and can be deported, and the Minister, and he still
hasn't backed out, although he's indicated
he has new information. Of course he has.
It was obviously. He was
naive in his decision making. Mr
Speaker, thank you.
thank you. Thank you for this
opportunity to contribute to the general debate and
I would like
to acknowledge my colleague, the
colleague, the Minister of housing, the honourable
the honourable Phil Twyford, and commend in on the tremendous
amount of work that he
has put into the area of housing. Mr
Speaker, he came into Government 12 months ago. We
were faced with many challenges, and
housing is one of
those challenges that we faced. We were faced on the
lower end with the highest number of
the rate of
homelessness when compared to other OECD countriesment
and when we came in, in terms
of the housing portfolio, the honourable
Minister of housing has
several things that he's doing. One of
the thing that the Rt Honerable
PM Jacinda Ardern and the
Minister of housing announced in May of this
year was an
to house those who were homeless, to ensure that there are
more housing places for those who are needing
emergency housing, transitional
housing, and for those who
are needing to be housed in what we
call housing first. There are so many
of our folks who are homeless, who also
have mental health issues, addiction
issues and they need to be housed
first and to have all the other
social services surrounding them.
One of the things also that we're
facing is, we're told by a report
that in South Auckland
alone, in the area that they serve, there are
over 110,000 people who are
living to over crowded conditions. Now, the
housing crisis was one that took
nine years to develop and it was not
developed under our Government. It
took more than nine years to
develop, the housing crisis, and it
will definitely take more
than 12 months to address. One of the
things that I'm really proud of over the
weekend, which is historical for our
Coalition Government, is when we
went to Papakura and
we were seeing some of the first families go
into a KiwiBuild home. Because
when we're addressing housing, not only are we
looking at addressing homelessness,
but we're also ensuring that we
are assisting families to get
in to affordable housing. And when you see
families who are, families who,
say ten or 20 years ago, would be
able to afford a mortgage. Families
who are IT worker, IT developers,
teachers, those who are one
of the ladies who is
a doctor, with a partner who is in
marketing, who told us that they only have a hope
of owning a home now because they
feel like they've won the lottery
with KiwiBuild. Now, what is wrong
with that
with KiwiBuild. Now, what is wrong
over just a short period of time, we have professional families who are
not able to get into homeownership.
That is absolutely wrong, and we
have the largest city in
Auckland where homeownership
million. And what I can't understand is that as a government, we've come
in. Whereas the Opposition, now, the
previous National
previous National Government, when they were in
government and we were in Opposition, we were making
speeches it from that
side of the house saying that there is a
national housing crisis. So
many of the folks that were on this
side of the house denied, denied,
denied, that a housing crisis
even existed. Let's not forget that for
so long, who was in
Government over those last nine years denied that there
was even a housing crisis. I
go back to around about April or May
of 2016 where, in South Auckland
and Aotearoa, we were seeing
families living to cars and garages.
Familiaries that we're seeing
right around Aotearoa and New Zealand
now. When we showed families living in
cars, when we went to
parks, and there were half of those people who
were living in cars and parks,
working full time. The people who
were in this side of the House
that time still denied that
we had an issue with housing. We've come in
as a government. We're saying that
we'll build more houses. Yes,
we're building more
building more state houses because when we do not have enough houses,
we build houses to make sure
that people are hoursed. The Nationals
Government, when they were
in Government, they
Government, they sold off houses. Sold off over 6,000 state houses. We
are building 6,400
state houses because we need to house our
families who need to be
housed. Thank you. The honourable
Michael Woodhouse. Mr Speaker, I'm a
firm believer that the first
and foremost duty of a government is a protect
the people. Now, we can muck up the
small things. We can have
the people. Now, we can muck up the
working groups, but fundamentally and foremost, we protect them from
tyranny and enemies and
from harm. And in that fundamental duty,
the Government and its