Bradford Sue: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Bradford Sue: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:645;Page:14135] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 The Prime Minister’s statement today covered a number of areas critical to the future of this country and I would like to take this opportunity to respond to a few of them in particular further to the contribution made by Jeanette Fitzsimons earlier this afternoon. First of all the Green Party welcomes the priority given by the Prime Minister to the issue of housing affordability and to new initiatives such as the ones the Hon Maryan Street has just been talking about—that is the large-scale mixed developments proposed for Hobsonville and Tamaki. I am thrilled to hear about the possibilities at Papakura and Weymouth as well and I hope there will be more. These are the sorts of bold new projects that are so urgently required meeting a combination of different needs without pushing relentlessly out past the metropolitan urban limits as some would seem to advocate. 
We are also interested in what will come of the very overdue review of public land holdings and the assessment of what land is actually available within the urban limits now. These and other proposals made today serve to show up in stark relief the inadequacy I am afraid of the small bill on housing affordability currently before the House and it would be great if the Government could move quickly either to extend the scope and nature of that bill or to withdraw it and introduce a new one that will much more adequately reflect the urgency of housing need in many parts of the country. I believe there would be a lot of support for such a bill. 
The Green Party also welcomes the Government’s commitment to supporting the not-for-profit housing sector but there are a few questions I would like to ask about that. What will that commitment actually mean? Is the Housing New Zealand Corporation consulting not-for-profit organisations in the housing sector on the development of its policy in this area and the nature of the new strategy or will the corporation simply impose its own vision on top of a beleaguered and under-funded sector in contravention of all community development principles? Is the Government seriously considering resourcing community sector housing at a level that will mean the groups involved can actually begin to achieve their potential—that is in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars not just in a few million dollars a year—or will the sector continue to be very much the disrespected poor relation of the State and private sector? Will Housing New Zealand continue to muddle local government and the community sector together as if they are one and same thing or will it finally wake up to the fact that the State and the not-for-profit sector are actually quite different parts of the economy? I hope those of us with an interest in this area will get answers to these questions and that one day soon third sector housing will take its rightful place as a fully fledged contributor to meeting social housing need in this country. 
Beyond this I also call on the Government to urgently wake up to and acknowledge the reality of homelessness in Aotearoa. Neither major party here nor I believe most of the smaller parties seem to comprehend the extent and nature of homelessness in this country. Homelessness is not just about people who sleep out in parks cars bus shelters and the rest; it is also about those citizens who do not have any permanent shelter of their own and spend their lives moving from couch to floor to bed in the homes of others. It also includes those who are forced to live long-term in accommodation that does not in any way meet even their most basic physical and psychological needs—for example in cow sheds caravan parks wood sheds wool sheds and garages under boats and so on. Even worse many children brought up in these kinds of circumstances suffer life-long consequences as a result of poverty and transience and a lack of the basic essentials of life. This is a reality that a lot of New Zealanders are simply not aware of but it is happening all around New Zealand right now. The Green Party continues to work for the day when we have a Government that recognises this reality works from the understanding that homelessness actually is not a choice begins to measure the true nature and extent of homelessness in New Zealand accurately and takes the final and most important step of doing something about it by accepting an obligation to house all not just some of those in need in secure affordable and adequate housing. 
The second area I would like to touch on briefly is in regard to the revised funding arrangements for community organisations that contract to the Ministry of Social Development in order to provide key services for families children and young people. I am thrilled to see that the Government is finally acknowledging the total inadequacy of current funding arrangements and is pledging an ongoing relationship based on full and fair resourcing rather than expecting groups like those working for refuge parenting and family violence programmes to have to spend their lives fundraising to make up the gaps while burning out generations of volunteers and paid staff whose wages are way lower than those of the public servants who demand the world from them in terms of accountability. I look forward to seeing how the new arrangements will work out in practice and await with anticipation the day when the principles announced today are applied across the whole of Government in its relationships with community and voluntary sector organisations. 
Finally I think we are all very well aware that a lot has been said in the last few weeks by Helen Clark John Key and others about children and young people. I want to say today clearly to the House on behalf of the Green Party that children and young people are not the problem. As a country we have made positive commitments for children but these commitments are largely yet to be realised. All our babies and children deserve access to their full entitlement of human rights including the right to grow up free from violence and free from poverty. It is a matter of justice that we prioritise this. It is also a matter of the long-term sustainability of our country—that concept we are all so fond of talking about right now. 
Unfortunately we seem to be going through one of those periods in public life when discussion of children and young people seems focused around a perception of them as being flawed incomplete or troubled. Youth crime youth drinking youth drug use child prostitutes young mothers boy racers young drop-outs layabouts—the list and the images go on. These simplicities dog-whistle to the age-old tendency of older people to see children and teenagers as a strange mix of immoral criminal and dumb—despite the fact that we tend not to see our own children in that way—and to believe that these young people and children are a danger we would do well to avoid and ultimately to oppress. If for example we look at drinking by age group then we see that 55 to 65-year olds are drinking the most of any age group almost five times as much in fact as teenagers. Likewise a number of older people of 40-plus are arrested and convicted of murder and many other serious offences every year not to mention many more of speeding or drunken driving charges yet we never hear phrases like “elderly drinkers” “grandad racers” or “middle-aged criminals”. 
Why are children and young people singled out? I suspect it is because they cannot fight back here in Parliament in the media or in other places of power. The never-ending criticism and denigration of at least some children and young people is a cynical abuse of privilege from those who have created this false division in our society a division that is no less pernicious than others such as those formed around ethnicity sex or sexuality. 
I am not saying that children and young people do not have or cause problems. Of course they do. Children and young people are indeed disproportionately victims of crime a few do commit crimes and many struggle to get their mental health needs met. On the latest figures 23 percent of our children are still growing up in poverty despite our current economic well-being. However the point is that their needs are like those of any group in our society and the solutions will not be found in ongoing stigmatisation or marginalisation. I acknowledge Helen Clark’s attempts to frame her policy agenda as an unlocking of the potential of children and young people but I continue to question the emphasis and limited scope that does seem still to tacitly pose young people as the problem. The Green Party believes in rational debate and solutions that are based on what works. The key factors are giving children and young people a voice building connectedness between people and focusing on building strengths not deficits. It is a holistic approach that strengthens everyone involved. 
I would like to issue a challenge to all members of this House and it is not very difficult. I challenge them to stop continually making young people the problem and to check that policy solutions involve young people and their answers and are based on the reality of their lives and not on preconceptions and misconceptions aimed at an easy and non-voting target. The rights of children are all too often posed in opposition to the rights of adults or parents. We know that the majority of young people involved in violent crime have been victims of violence and abuse and it is worth acknowledging the important action that a vast majority of those in the House tonight took last year to amend section 59 of the Crimes Act. That was an action to protect children and it is an example of the way in which Parliament when it chooses can prioritise rationality compassion and the views of children over misinformation and fearmongering.