Harawira Hone: Financial Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHarawira Hone: Financial Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 04 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16296. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]HONE HARAWIRA (Leader—Mana): Kia ora Mr Chairman. The first point I want to make about funding for affordable housing is how woefully inadequate the Social Housing Fund actually was particularly when you consider the staggeringly highneed and secondly how little of that woefully inadequate amount was actually spent on housing.I have got to highlight those figures here. Only $28 million was actually allocated and only $16 million was spent. How bad is that? The Government takes only 2 days to decide to spend $30 million on RioTinto but in a whole bloody year cannot spend $28 million on housing for the poor. How is that for poor performance? The Government got only $28 million but through bureaucratic inefficiency it managed to spend only $16 million and has delivered only 165 houses. What a shambles.But that is not the worst part. The worst part is that the Government’s policies are leading to huge numbers of low-income families being evicted from their homes State houses being disposed of and large tracts of State housing land being sold off to make way for high-end housing estates because National believes that the private sector is the best place to provide for housing. E hoaēharatērāi tepūrutūtaenoa iho.[Friend that’s simply just not bull’s droppings.]There is nowhere in the world where the private sector provides quality long-term affordable housing for the poor and it certainly ain’t happening here where thousands of families are forced to rent high-priced damp draughty and cold flats houses and caravans on the open market because the State no longer wants to bother.Those living in State houses are being shunted out of them as we speak—like the family who have lived in a home in Glen Innes for the past 33 years but are about to be evicted by Housing New Zealand this Friday as part of the sale of State properties to the private sector and the redevelopment of the area. Housing New Zealand says it is evicting the family for alleged antisocial behaviour. Is it not funny how a family can live in a house for 33 years without any major problems but the minute that mum speaks out against policies that have led to the eviction of friends and neighbours whom her family has known for decades all of a sudden her family are being evicted for antisocial behaviour? Betty has lived in Glen Innes all her life. She is a postal worker a cleaner a member of the Amalgamated Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union and a regular volunteer at the Glen Innes Primary School.Late last year Betty’s sister’s family were evicted from the home where their family had lived for 54 years. Betty herself has just come out of hospital where she underwent a procedure for breast cancer. She is tired she is unwell and now thanks to these Housing New Zealand policies she is about to become homeless. Betty’s family want to stay in their home and fight the eviction and the public are invited to support them by marching with her this Thursday at 6 p.m. on Taniwha Street in Glen Innes.The housing crisis in low socio-economic areas like Glen InnesPōmare and Maraenui has actually been worsened by Housing New Zealand policies that demonise poor families and devastate communities leaving empty houses and unsafe neighbourhoods. If that was not enough the Government is now reviewing all tenancies and shifting the allocation of State housing from Housing New Zealand to Work and Income New Zealand bringing even greater insecurity and evermore bureaucratic harassment for low-income families. That is not a future that any Government should be seeking.The Government should instead take a positive approach to the problem by engaging in a comprehensive programme of building 10000 new State houses every year for at least the next 5 years to help address the critical shortage of healthy homes for low-income families and because building homes does more than just provide houses for people. It creates thousands of jobs in design architecture carpentrycabinetmaking community infrastructure and all the related jobs that come with a strong and vibrant housing sector. It helps to build healthy families and healthy communities because when people are working everybody is happy.I have no doubt that a Government-funded home-building programme would be well received by local bodies and by iwi both of whom have a huge interest in seeing their communities engaged in meaningful work and who would happily come to the party on consent issues and availability of land for housing development. There is no question that we do have a housing crisis but we also have the ability to deal with it quickly and positively. All it takes is the political will to do so. Kia ora.