Turei Metiria: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 16 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4389. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]2.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister responsible for HNZC: Does he accept the coroner’s finding that the Housing New Zealand home in which Emma-Lita Bourne lived may have contributed to the pneumonia-like illness that Emma-Lita was suffering at the time of her death?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister responsible for HNZC): First of all I would like to extend my sympathies to the family of Emma-Lita Bourne. If there were steps that could have been taken to prevent this tragedy I am sure that all concerned would have taken them. I accept the coroner’s actual statements on the matter: “It is entirely possible the condition of the house had contributed to the pneumonia-like illness that Emma-Lita was suffering at the time of her death.” And further: “Whether the cold living conditions of the house became a contributing factor to the circumstances of Emma-Lita’s death cannot be excluded.” The coroner commented also on the unusual medical aspects of this tragic death.Metiria Turei: How does the Minister reconcile Nick Smith’s statement that there is nothing new about people dying from pneumonia in winter and the Government cannot do anything about it with Housing New Zealand’s admission that it failed Emma-Lita and the coroner’s ruling that her house could have contributed to her death?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I do not accept the member’s version of Dr Smith’s statement which has been taken quite out of context. In respect of the other issues that the member raises Housing New Zealand has demonstrated that it took a number of steps to improve the condition of that house—just as it has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on other houses. It does indicate though that further change is required in our State housing system to ensure that we do have a wide range of suitable and appropriate-standard housing available to New Zealanders who need it.Metiria Turei: Does the Minister agree then with Nick Smith when he gave up and said that there is nothing the Government can do to stop people from State housesdying when Soesa Tovo’s family and his doctors begged Housing New Zealand to move his family into a warmer drier home to help prevent his tragic death?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I disagree with both the assertions—that is about what Dr Smith said and about the actions that were taken around the Soesa Tovo family. But again I think it underlines—as the member may now understand—that to the extent that housing has an influence on the health of these families we must change the State housing system which has left us with houses that are still not up to the standard required despite hundreds of millions of dollars of expenditure.Metiria Turei: Does the Minister agree with Duncan Garner that Nick Smith’s saying that it is normal for people like Emma-Lita and father of six Soesa Tovo to die in winter is a callous statement and amounts to neglect?Hon BILL ENGLISH: No that is not what the Minister said and if Duncan Garner described it that way then he was incorrect. However we are used to misrepresentation from that member.Metiria Turei: Will the Minister commit today to ensuring that all Housing New Zealand homes that cannot be fully insulated like Emma-Lita’s are fitted with carpet thermal curtains and dehumidifiers now this winter to help prevent further deaths like Emma-Lita’s?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Certainly I can commit to all public services involved with these families taking the steps that they ought to take to prevent as tragic an outcome as a death. I might say that in the case of the family that the member is referring to there are a range of issues of which housing was just one which suggest that we could have done—the Government could have done the community could have done—a better job to support the health of that family. But I cannot of course make impractical undertakings about everything being done right now when we are dealing with housing stock with an accumulation of 60 or 70 years of problems partly because of the point of view taken by that member that no house can be sold or redeveloped.Metiria Turei: I seek leave to table an unpublished written question showing that Housing New Zealand does not supply dehumidifiers to State homes.Mr SPEAKER: Sorry can I just understand what leave is being sought for?Metiria Turei: It is leave to table an unpublished written answer to a written question that I have received which says that Housing New Zealand does not supply dehumidifiers to State houses.Mr SPEAKER: It is unusual but on the basis that the House can make the decision I will put the leave. Leave is sought to table this particular at this stage unpublished written question. Is there any objection to that question being tabled? There is.Metiria Turei: I seek leave to table an as yetunpublished answer.Mr SPEAKER: Order! No. [Interruption] Order! I am not going to put the leave. That is a matter that has been raised once before. Again—if the member will resume her seat—the member is trying to use the point of order simply to reinforce a political point. That is not what it is designed for. The tabling of documents is about further informing members. Members will have that information when it is published after the 3 days.Metiria Turei: How many tenants likeSoesa Tovo have requested on their doctors’ orders transfers to healthier homes but are still living in cold damp unhealthy State houses; and if he does not know why does he not know?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I would have to go and get that information. Housing New Zealand has ways of collating its data. We cannot always tell you the exact reason why a tenant has asked for a transfer but I might say that we would have more choices about houses to transfer tenants to if we were not fighting a legacy of Green-type policies that prevent the growth and development of a city like Auckland enabling there to be more houses on the ground faster so that these families have somewhere to move to. Green-type policies are a big part of the problem here.Metiria Turei: Smirking Bill English.Mr SPEAKER: Order! If the member is going to have the opportunity—[Interruption] Order! The member will now just ask her supplementary question.Metiria Turei: Does the Government have any responsibility for ensuring that people with respiratory illnesses like Emma-Lita or Mr Tovo are not forced to sleep in bedrooms with vinyl tiles stuck to uninsulated concrete floors and with mould dripping down the walls or does he agree with Dr Nick Smith that their deaths are simply nothing new?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Again I do not agree with the member’s characterisation of Dr Smith’s statements. Yes of course a Government does have some responsibility—as do the tenants—but the Government is taking the responsibility very seriously. We are setting out for a generational renewal of the State housing stock and we are trying to cast off the ridiculous policies—which that party has supported—that say that no State house can be sold because the ones built in the 1950s to 1950s standards are what we need now. That is a ridiculous position—Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Hon BILL ENGLISH: —and we will continue to—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I apologise to the Minister. I have a point of order.Rt Hon Winston Peters: With respect this is the second answer that that Minister has given and with the greatest of respect it will be patently obvious to everybody that the Greens have not been in Government in the last 6½ years so why is he persisting and being allowed to get away with that answer?Mr SPEAKER: Order! He did not say that the Greens had been in Government. I think the words he used were that the Greens had supported a party that was in Government as I recall.