O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you Mr Chair. I'm really quite interested to get back to the annual reviews rather than the speeches we've been getting for the Minister looking forward but I do want to draw on one thing that the Minister resuming the chair was focused on. It's always big into those current buzzwords about consensus and diversity and bringing together 11 members of a diverse consensus public—to do what? To bring about 42 recommendations. That was arguably a very diverse range of conclusions but do you know of those 42 recommendations that the Minister has waxed lyrical about the hard work three—Hon Dr Nick Smith: That can't be true.SIMON O'CONNOR: One two three—it is true. It's shockingly true. And the problem is of course is that the fruit of diversity? Is that the fruit of a broad consensus-based group? No that is the fruit of incompetence and we are seeing that more and more of course as we move towards the Budget.Looking across the annual reviews—Andrew Bayly: The Fudge It"!SIMON O'CONNOR: Not the "Fudge It"; the Budget. Housing First—I think we acknowledged as we went through the select committee it is a positive project. I think we have to acknowledge Amy Adams in particular in the National Party and the Canadians for introducing it—great to see that the Labour Party's picked up on that. But where the wheels very very quickly fall off actually first and foremost starts in my own electorate of Tāmaki. We had a huge hoopla at the last Budget announcing—big press release from the Minister of Housing and Urban Development Phil Twyford—"2100 more homes in Tāmaki" and as the member for Tāmaki I decided to dig into that. Actually there are not more houses; it's just going into the same number already. I would suggest a false statement and I challenged officials in the House and particularly when the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company came in front of me because I said "The Minister made a big announcement—extra money 2100 more homes here's the press release." What did they tell me? No that's not the case—not the case. That for me just sums up this Government.I'm not even going to get on to KiwiBuild; it's not even worth it. In fact I've probably used in this short sentence more words than houses that have been built by KiwiBuild but I will pick up on the whole meth-testing side of things. It's a challenge to the Minister that as the pendulum swung from the accusation of National that we were too hard on a Government that's now basically making excuses for everyone—yep 963 families. Soft on drugs: potentially there. Yep some might have been falsely accused but all 963 including those who were regularly smoking meth have not only been let off the hook not only been taken off the hook but paid out—paid out.Hon Phil Twyford: False standards set. Shameful.SIMON O'CONNOR: I'm hearing the other side talking about standards. There are no standards there are no regulations; we've been asking questions about where these regulations are. They're not there. There are no regulations there are no numbers there's no nothing. It's as bad as the 43 or the 42. In fact no evictions no tenancy reviews private landlords leaving the market. What has become abundantly clear when we went through this review is that the housing market is getting completely completely out of control. In fact there were two things which illustrate it. When we did this review when we were bringing MSD and the Ministry of Housing in there were 6600 people on the waiting list. That was only last year. It's now over 11000.Maureen Pugh: What?SIMON O'CONNOR: Indeed. It's now over 11000. So it's almost doubled—almost doubled. In fact in my prediction the next quarter will be worse. [Member coughs] There's my voice. It'll be worse. In fact I'm trying to do an Andrew Bayly clearly. It'll be worse. Now the big thing here is that so much has been said tonight by those on the other side about the amazing work they are doing but it shows in the numbers that it is not working. The decisions around no tenancy reviews the decision not to evict when there's been horrendous behaviour and particularly those of us who are constituent MP who get the complaints and there is absolutely nothing we can do when flaming phone books are being thrown over the fence when people's houses have been bottled when children are being abused by blimmin' drug-ridden meth-ridden tenants then we've got problems. But this Government ignores that and they just talk a big game about their diverse broad consensus work groups that are first and foremost doing the work the Government should have done and then delivering nothing—42 recommendations three implemented.Finally the last real humdinger and I hope it's not stealing my colleague's—Maureen Pugh: Yes.SIMON O'CONNOR: Well anyway I'm not going to do it because I would have stolen my colleague's—in fact I'm going to finish with stealing though because fundamentally this Government to date whenever there has been some success in housing has effectively stolen the National Party's ideas. It doesn't matter if it's the work that Nick Smith did with housing on Waimahia. It doesn't matter if it's got to do with Housing First; we've done a fantastic job and I'm pleased to see on the good parts that this current Government has only continued to do what National did."