SpeechHon POTO WILLIAMS (Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing)): Thank you Madam Chair and it's a real pleasure to be able to take a call in this debate. I do want to respond to the member from the ACT Party Brooke van Velden's question with regards to safety for tenants. Regardless of their situation everyone should feel safe in their home and I don't think that we have any other expectations that that should be the case. What I do want to push back against is the notion that people who have the opportunity to live in a Kāinga Ora home are somehow more violent or unsafe than others and I want to absolutely refute that. The people in Kāinga Ora homes are people who are great neighbours great tenants and great contributors to their community and long may we champion them. I have to say that Kāinga Ora provides housing for those who may find it difficult to find housing in other places. It may be because they have health concerns mental health concerns drug issues or other challenging life situations. That does not mean that they do not deserve to be housed in homes that are warm dry and affordable and are able to take part in their communities like anyone else. I do have to say that this has come about—there are issues where some antisocial behaviour has occurred and there has been quite a lot of work done with Kāinga Ora in order to address those issues. Because as I say all tenants deserve to be safe and where concerns are raised about those who are in Kāinga Ora tenancies Kāinga Ora has acted. You may recall that towards the end of last year there was quite a lot of discourse in the public arena around antisocial behaviour—that happens across all of our neighbourhoods not just the neighbourhoods where Kāinga Ora tenancies are. But Kāinga Ora has taken the decision to ensure that we do everything we can to provide the support and what needs to go in place to make sure people sustain their tenancies. It is a policy that started under the National Government where we were faced with thousands of people across the country living in cars and at that time—and it's a policy that we have continued with; it's about finding the solutions for people to sustain their tenancies but acknowledging that there are times when that behaviour is at a level where Kāinga Ora must act. So at the beginning of this year they instituted a policy whereby if there were three significant antisocial events around a tenancy within a period of 30 days the intensive team would step in and help to resolve that issue. Now that doesn't mean that tenancies were ended; it means that there may be issues around health or other kinds of challenging life concerns where some support can be provided to keep people in their homes because at the end of the day we want to try and do that. But if we've exhausted all of those opportunities and we're still unable to resolve the significant issues then Kāinga Ora may look at exiting that person from that tenancy. That's at the very end of trying to resolve these issues because as I say they do their upmost to keep their people in their tenancies—that is what we do. But it is also for us to acknowledge that we have a role to support our whānau who live in Kāinga Ora homes to feel as welcome as they can be in their communities and I absolutely refute some of the assertions in this House that to be in a Kāinga Ora home means that you are by the very nature of the fact that you are a Kāinga Ora tenant to be less safe than others. And that is completely completely wrong—they are fantastic tenants they build fantastic communities and from time to time they need a little extra support to stay in those tenancies and I for one am completely supportive of the fact that Kāinga Ora has done that. Significant issues they may have to deal with but if you are the landlord of a last resort—which they are—you will do everything you can to keep people in their whare.