McAnulty Kieran; O'Connor GregHon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. This report was really interesting reading and I believe that it did touch on many of the challenges facing housing in this country and of course no report of this size would touch on absolutely everything but there were aspects here which I think will inform those that take the time to read it. I do hope that it informs those that make policy decisions in Government and in Government departments.There were a couple of things that I thought it might be useful highlighting and that was touching on the trends that they have identified one of which of course is that there are people that earn an income that would on current numbers prevent them from accessing social housing but also isn't big enough for them to realistically expect to save for a deposit. And of course this is a topic that has been canvassed over the last couple of days. In addition to that it touches on a trend here that essentially means across the board be they Pākehā be they Māori or Pacific the projected rate of homeownership is to go down. Now there have been successive Governments that have promised to increase the housing supply. There have been recent Governments that have declined that there was a housing crisis. But if we are to draw anything from this at least it has to be said that there appears now to be a consensus in Parliament on both sides that the solution to this is in increasing supply. Where the disagreement in that debate appears to be is what role the State has to play in that.Is it the State's role to fund houses? We say yes. This Government believes that there is benefit in changing rules and requiring councils and all those sorts of things and I'd note the nature of this debate isn't to comment on that specifically but to comment on this report and the trends that it identifies. But I mentioned that because I think that is the crux of the problem. In order to fix the housing crisis that we face that this report refers to over four different areas there actually does need to be some consensus moving forward. And that worries me a bit. I'm sure we've all heard it—and not that we agree with it but we would have heard it from time to time—that for those who perhaps don't take too much notice of politics there's not much difference between the National and Labour parties. Well of course we would disagree. There are areas where there are fundamental differences—like workplace relations for example—and one of those I think is housing. But I don't think we're far off because in here it touches on the need to identify the trends moving forward. So we're going to have to address Māori and Pacific housing. That is going to require a change in attitude to programmes that are effective directed directly targeting and run by those particular groups that are going to benefit. There were programmes; there aren't now. Perhaps that could be reconsidered.Very similarly this identifies that older people are particularly prone at the moment and are projected to be even more so to homelessness or the inability to be able to own their own home—86 percent not that long ago of those over 65 owned their own home. That's projected to be lower than 50 very shortly and that's a worry. So the question needs to be: are those provisions that are currently in place catering for the older person? Now I'm sure we can all think of an example where perhaps an older person or a couple are living in their family home their children have moved out it's now too big and they're looking around to downsize because they want another family to move into their home and have the life that they had. There's nowhere to go. There are no single rooms. There are no double-room units. There is somewhere to go if they can afford it if they can afford to go into a very corporate aged-care retirement-type village. Not everyone can. But the provision of houses despite the fact that there has been tremendous progress over the last six years I don't think is yet catering for that particular group and the need will only continue to grow.So I'm hopeful that if the last speech is anything to go by they will take this seriously but they will I think need to reflect on a couple of things in order to get there. Thank you sir.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Thank you. Just for those speakers to come we've had a pure non-political speech and one that was probably getting close to the edge so we'll be looking for people to be in the middle of those two. Thank you.