3. Question No. 3—Prime MinisterDEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori ) to the Prime MinisterQuestion No. 3—Prime Minister3. DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori ) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his Government's statements and actions?Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes I do and especially this Government's work to take action on housing including by freeing up the rules on granny flats. I'm particularly proud that we're consulting on how those rules can enable Māori communities to develop papakāinga and kaumātua housing on their own land. After years of neglect that saw the number of Kiwis living in emergency motels spike we're taking action to deliver more choices on housing and more opportunities for Kiwis to get into a home of their own. Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What is his response to native Hawaiians who are urging New Zealand to withdraw from the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC) which provides a forum for Israel to sell surveillance equipment and military training to other countries and—Hon Shane Jones: Oh tell us about Manurewa. SPEAKER: Listen—just a minute. Those outbursts are not helpful. When a question is being asked the House is silent. Now the member gets quite a degree of leeway with other interjections so let's not transgress into the land of the question. Please start again.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Thank you. What is his response to native Hawaiians who are urging New Zealand to withdraw from RIMPAC which provides a forum for Israel to sell surveillance equipment and military training to other countries and directly profit from destruction of their native lands?Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I haven't seen those comments.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Does he accept that participating in these military exercises with Israel makes New Zealand complicit in Israel's war crimes in Palestine?Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I'd just say to the member I'm not sure what she's referencing but I'm very happy to take further questions on it and come back with a more considered answer.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What does he believe New Zealand's role is in upholding the human rights of our Pacific neighbours in Kanaky and West Papua who are fighting for their lives against oppressive colonial occupations?Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well what I'd say to that member is that I have—you know the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) is the central body by which Pacific leaders resolve Pacific challenges. On all of those issues we try and use the centrality of PIF as the reason by which we resolve our regional issues and we'll continue to do that when we meet together in Tonga at the Pacific Island leaders' forum.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What action if any will his Government take against Indonesia for their role in killing over 500000 West Papuans in the last 60 years?Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Again we have a series of regional architecture where we raise regional issues and we develop regional solutions to those issues.Rawiri Waititi: How can he justify cutting the minimum wage subsidy for workers with disabilities when it will lead to hundreds of disabled workers being paid less than the minimum wage—some as low as $2 per hour further?Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well again what we want to do is make sure that actually disabled people who want to work can work. Many of them actually receive the minimum wage today but for those that are more severely disabled that actually want to participate in work we want to encourage them to be able to do so. There's obviously other support packages that are available to people from the system.Rawiri Waititi: Supplementary. [Interruption]SPEAKER: Just wait. Thank you.Rawiri Waititi: What is his response to organisations like the Auckland City Mission who will need to cut annual food parcels to families in need from 50000 to 20000 at a time when food insecurity is at an all-time high as a result of this Government's Budget?Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well that has been a function of a significant uplift of spending through the COVID period that was time-limited and those funds have now come to an end. What we are doing incredibly hard in this Government is to make sure that we actually deal with the underlying cause of the challenges which is inflation. We want to drive inflation down so we can drive interest rates down so we can grow the economy and keep people in work.Rawiri Waititi: Can he name any reports or evidence he has seen that shows policies such as the three-strikes legislation military boot camps and longer sentences will reduce crime rates in Aotearoa?Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well I can tell you the last six years showed us that carrying on doing more of the same didn't work and those results are utterly unacceptable. No New Zealander wants to see a 33 percent increase in violent crime a 100 percent increase in retail crime a quadrupling of ram raids. This Government is determined to try things and do things differently to get different results. We make no apologies for being tough on crime and being tough on making sure we support young people who need to change the course of their lives.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Prime Minister as to whether he has seen any evidence that those on disability and being supported by the State were happy to receive the employment rates that they were getting until the previous Government interfered with it and consequently so many of those disabled people then lost their job?Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well the thing is we want to make sure that employers are encouraged to take on disabled people who want to be able to work but again we have other support services through the beneficiary system to support those people.Rawiri Waititi: Does he agree with the evidence that shows that increased poverty and economic inequality is the leading cause of increased crime rates? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Sorry I missed the last word in that question? SPEAKER: Crime rates". Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Crime rates—oh right. Well what I can tell you is that accepting that crime is as it is is not acceptable to this Government. We actually are saying there is a major problem in crime in New Zealand. After six years of a "soft on crime" Government we're going to do something very different about it. So yes we're going to continue to work on poverty by making sure we rebuild this economy lower the cost of living and actually grow the joint and we're going to make sure that we restore law and order so New Zealanders feel safe in their homes their businesses and their communities."