, so I’m interested in the data that the Minister has used, and we’ve heard in the Estimates and the appropriations in terms of exactly how many jobs have been saved by the wage subsidy extension.

My third question on the wage subsidy extension is: does she support the decision that there will be no further wage subsidy extensions?

💬 Hon Carmel Sepuloni: I’ll let a couple run, if that’s OK?

If she’s not ready, I’ll keep going. So, obviously, the wage subsidy—I’ll just fill in some time until the Ministers are ready; maybe you give me a nod when you’re ready to go—I think we’re up to $13 billion that’s been spent on the wage subsidy, and the Minister’s been quite proud of the fact that 1.7 million jobs have been covered by that. I’m sure I’ve got the figures right, but maybe you can correct me when you do want to answer.

So the wage subsidy extension and the fact that the Prime Minister has said there will be no further wage subsidies extended—I want particularly to know what analysis has been done on the impact on industries that cannot operate given the borders continue to be shut, specifically in tourism and travel agents.

Sorry, just with regards to some of the questions that you’ve asked, the honourable member Louise Upston, just over $13 billion has been paid out in total for the wage subsidy in its entirety. Of that, just under $2 billion has been paid out for the wage subsidy extension. The difference in the criteria between the original wage subsidy and then the extension was that originally we said that people had to be able to demonstrate a 30 percent drop, and then we shifted that to 40 percent.

In terms of how many jobs have been saved, well, overall for the wage subsidy, we have subsidised around 1.7 million jobs—that includes the extended period. Our intention was always to support businesses as best we could to be able to keep them operating and, obviously, keep people employed, but we’ve never shied away from the fact that there still will be some job losses. It would just be impossible for us to determine exactly what that number of job losses might be.

I think it’s interesting to note that we did do a survey on those employers who received the wage subsidy in May, and at that time, around about 90,000 employers responded. At that time, only 6 percent of them said that they still anticipated needing to make staff redundant. To put that in perspective, though, many of those that replied were small businesses, and actually the larger businesses were more inclined to think that they may still need to lay off staff at the end of receiving the wage subsidy. So it is heartening that it was such a low number, but, obviously, the Government is watching this space very, very carefully.

The COVID job loss temporary relief payment was put in place to support those who, because of COVID, have lost jobs—obviously, a shock to their household budget and their household circumstances; obviously, during a time where the labour market is not as robust. So, as a way of alleviating the shock to the many families that may lose jobs because of COVID, we put in place the job loss cover as well, and that runs, basically, up till the end of October. If anyone loses a job between 1 March and 31 October, they will be eligible to apply for the temporary job loss cover.

I do need to reiterate that it’s not the first time that we have put a wage subsidy of this nature, or even the temporary job loss cover support, in place. We have done that before, and namely we did that following the Canterbury earthquakes. However, clearly, this is on a much larger scale, given that there have been nationwide impacts of COVID—obviously global as well—and we are not alone. Unfortunately, across the world, what we’re seeing is the economic impacts of this unprecedented health event and the impacts that it’s been having on business and job losses internationally. So we wanted to soften the blow and to put measures in place that would be able to support businesses to continue, and the wage subsidy has been successful at doing that. And now we watch this space very carefully as we move forward.

I do want to also acknowledge, with respect to the wage subsidy, that the Ministry of Social Development moved incredibly quickly, at a pace that I think is admirable. You know, within two days of announcing, they were already able to pay out. In comparable countries, for instance, like Australia, they were able to announce in March, but they weren’t able to start paying out until May. There were criteria put in place that made the process as uncomplicated as possible, because we knew that there was no time to waste with regards to injecting support into these businesses to retain their staff. And if we hadn’t acted in haste, I’ve been told by numerous businesses that they may have made decisions which would have included making staff redundant, and so I do give my respects to the Ministry of Social Development for the job they’ve done here.

I just remind everybody, Minister and members, that this is not the old way of making five-minute speeches; this is a question and answer session that is time-limited. So just a reminder to everyone to help the whips, who are trying to manage it.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Of the three questions that I have asked, two of them haven’t been addressed at all, so I’m going to ask that one again. On the wage subsidy extension, which the Minister has said has been a $2 billion cost, I specifically asked—because the intention of this scheme was to keep people in jobs; it was to financially support businesses to pay their employees—what proportion are getting 100 percent of their wages? What percent are getting 80 percent? And how many are getting only the $585 a week?

I also want to know, if the Minister can’t answer the job losses, in terms of the projected fiscal estimate schemes already at $2 billion, what was the estimated estimate? And what is the expected reduction in benefit costs as a result of the extended wage subsidy being in place?

I’ll answer some of those questions. Some of them I’m not quite understanding, sorry. I heard the member say she wanted to know what the estimated estimate was; I wasn’t sure what she was talking about.

So the original wage subsidy was estimated, I think, from memory, to be around $12 billion to $15 billion, and the extension was—

💬 Hon Louise Upston: Just the extension.

If the member will wait until I answer her question, the extension was estimated, from memory, to be around $3.2 billion, and, to date, as I mentioned earlier, we have on the extension so far spent just under $2 billion. So I think it’s around $1.9 billion on the wage subsidy extension.

I think she also wanted to know how many jobs had been subsidised through the extension of the wage subsidy, rather than the $1.7 million overall. That would be, for the extension, 436,922, which is the latest information that I have. In terms of those that may have lost jobs despite having received the extension, I don’t have that information on me. However, what I do know is that between around about, I think, 20 March and the end of June, we’ve seen an increase of around, I think, 52,000 on main benefits, most of which were jobseeker benefit recipients. So those are the numbers that have come on benefit during this COVID period.

Also, with that, we did see recently, too, that Treasury initially had quite a high forecast for unemployment. They have slightly reduced that in anticipation of the fact that it may not get that high, but we have to wait for the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update before we have a real understanding of what that looks like. They have also, I think, stated that it could take longer, despite the fact that the peak of unemployment may not reach to the same extent. I do need to note that alongside doing this, though, we have been very conscious of the fact that we need to put an investment into employment, upskilling and training, job creation, and support for people to get into work. And, actually, as Gareth Hughes mentioned earlier, around $250 million will go towards supporting something like an additional 900 new staff members, many of whom will be working at the front line with respect to not just income support but also work support. I mention that because we have to prepare ourselves. We have to be prepared for job losses that may come about because of COVID.

I’ve got lots of questions, so I’ll keep them briefer, with the hope that we get more answers. Is it anticipated that those on paid parental leave would be invited to apply for the wage subsidy extension? The second is: how many businesses have been written to, offering them the wage subsidy extension, and, if they haven’t applied for it, wouldn’t that be assumed that they didn’t require it?

You can’t blame the wage subsidy and paid parental leave at the same time. That rule applied with the original wage subsidy and also now with the extension. In terms of whether we wrote to people to inform them of the fact that we were going to have a wage subsidy extension, I’m not sure if we did. However, in saying that, the feedback that I’ve received from businesses, from chambers, from people across the country—self-employed people who have accessed the wage subsidy—is that it has been a non-complex process and the information has been available. We certainly haven’t had a lack of people applying, given that 1.7 million jobs have been covered by the wage subsidy. So I think that, really, the knowledge out there across New Zealand, across businesses, for how they access the wage subsidy has been pretty good. I’d be surprised if there were any businesses that weren’t aware of the wage subsidy and how they would access that.

How many fraud investigations are currently under way with regard to the wage subsidy, and how many prosecutions are under way?

Last I checked, I think there were just over 500 investigations that have been put forward—54 have been resolved and about just over half of the investigations were currently in action. So some still to start; no prosecutions as of yet. I do need to point out, actually, that where there have been refunds from businesses because, for whatever reason, they haven’t ended up qualifying for the wage subsidy, actually, by and large, it’s been employer initiated. So I think around just under 14,000 refunds have been requested, but of the 14,000, just over 13,000 were initiated by the employer and the remaining were initiated by the Ministry of Social Development.

So, by and large, New Zealand companies, New Zealand businesses, have been very honest in this process. Where there have been concerns raised, we have started investigations, or we will be starting investigations, but some of them require quite robust conversations to get the details sorted. Many just didn’t anticipate that they would do as well as what they did. They thought that they would experience the 30 percent or the 40 percent loss and then they didn’t. Then it’s just been an honest conversation and then, where necessary, employers mostly have returned the money without having to be asked but because they initiated that refund.

Thank you, Madam Chair. One of the recent pieces of information about the wage subsidy is that banks are declining loans for people who are in jobs supported by the wage subsidy. So I’m interested to know in terms of the number, the additional number, of people that the Minister in the chair, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, is expecting on benefit—210,000 at the moment on unemployment benefits—what specific job creation initiatives and new employment initiatives have delivered the most people on unemployment benefit into jobs in the last three months?

Well, if I talk about exits off benefit into work, clearly April and May were not the best months, particularly given the level 4 lockdown period and the fact that many people could not work unless they were working in essential workforces. But what is interesting is that in June we had more exits off benefit into work this year than we had in June last year. I think, off the top of my head, it was around 7,000 to 7,500 exits off benefit into work. In the same month last year—so in June last year—it was around 5,240, and so that is an increase. With the demand increasing in terms of more people coming on benefit, we do want to see increases in exits. But it’s not so far—you know, we haven’t necessarily been able to keep up to the same extent.

I do need to acknowledge as well that there are many New Zealanders returning from overseas who have lost jobs overseas, who have come back and then are also needing to seek out employment, and in the interim, whilst they find employment, some of them are also having to access the support of the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). As New Zealanders, of course, they should be doing that if they are experiencing financial hardship without jobs and without income.

With regard to the different initiatives, there are multiple initiatives going on across Government, in fact, to address the challenges that we face because of COVID. We’ve set up a new ministerial group called the Education, Employment, and Training Ministers’ Group, where we are coordinating across Government agencies to ensure that we’ve got oversight of what initiatives are being rolled out across the country, across regions to ensure that they are being rolled out in collaboration with local government, with industry partners, with our union friends as well. So there are a range of things happening.

Just to mention a couple—I announced a few weeks back, just during the recess, with Mayor Phil Goff in Auckland the extension of Ngā Puna Pūkenga programme, which was piloted last year, which was successful. It started initially with 60 jobs that Auckland Council would be able to work with their contractors to be able to offer to particular groups who are often disadvantaged in the labour market, like Māori and Pacific young people, people with disabilities, and people who may have been on benefit for a long time. We took that pilot from a 60-person pilot to actually 700 places. So that’s just one initiative. You know, there’s also another initiative that MSD has set up with the mayoral task force to try and get more jobs out in the regions so that the different regions can access up to half a million dollars to support their job creation initiatives that they know are well suited to their regional areas. Those are just a couple.

I could go on. There are all the infrastructure projects. We’ve been very focused on initiatives that are shovel-ready and that is because, you know, as we’ve said on multiple occasions, we are all about keeping New Zealand moving.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to turn my attention to the COVID income relief payment. When we had the Estimates hearing, we were unable to scrutinise this to the extent we wanted because it was in the $20 billion—it hadn’t been broken down at that point. So the original consideration is that it would be $570 million and I want to know if that is still the anticipated spend on the COVID income relief payment and whether the suggestion that another 30,000 people are being approached to claim that benefit is correct. I wonder if they haven’t claimed it because those who are eligible are in a family situation where they have an income of up to $2,000 a week already coming in and, potentially, a redundancy payment of $30,000.

Yes, so to date—I mean, these are the most recent figures—as at 17 July, I think there are about 18,500 people receiving the temporary income relief payment. The 30,000 that the member talked about that have been contacted with respect to this payment are those that have come on benefits since the 1 March. So, of course, you know, I think it’s important that the ministry is making those on benefit aware of what supports they might be eligible for. The COVID payment may be something that they are able to transfer to, and we want to make sure that we are putting that information out so that, down the track, people aren’t in a position where they just didn’t know that that support was available.

I want to say there’s a lot going on and so it is important that we keep communicating what is available because, given everything that’s out there, you know, people could easily miss things. So that’s one of the answers to the questions—so, yeah, 18,500 as of 17 July. There probably haven’t been as many people that have picked it up as we thought that there would be. One of the reasons that I’ve been given for that is—two of the reasons, actually: one is that the economy is not faring as badly as what some of the original forecasts were predicting. And then, secondly, is that at the time that we announced the temporary income relief job loss cover—at the time we announced that—we hadn’t taken into consideration or made decisions about wage subsidy extension and so, therefore, there may have been some people that would otherwise have fallen out of work being eligible for the COVID job loss cover but, because we did the extension of the wage subsidy, they’d been able to maintain their place of employment and they’ve been retained by their employer.

So those are two of the reasons why I’ve had it put to me that we haven’t had the pick-up that we may have expected. But, on top of that, I think it’s important for us to focus on also continuing to raise awareness and making sure New Zealanders know what supports are available during this time.

Madam Chair, I take it that this is both social development and disability issues, under that—so I can ask questions of the Minister?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): That’s correct.

Thank you. So, to the Minister, in particular just around the disability issues, we see under the Estimates there was over $500 million that was allocated in the Budget towards the health and disability sector. The questions I want to ask are twofold. What is the Government doing to increase access to services for the estimated additional 25 percent of people who are eligible for disability services but not currently using any of them that’s been predicted by the sector? The second one: has any work been done on the impact of COVID on people with disabilities, or are any additional initiatives under consideration?

Thank you. I’ll try to answer all those questions. Hopefully I got them down. So the 25 percent of those that have a disability that may be eligible for health supports and may not be accessing them is an interesting point for the member to raise. This has really been highlighted through the Enabling Good Lives work through the Mana Whaikaha programme through the prototype in MidCentral. It’s really part of the system’s transformation consideration that we have at the moment that so many people have accessed these programmes and it’s been found that they have not been seeking out support they may be eligible for through the health system. It is an ongoing concern, and we get more and more intel from the Enabling Good Lives - Mana Whaikaha initiatives as we go. That’s part of what will inform systems transformation. So hence why we have the two demonstrations and then we have the prototype. So I can’t respond entirely to that. I think that’s a work in progress for us.

The member also raised the impact of COVID. The Office for Disability Issues did do a survey—was it us or the Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) that did it? Yeah, we did do it—during COVID on people that were disabled, and we got some really good feedback. Mostly people felt that that they were safe. Mostly people had what they needed. But, of course, there were still a few that raised issues about access to medication and food, and also what came up during that period was access to data and information. The DPOs raised with us that they had been part of an all-of-Government programme to ensure that all communications were accessible for disabled people. So, yes, it was great that that was put into place; however, there were issues around pace and how quickly information could be changed into different accessible formats and how quickly that could be put up in places where disabled people themselves could access it. There were issues around where that accessible information was put once it was available, sometimes being, kind of, three levels deep on the COVID website. So those are all learnings that I think we can take from the COVID experience.

Then, as we move forward, there will continue to be issues because of the anticipated job losses through COVID, issues around employment for disabled people that were pre-existing issues that are going to be heightened in a tight labour market. So that’s another thing to keep an eye on. In saying that, I have said on multiple occasions that in the next few weeks we will be in a position to actually launch our first ever Disability Employment Action Plan, which is timely given the context that we’re currently in.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and as per advice, I’d like to take this call substantively laying out the Green Party’s perspective on the Estimates for 2020 and finishing with a question to the Minister.

So the Estimates, I guess, reflect where we’re at, at the end of three years, in terms of the Green Party’s confidence and supply agreement with the Labour Party, which was to overhaul the welfare system, ensure access to entitlements, remove excessive sanctions, and review Working for Families so that everyone has a standard of living, an income that enables them to live in dignity and participate in their communities, and lifts children and their families out of poverty. That was our goal for this term as a Government.

And at the end of three years, we’ve seen the introduction of the Best Start payment; changes to the family tax credit; increase in the accommodation supplement; the winter energy payment; the first across-the-board increase in main benefits, to my knowledge, since the 1990s, of $25; indexation; a slight increase around abatement rates; and finally, finally, getting rid of that truly repugnant policy that punished women, and children primarily, for not naming the father of the child. In this Budget, we also see more of the provision around food in schools and financial mentoring and support for people to be able to consolidate loans so that they are able to manage their debt better. We heard today a plan to end the discriminatory policy that forced parents receiving income support back into work when their child turned one.

The increase I really want to particularly point to as truly significant is the increase in main benefits and the fact that every party here, I understand, having supported this and committed not to overturning that is a sea change for us as a country. But I am still left with the question: have these changes ensured that everyone has a standard of living that enables them to participate in their communities? Has it lifted children and people out of poverty? And are people in the communities saying that it feels as if there’s been an overhaul?

From the Green Party perspective, the answer is clearly no. We’ve been seeing increasing queues outside food banks. There were 596,000 hardship payments made in the March quarter. The latest Budget child poverty data showed the rates of low incomes and material hardship hadn’t declined in any statistically significant measure over that year and that, in fact, 4,000 more children were living in material hardship compared to 2017-18. I think about 40 percent of Work and Income staff time is spent on helping people to access support or loans for the essentials that their basic benefits just don’t cover, and more and more money is going into funding community organisations to feed people who don’t have incomes large enough to be able to feed themselves and their families.

While yesterday I was really stoked to be at the Government announcement of increased financial mentoring support and loan consolidation initiatives out in Porirua, it was really shocking to hear that in the last year, just one budget advice service in Porirua had supported people with $2 million worth of debt in my community. They’d taken over $600,000 of debt off those families, but that pressure is unimaginable. And what they told me afterwards is that 60 percent of that debt is to Government, because our policy settings around income are just too low and that they’re really concerned that Government is spending more money compensating for the fact that we haven’t given people enough to be able to support themselves.

The still profound inadequacies of our social safety net are locking people out of being able to contribute, and I’d really love to hear from the Minister her view on how far we’ve come and what the next steps are in terms of ensuring that everyone has the ability to participate and thrive in this country, and that we take advantage of this opportunity now to reset to a country without these levels of inequality.

Thank you, that was very kind of you, Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Anticipation.

I have several questions for the Hon Megan Woods throughout this Estimates examination. The first is around Progressive Home Ownership, which was an initiative signalled in the Budget and announced a couple of days ago, where a number of families will be assisted to buy their own homes by partnering with some existing housing trusts. So in the announcement that the Minister made under phase 1 was working with established housing providers—one in Queenstown, one in Auckland—partnering with these providers, with the aim of, in the first instance, helping 100 low to medium income families into homeownership.

So my first question for the Minister is: how long does she say that it will take for 100 families or individuals to be assisted into houses through the New Zealand Housing Foundation and the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust?

Other members wanting to take a call? The Hon Jacqui Dean.

Oh, thank you. So I was expecting an answer to that, but I’m very happy to wait.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): As we’ve discussed before, the Ministers are expected to answer a question but not required to immediately after the question being put.

Thank you, and I’m very happy to keep note of the questions that I’ve asked and the answers that I will then get. So then, following on from that question, is the criteria for those people who are being assisted into homeownership-style housing the same as for the New Zealand Housing Foundation and the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust? So is the criteria that she has set out the same for both of those two trusts?

I’ll just answer those two questions very quickly. As to how long for the first tranche of families—the 100 families that were otherwise locked out of homeownership, who are going to get the chance of it through this Government initiative—they will be moving into their property at the end of October or the beginning of November of this year, so weeks away. It is our anticipation that all 100 families will have completed their journey through Progressive Home Ownership, of this first hundred in the 2020-21 year, so in pretty short order. In terms of the criteria that are being used for these two providers, the answer is yes.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. So those houses that the people assisted through this scheme are being moved into—those houses must, effectively, be either ready to move into now or very close to being ready to move into in the next few weeks, I’m assuming. And my question is that the Minister, when she made her announcement, was aware that those housing trusts had housing, effectively, ready to go when the Minister made that announcement. So they weren’t new housing as a result of this programme; they were really business as usual with the housing trusts.

I just want to ask another couple of questions to the Minister in the chair, Megan Woods. In looking at the Estimates report that’s come out of the Social Services and Community Committee, one of the areas of that report, on page 8, talks about improving housing outcomes for Māori, and in particular, I would add to that part of the conversation, having been part of that conversation, to Pasifika. Yet when I read on page 191 of the Estimates of Appropriations, and if I look down at the top of page 191, “Non-Departmental Output Expenses”, what I’m seeing here is that for Pasifika there’s only $630,000 that’s allocated to it. When I look further down to “He Kūkū Ki Te Kāinga - Increasing Māori Housing Supply”, again we’re seeing a limited amount of funding towards that, as well as, when we’re thinking about “Increasing Māori Housing Provider Capability”, there’s only a million dollars there. So I’m trying to balance up—and if the Minister can answer the question—to the words of the intent. What I’m not seeing is the resources and the funding to actually increase both the capability and the supply of housing outcomes for Māori and, in particular—I’ll add that, too—for Pasifika.

I’ll add another question to that, in that regards, because one of the areas was around community housing providers (CHPs), and if you look over the page, on page 192, what it also reflects is that again there is a decrease in funding in regards to CHPs, to community housing groups that are there providing their service. On the other hand, then, to the Minister, in regards to the CHP, the third sector, what is the Minister’s intent? If the intent is to provide greater outcomes, more public housing, and social housing outcomes, I’m not seeing it from the rhetoric of the comments made by the Minister in the select committee to the actual funds that are allocated. They don’t seem to match. So, if the Minister can have a response to that, I think that’ll be helpful, not only for the committee but also for the public.

Thank you. To the Minister, a couple of questions. I’m still on the Minister’s Progressive Home Ownership programme and fund, which we hear will ultimately help between 1,500 and 4,000 New Zealand families to buy their own homes. My first question is: why the difference between 1,500 and 4,000? What underlines the work which can lead to the Minister presenting two vastly different goals in front of the House, and is this a taste of a KiwiBuild? Is it going to roll out a bit like KiwiBuild, where the Government vastly over promised and substantially undelivered? And, just on that, could I have an update from the Minister on how many KiwiBuild homes have been constructed to date?

So we’re stacking up all the questions? All right. Again, I will point the Minister to page 7 of the select committee report, which talked about working with community housing providers. In the Minister’s comments, she talked about that 70 percent of that housing provision would come from Kāinga Ora, 30 percent would come from the community housing providers. At the moment, we have 16,000 applicants—Minister’s words—currently waiting for social housing. Again, I put it to the Minister, so these are comments in regards to the CHPs, the community housing providers, that are out there, and I’m sure they’d be interested to hear the responses from the Minister in regards to her intent.

Further on in the report, the Minister acknowledged that community housing providers are seeking to do more and that discussions are occurring about what that would look like. Could the Minister give us an indication of what that would look like moving forward? Is it an increase from the 70 percent Kāinga Ora, 30 percent of housing provision to meet the demand of 16,000 current applicants waiting for housing? What does that look like in the Minister’s mind? In the allocation of the Estimates, how does that reflect in the appropriations of that resource?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m very happy for the Minister to answer my questions. I understand we are having a conversation here. And in light of the fact I now have three unanswered questions and my colleague Alfred Ngaro also has several, I am very happy for the Minister to begin to answer those questions. I am, as my colleague is as well, taking a note of the questions that have been asked, and I do hope the Minister will find the time to begin to address some of those questions.

I also have some questions around the progressive ownership programme. I would like to know that—in phase 1 there were two housing trusts selected to be utilised into this project. One operates in Queenstown; the other operates in Auckland. The assistance methods, from what I can see, are going to be different for each housing trust. So I’d like the Minister to lay out to the committee what is the funding assistance method for families to get into progressive ownership homes in Queenstown and what is the method for that to happen in Auckland. Also, are the criteria different for those families between what is being offered in Queenstown and what is being offered in Auckland?

Happy to take a call. Thank you. As I think you’ve seen my approach is, I’ve let a number of these very small questions build up before I give an answer.

In answer to the member’s question around whether or not the Progressive Home Ownership scheme was business as usual, I would say this is far from business as usual. If we look around the number of families across the entirety of times that Governments have worked with community housing providers (CHPs) and indeed community housing providers have engaged in progressive homeownership schemes over a period spanning more than a decade, we have seen 1,000 New Zealanders helped into homeownership through progressive homeownership over a very long, long period of time. What this Government is talking about is a $400 million fund, which is as far from business as usual as you could get. It is a game-changer. We’re talking about helping a set of families—somewhere between 1,500 and 4,000—into homeownership through this. So we can see, in terms of the quantum, that that is entirely different.

As for why there is the spread—the member Jacqui Dean asked why it was there was this spread—the spread is because, the answer is, it depends on what income level the family is at that you make the intervention. There are some families that we are hoping to help into homeownership that may be earning as low as $50,000 a year, for whom homeownership is simply not an option if it were not for an intervention like our Progressive Home Ownership scheme. But you will also see, if you look through the materials, the upper income level for assistance into progressive homeownership is $130,000. This will be a much lighter touch scheme and could well be one of the direct provisions through Kāinga Ora that was discussed last Friday when the materials were released. So the continuum around the level of support that families need varies from family to family, and the amount of wraparound support that needs to be put there.

The member Alfred Ngaro asked about what the divide between the CHPs and Kāinga Ora is likely to be in terms of the provision of the 8,000 additional public and transitional houses that were announced in this Budget. Of course, I think what it is important to remember in an approach this Government has taken, that differs somewhat from what has happened in the past, is we haven’t just announced a number or a quantum of State houses to be built; what we announced in the Budget was actually the Income Related Rent Subsidy (IRRS) that is fully funded for that period of time. So you’ll see in the Estimates that there is $570 million appropriated for appraised IRRS.

What will happen, of course, in terms of the building of those houses, is that Kāinga Ora will raise the capital off its own balance sheet to build its share. The split of 70:30 that Alfred Ngaro referred to is, of course, historically what has been the split that we’ve seen in the provision between the community housing sector and Housing New Zealand, or, as it is now, Kāinga Ora. Of course, I do acknowledge that when you’re talking about 30 percent of very little, as we saw prior to 2017, that is a far lower number than 30 percent of a much larger number. So, when we’re talking about what that split will be, that is something that we are still working through, because we would, of course, looking to the future, have to see what capacity was there.

The other question, I think, that was asked that is outstanding is going back to Progressive Home Ownership and asking if this was business as usual, around the families that were moving in in Queenstown. No, these houses were started in early 2020. The families that will be moving in, the first tranche of families, actually, these agencies have been working with in anticipation of this funding, because, of course, this money has been signalled much earlier, and we have been in a very intensive engagement with the community housing providers that are engaged in Progressive Home Ownership ahead of the roll-out. So this is bespoke work that is only happening because this Government is putting such a large investment into Progressive Home Ownership.

There were, in fact, three questions that were unanswered by the Minister in the chair, the Hon Megan Woods, and I know this because I took a note of them on the way through. And so I can assume several things. I can assume that the Minister doesn’t want to answer them, I can assume that the Minister cannot answer them, or I can assume that the Minister’s paperwork is a little informal, which means that the Minister has overlooked to answer them. And in light of the fact that this Estimates examination is a conversation, I am very happy for the Minister to get to her feet and answer each question as it is posed, which will allow perhaps a more efficient process from the Opposition’s point of view, because, after all, this examination is the Opposition’s opportunity to ask questions of the Minister.

So I will go through those questions again and I invite—I am very happy to ask one at a time but I do have several outstanding. I have three outstanding, so I’m very happy to ask one at a time and, hopefully, that will facilitate the Minister. Having already asked those questions several minutes ago, I’m quite sure that will enable the Minister to respond to each question as it is posed. So I did ask how many KiwiBuild houses have been built to date in this term of Government.

Thank you and apologies. I did have that sitting there to answer, and more than happy to answer it. The total number built to date has been 452. That’s an additional 57 this month. Of course, there’s been two months where there haven’t been additions to the KiwiBuild tally—to be expected when construction ceased under COVID restrictions. But also this dashboard is to be released later this afternoon, so this is hot off the press: 278 State houses were also built in this period, and eight community houses, and Kāinga Ora also built 61 market houses.

Just to refresh the committee, what was the original target number for KiwiBuild houses to be constructed in this term of Parliament?

As the member is well aware, in September of last year we did a reset, where actually we did away with the targets that were set. So, in terms of how we’re tracking against the target, the target was as many as we can as quickly as we can, so I think we’re tracking pretty well.

Thank you. Why did the Government give away the target in September last year against the target they set for this term of Government?

Of course, being forward-looking Estimates questions here—but I’m happy to traverse some of the reasons, because I think they are important as to why it was that we did away with the target. What we were seeing was that actually the emphasis around KiwiBuild needing to be around building the right house in the right place wasn’t being fulfilled by the perpetual chasing of a target. What we saw was some perverse outcomes where some homes were built or acquired because there was the pursuit of the target. We as a Government—and what we are indicating in these Estimates that we are here to debate today—are a Government that is committed to ensuring we are helping New Zealanders into affordable homeownership and we need to ensure that we are building the right house in the right place.

The fact that we have sold, over time, over 500 houses to first-home buyers that have been helped into affordable homeownership is a record that actually we can be pretty proud of in one three-year term of Government, when we reflect that the previous Government over nine years helped only 100 people through their special housing areas into affordable homeownership through the provision of specially priced affordable housing. So we will continue to build as many houses as we can as quickly as we can, because I know, when I go around the country and I meet some of the individuals and families who are having this ability for homeownership that they wouldn’t otherwise have been able to have, how much it is transforming their lives.

The Minister didn’t quite answer my question. My question was: what was the number of KiwiBuild houses announced as the target for this Government this term? Madam Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): The Hon Jacqui Dean.

Oh, thank you. With regards to the homeownership project—and I am sorry the Minister couldn’t provide the committee with the number which was the original target. We’ve heard about the reset, we’ve heard an amount of houses today, but we haven’t heard about the original target. So we’re not getting the complete picture today, but that’s all right. Moving on to the Progressive Home Ownership announcement which the Minister made, I did ask the Minister—this is another question which the Minister had not answered, and it would be good to get an answer now—why were two goals announced as part of the Progressive Home Ownership stage 1?

Sorry, can the member please repeat that question? Was it why were two goals proposed?

The question to the Minister was that in phase 1 of the Progressive Home Ownership initiative announced, there would be between 1,500 and 4,000 houses built, and my question is: why two goals?

Oh, sorry, I did address this in a previous answer that I gave. It’s 1,500 and 4,000, is the spread of families, not houses, and I think that’s really important to remember, that we’re talking about families and groups here, not the construction of houses necessarily. But the spread is such because it depends about the ultimate mix that we work with the sector around. If we choose to help more people who are towards the household income of $50,000, that will require higher levels of support. It will be more intensive. But if we have a larger cohort of people more towards the $130,000, which is the cap, clearly more people will be used. We are working through with the sector. We have made policy decisions as a Government that we want to be making sure that we are working right across that continuum and making sure we are helping substantial numbers of people who are more towards the $50,000 per annum household income end of the spectrum, because this is a group of people who are shut out of homeownership, and without an intervention such as our Government has put in place, they would never get the opportunity at homeownership.

But we also know, working with the sector, that we do require a balanced portfolio of properties across this. This is a 10- to 15-year recyclable fund. We do need to make sure that we’ve got some balance of risk within the portfolio, so we’ve communicated this throughout the time that we’ve been developing the programme—that it is important to have that cross-section of people in there—but it is certainly our Government’s policy objective to be helping people who would otherwise be shut out of homeownership, and that is why there is the spread between 1,500 and 4,000. It’s not two goals; it’s a spread.

Thank you. How will we measure the success of the Government’s new Progressive Home Ownership programme in phase 1 if, on the one hand, the goal is 1,500 New Zealanders assisted into homes and, on the other hand, the goal is 4,000? How is the Minister going to measure the success of the Progressive Home Ownership initiative?

I think there’s some confusion on the part of the member. Phase 1 isn’t 1,500 to 4,000; the entire Progressive Home Ownership system is 1,500 to 4,000. Phase 1, the two initiatives that we launched on Friday and that we talked about in terms of the Auckland scheme and the Queenstown scheme, is 100 families. The way in which we’ll measure it will be quite simple: we’ll count the number of families.

Thank you. So, taking phase 1 out of it, then, how will the Government measure the success of the Progressive Home Ownership fund when the goals are between 1,500 and 4,000 homes?

The same way in which we’ll measure the success of phase 1, in that we will count the number of families who are being helped. What we have said is that this is a fund that will help between 1,500 and 4,000 families into homeownership, and we will track the number of families who are helped into homeownership.

So, in other words, there isn’t a goal. So there isn’t a goal—just to be quite clear, because I think families in New Zealand who are looking to this Progressive Home Ownership scheme are probably looking for some certainty. But I will move back to KiwiBuild. The Minister told us that with regards to the underwritten homes, the Government purchased 186 underwritten homes and has sold a number of them. Can the Minister update us as to how many homes had been sold at the time of the Estimates, and how many of those homes remain unsold one month later?

I’m happy to give an update on that. Actually, I can give you the latest data that will be published this afternoon. To date, 589 KiwiBuild properties have been sold, and 302 remain available to buy.

Thank you. With regards to the Monark development, acknowledging the Minister’s work in that situation, where the Minister noted she was sympathetic to the buyers who haven’t been able to get into the KiwiBuild homes, it must have been awful for those families who should have been in their homes now to face uncertainty and delays for the next two years. The Minister did tell the committee that she is confident that any KiwiBuild apartments that have not been sold or have had their contracts exited would be resold quickly. Can she tell the committee how many of those KiwiBuild apartments have now been sold?

I’m unable to give the member a precise update. If she’s happy to put that in writing, I’ll answer it, as I have many times before. But what I can report is that there was very strong interest in those apartments that the developer was reporting to us.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am delighted that we are now going to move on to a period of time to consider answers relating to the Minister for Children and the Minister for Seniors, and happy that that same Minister holds both portfolios. So welcome to the Hon Tracey Martin.

My colleague the Hon Alfred Ngaro was here waiting very patiently and preparing for some time and now has had to ask me just to ask some questions, if I may—first relating to the children’s portfolio, Minister, and, in particular, relating to the impact of COVID-19 on children and, in particular, those who are vulnerable. So I’ve got a few questions that I’ll ask and I’m happy for the Minister either to indicate to me through perhaps a nod if she’d like to answer each one individually or wait until the end. Let’s hope that we can get a good, free flow of ideas going on.

In particular, Minister, I’m looking to hear what analysis has been done to date on the needs of children and young people, in response to the COVID experience, and what issues COVID has identified and where additional support might be needed. The first specific question is, as I say, what initial work has been done and what further research and work is being planned to assist the impact of COVID-19 on children and young people? And what are the insights into their future needs? As I say, I’ve got some other questions. If you’d like to answer now, I’m happy to sit down.

Thank you. Just to let the member know that, under the current structure, I have approximately 19 minutes for the rest of the complete amount of Estimates, so my answers will be somewhat short and to the point, I hope, and make sense.

With regard to analysis by Oranga Tamariki around how our carers and how our children that were in care were managing through the COVID lockdown period, there was constant contact with our carers to make sure that they had what they needed, whether that be—not entertainment—workbooks and so on and so forth for young people to continue to be engaged during the period of time that we were all in lockdown; whether there was a requirement to provide digital devices to some of our families, and some of the children’s whānau was also part of what were the conversations that were taking place with Oranga Tamariki; and making sure that our carers had access to their social workers or the helpline or whatever to manage incidents. During the time of COVID, children were still taken into care and taken into safety, often at the request of the police, where they had to deal with family violence incidents.

Since COVID, as people have transitioned back out—and, unfortunately, I can’t answer for every child in New Zealand—obviously the Ministry of Education has been doing a lot of work around transitioning some of our young people back into education and into other areas of support. But, from an Oranga Tamariki perspective, we have made sure that we have transitioned back our families, tried to get the children that were able to have communication with their whānau and families during the period of lockdown, as consistently as possible, whether that be through a digital device predominantly, because of the bubble situation. My understanding is that the information I’ve had back from the carers and the children, via Oranga Tamariki, is that they felt well supported and that they had the things that they needed.

I thank the Minister for that answer, and I acknowledge the fact that, yes, we are—well, actually, I want to get on to seniors as well, because that, of course, is my portfolio, but I am just wanting to cover off a couple of crucial things for the Hon Alfred Ngaro. I think, to some extent, actually, with one of the other questions that he asked me to raise, the Minister has just touched on it. But I just ask her, specifically, how has COVID-19 impacted on Oranga Tamariki’s ability to conduct assessments and provide support for children? I know that she alluded to that a moment ago, but maybe she could just give us a little bit more detail. And I’ll hand back to the Hon Alfred Ngaro.

I thank the member. So, again, just very quickly, Oranga Tamariki was somehow ahead of the pack with regard to Government departments and their ability to immediately switch to a digital environment. They had just updated all their digital equipment. They had better resourced their social workers with iPads and so on so that their actual recordkeeping could improve. So what that meant was we were able to switch quite quickly to working from home.

If I recall correctly, the number of assessments being able to be done increased dramatically and the time frame under which they were done became much shorter, and that was because there was the ability to spend time and focus on those. My understanding is that some of the time frames where we had difficulty placing social workers on our 0800 number, on our helpline—like late in the evening, etc., etc., because that is quite a hard shift generally to fill with people who have families of their own—that went away during lockdown because we were able to provide them with a secure space inside their own home to be able to manage and to stay online, for our families and for those who had concerns around children.

I can provide greater detail about the numbers of assessment—I get that on a regular basis through my status meetings—but, with regard to assessment, the numbers increase, they were done under a shorter time frame.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So, just following on from that line of questioning to the Minister in the chair, the Hon Tracey Martin, is one of the areas that the Minister has talked about in regards to preparation around assessments: can the Minister comment in regard to, I suppose, what’s recently been coming up but relates to the Estimates in regards to the allocation of resource and intent around that assessment where there’s been a number of cases where, at the front line, there have been challenges in regards to those assessments? We’ve had cases that have come before us where the assessments, for instance, have been more online—by teleconference rather than by person to person. I don’t want to delve into the detail, but I’m trying to stay high level. I can hear what the Minister’s saying with the intent. Well, it seems that we’re not quite seeing that as it’s rolling out at the front line, and we’re having a number of cases come up.

Another case, if I could bring it to the Minister’s attention, was just in regards to the youth justice facility, for instance, out in Manurewa, where just recently that’s happened. Again, the intent in the Estimates was about providing a secure place for placements for those in youth residential facilities, and yet what we’re seeing is that that doesn’t seem to be the case. The communities are now starting to ask these questions. So I asked it in Estimates, in respect of the chair, but this seems to be now being challenged in regards to what’s happening on the front line as well.

One last question, which borders on parts of the Minister being involved in, was just around child poverty, and I hope I’m able to ask the Minister that question, because the Minister for Children has some responsibility in regards to supporting that. It’s just that in the child poverty indicators, what we are still seeing is—in regards to children in hardship and benefit-dependent households—more of an increase rather than a decrease in that fact, and yet it’s quite clear in the Estimates that part of the plan and the purpose was to see the reduction. Yet in the 10 key indicators—CPIs: child poverty indicators—what we are seeing too, in particular, around those in child benefit - dependent households, prior to COVID, there still is an increase. So I wonder if the Minister can make some comment to that.

Just to address the two issues first—the member talked about challenges on the front line around assessments—the initial question was with regard to assessments during the COVID period, so that was what I was talking about. With regard to assessments and being challenged on the front line, I’m assuming the member is switching from the number of assessments and how those assessments were done to actually individual assessments that are now being challenged—so were they assessed appropriately? I will not stand here and say that Oranga Tamariki is still not making steps to improve from who they were as Child, Youth and Family. So there are still challenges, and we need to see those challenges come forward. They need to be owned by the agency. They need to be owned by myself and Government, and then actions need to be taken to improve on the social work practices that are on the front line.

Part of what we are also seeing is when social workers who are not of a standard to deliver the protection and care that we expect as a nation for our children need to leave the service of Oranga Tamariki. Part of what we are seeing inside the noises around this particular topic is some of those people having to leave the service of Oranga Tamariki because as social workers their standard is not high enough. It is a journey—still a journey—and the member knows that to be true, but it must be one that shows progress to the New Zealand people. So I take on board his comments around assessment, and I require the agency to own when an assessment has not been appropriate, move in, find out why, and fix it. I still require that of them. They have the resourcing to do so; they need to continue to do so.

With regard to youth justice, the member, I think, is referring to a recent article in the newspaper where two young people broke through a window and escaped out into the general public, though both those young people are now back with us and inside the youth justice system. Quite rightly, the New Zealand public, again, has the right to ask questions. How did this happen? What action is being taken to stop it from happening again? There is an internal investigation happening now inside the youth justice part of Oranga Tamariki to clarify how this came about. It is my expectation that when that has been finished, as much of it that can be made public should be made public, because every part of the re-creation of this agency must be about New Zealanders trusting that they are doing their job, they are not hiding behind privacy or anything else when it comes to accountability about how they are delivering. I would say, however, we don’t put barbed wire fences around our youth justice facilities. So we have this constant tension between incarcerating young people who need to be incarcerated but, at the same time, making sure that we are still keeping hope that these young people have an opportunity to change the path which they are on and be better human beings for New Zealand.

With regard to the last part of the member’s question, I apologise to the member that I’m not going to be able to give a massively in-depth answer to what he asked me about. I’ll go away and endeavour to do that in writing. But I think one of the things that we are going to have to accept as a nation in a post-COVID world is that there are going to be more of our families that, before housing costs and after housing costs, are actually going to be sitting at a level where we, as a Government—whoever is sitting on this side of the House after 19 September—is going to have to address how we better support our families and move forward on what are now targets in legislation to address child poverty inside New Zealand.

Before I call the member—thank you—can I just say that the member and the Minister probably went well outside the scope of the Estimates, but I thought the question and the answer were both given very respectfully, and allowed them to run, but if we could—that’s my error, but I found it very interesting, and I shouldn’t have allowed myself to have been distracted. So, if the member the Hon Tim Macindoe could return to the Estimates, that would be appreciated.

Not only could I do that, could I ask the Minister now to take off her hat as children’s Minister and put on the seniors hat. Of course, we have touched on COVID, and COVID was a big discussion during the Estimates hearing for seniors. The reason I think this is so important is, of course, seniors were the group in our community most affected in the most serious ways by COVID. So could I ask the Minister—and we did touch on this in the Estimates hearing—to update us on the issues that related to seniors during lockdown, in access to health services, accessing prescriptions, and, in particular, what I’m interested in knowing is the impact of deferred surgeries and the planning that is now being done, because, obviously, there’s a huge impact on the health system for that. What advice has she now received about the impact on waiting lists of deferred surgeries for seniors? What has she learnt about the further physical and mental suffering and deterioration that seniors have experienced during that period? And what recommendations is she now making to the Minister of Health and the Ministry of Health about how seniors may be cared for better should we, God forbid, find ourselves suffering another pandemic or perhaps going into regional lockdown?

Thank you. I thank the member for his question. He will be aware from the Estimates that the Office for Senior Citizens has a very small budget, so, therefore, most of what we do we do on the smell of an oily rag, and we actually do it with a very loud voice.

So, to address some of the questions that the member asked with regard to our seniors during the lockdown period, it became necessary for a member of the Office for Senior Citizens to be placed on the crisis committee to make sure that they were constant, that view of seniors was brought to any decision around what we were doing as a nation to protect all of the 5 million. I think what was wonderful to see out the other side of it, and part of this was actually—and this does go to the Estimates and the budget that is there for the Office for Senior Citizens—the promotion of those NGOs, iwi organisations, Māori organisations who stepped up to deliver services to our seniors to make sure that we had fewer suffering from isolation and loneliness during that time and made sure that they were able to be supported to get food, medicines, and so on and so forth.

With regard to the second part of the member’s question, which is around health services, I have seen a paper recently, and I don’t think the Minister of Health has spoken yet, around the Government’s response to the delay due to COVID of elective surgeries. So I hoped that the Minister of Health would be here. There is obviously a mix of age demographics inside that elective surgery delay—that pool of people who have not been able to gain the surgeries that they might need—but the Minister of Health has, as I say, presented a paper just recently to Cabinet, and I hope that he will be able to inform the member in more detail inside the health Estimates.

I thank the Minister for those answers. Could I turn now to the issue of a champion for the elderly, which, of course, has been given considerable public weight through the petition from Mark Sainsbury. I note that all three parties in the current coalition and confidence and supply arrangement in Government were committed, coming into office, to the creation of that office; and yet, three years later, Minister, nothing has happened. So I’m wondering whether you could explain why that is and whether, perhaps, that commitment is going to be renewed by the current parties, because it is a matter that is of considerable interest at every Grey Power meeting or event of that type that I attend. It’s the question that I’m asked, and I’m sure she is as well.

Minister Salesa actually has responsibility as the Associate Minister of Health and has done some preparatory work around a health commissioner to do with a specific focus on the aged. Unfortunately, as she was working through that piece of work, COVID happened, and so many pieces of work needed to be placed on hold during that period of time. What I can say to the member is I do believe that every party in the current Government is dedicated to having an advocate and representative on behalf of what is going to be one-fifth of our population by 2036. There is a difference of opinion between different parties. And I think Mr Sainsbury’s petition was more around one focused specifically on aged healthcare. Myself, I have already advocated from the Office for Seniors that actually we need to reallocate the $8 million that is set aside for the Financial Capability Commissioner and return that commissioner to being a Retirement Commissioner with responsibility, similar to the Children’s Commissioner, for advocacy and monitoring. So at this stage, unfortunately, due to COVID, we have not been able to progress, but there has been conversation and work done by the Government on that particular issue.

I thank the Minister, and, in fact, she has, to some extent, anticipated one of my next questions. I would make the point that I think she just referred to one-fifth of the population. In fact, now, about one-quarter of the New Zealand population can expect to live their lives in retirement after the age of 65. So, clearly, this is a very significant group and, as I say, a very significant issue.

Could I just ask her very quickly what her thinking is as to whether or not, if it were to be created, it would be done so as a stand-alone position similar to the Children’s Commissioner or maybe one under the umbrella of the Human Rights Commission, the Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner, the Ministry of Health, and such?

I thank the member. I think the fact that there’s going to be 1.2 million New Zealanders over the age of 65 by 2036, in my view, it needs to be a stand-alone commissioner, similar to the Children’s Commissioner, with advocacy rights independent of Government but to Government and also with monitoring rights over retirement villages and rest homes. I believe that the Ombudsman’s recently given powers at the moment around dementia wards is appropriate for the place for that to stay, and I believe that the Financial Capability Commissioner’s role has been superseded by other roles. So, therefore, there is a budget that could be switched across for an independent office similar to the Children’s Commissioner.

Again, I thank the Minister. We’re both rushing, so I hope the people listening will understand that that’s being forced upon us, but I transfer, now, attention to the issue of elder abuse, which, of course, is one of the great scourges that our seniors live with. That can of course be physical, it can be emotional, or it can be financial—they’re all horrific—and, most disturbingly, it’s often perpetrated by those who should be caring, either as family members or caregivers, for the seniors who are being abused.

So can I ask the Minister for an update as to how this particular problem is being tackled, how much publicity is being given to it—and by “publicity”, I mean how much education is being provided—to try to ensure that everybody who needs to be able to detect it and prevent it is able to do that. What are the trends, and how significant is this particular issue in the Minister’s current order of priorities as the seniors Minister? Sorry, that’s a lot—a big mouthful—but I hope you’ll have a go.

I thank the member Tim Macindoe, and he’s right that it’s unfortunate we have a very short period of time for such an incredibly large issue. With regard to elder abuse, from a finance perspective—from an Estimates perspective—there is money that has been set aside. With the joint venture, there has been a greater focus, and a greater amount of money has been set aside to support services that provide a helpline or whatever to those who are experiencing elder abuse or who believe they know of somebody who is experiencing elder abuse. I’m aware that some of our banks and other businesses have actually started to upskill their employees around the recognition of elder abuse.

But I would have to say—and we saw it at the beginning of lockdown—that I think it was particularly interesting the way that seniors were spoken about by some members of the media. For example, it was quite all right to decide that we could lose a number of seniors so that we could keep business going. I think that in an attempt to protect those over the age of 70, we saw some inappropriate comments with regard to how they should go home, stay home, and not be allowed out to get their food. What I’m saying to the member is that while we have invested more through these Estimates through the sexual violence and family violence joint venture work stream—and the Office for Seniors ran recently, again, another media campaign to highlight the issue and get recognition of what elder abuse looks like—we are certainly not there yet, and any future Government will need to invest more.

I had been hoping to touch on the issue of digital exclusion, which, again, was thrown into sharp perspective by lockdown, but I’m told by the senior whip that there’s only time for one more, so I do want to focus on what I think is a very alarming statistic, and that is the rate of suicide amongst our seniors, and, in particular, I’d just ask the Minister if that’s on her radar. I had, perhaps naively, assumed before I took over this role for the National Party as seniors spokesperson that suicide rates were lower amongst the seniors population than in other demographics, and, in fact, that’s not the case, but they are remarkably comparable. So it is a very distressing subject, but it’s clearly one that the Minister, in collaboration with her colleagues, will, I’m sure, be wanting to work on. I just wonder if she could give us a bit of an indication of the trends in the Government’s work programme in that area, please.

I thank the member for raising what is an incredibly important question. Around the mental health money that has been announced by this Government, what we can see is that this Government has acknowledged and financially resourced much greater access to mental health across New Zealand. But the member is right to point out that the impression is when you are over 65—and it’s on many fronts—that you have got a home; that you’ve got superannuation, and so, financially, you’re fine; that there are no challenges; that you’ve got a lovely life; and that you can go and just potter around and do this, that, and the other. That is not the reality for a growing number of seniors. Hence why, as Minister for Seniors, I have made sure that I have sat on as many ministerial groupings as possible to continue to bring that voice to the table. But what I can say to the member is that as part of the mental health money that has been put aside by this Government under these Estimates, seniors need to be seen and will be seen inside that envelope.

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