Twyford Phil: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: General Debate[Sitting date: 08 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11791. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): The most disturbing aspect of National’s housing crisis is as reported by RNZ last Friday the fact that children as young as 11 are sleeping under bushes in South Auckland. I want to pay tribute to the journalism of John Campbell at RNZ and Mike Wesley-Smith at TV3’s The Nation who have run stories in recent days that have brought to the tearooms and the kitchen tables of New Zealand the scale of homelessness and the plight of the homeless under National’s housing crisis. New Zealanders do not like it; they are profoundly disturbed by the social crisis that is homelessness in this country today.So what is the Government’s response to that social crisis? Paula Bennett is pre-booking motels for homeless people and charging them for the pleasure of it. That is this Government’s response. She is making homeless people pay the debt racked up after they have been in a motel for 7 days and is taking it out of their benefit. She even refuses to collate the data on the debts. She knows—she knows how many people have got debt because it is on their files at Work and Income. She could add it up at the drop of a hat but she refuses because she does not want the public of New Zealand to know the scandalous debt that is being exacted on homeless people on her watch. How is that for cynical?For Paula Bennett and John Key homelessness is not a social problem to be solved; it is a political problem to be managed which is why the Prime Minister said a couple of weeks ago that Ministry of Social Development (MSD) officials had gone out with the Salvation Army to knock on the car doors of homeless people—a complete fabrication. It was made up. It did not happen. They—John Key and Paula Bennett—embarrassed one of our most respected social agencies into publicly correcting the Prime Minister.This was classic Paula Bennett. She was feeling the heat over the Government’s total failure to respond to the housing crisis and what did she do? She did what she always does and that is try to turn the tables and blame the victims of her failed policy. She told the Prime Minister that MSD officials had gone out at night with personnel from the Salvation Army to try to help homeless people but according to Paula Bennett they did not want to be helped. What a disgraceful fabrication—a lie designed to caricature the victims of National’s housing crisis and blame them for their plight. That is typical Paula Bennett.You see Paula Bennett and John Key got the benefit of a generous taxpayer-funded welfare system—of State housing designed to put a roof over the heads of people who needed it. It was OK for them—for the Prime Minister and Paula Bennett—to get that kind of help to get a start in life but under this National Government the homeless and people who need a hand up are caricatured as the undeserving poor. That is how this Government rolls.If Paula Bennett’s flying squads were not enough of an insult to the public’s intelligence then think about this: her big policy that she announced the day before the Budget was that Paula Bennett was going to pay $5000 for people to get out of Auckland so they could find a house. Never mind that the Government is also paying people who need a job $3000 to move to Auckland. Never mind that in places like Huntly there are not any empty State houses for them to move into.If children are growing up sleeping under bushes in this country if they are living in cars and garages and campgrounds how will they ever ever grow up to be good citizens in this country? How will they ever get the opportunity to be healthy to be educated and to have a decent crack at the good life in this country? The fact is that they will not and National members’ negligence in allowing the housing crisis to spin out of control their refusal to do anything meaningful about the scale of homelessness in this country and their cynicism in trying to spin and divert and distract public attention from the failure of their policy is a betrayal of those children.