Ngarewa-Packer Debbie; Woods MeganDEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Oh I like the Dr" but not yet. Working on it thank you Madam Chair.The housing crisis is hitting Māori communities as everyone knows here harder than anyone and yet the Government to date has shown no indication of the specific policies—lots of names actually—that are targeting increasing Māori homeownership. I was really disappointed at the Government's recently announced housing package and this isn't just a position of Te Paati Māori; word is your own Māori caucus are equally fed up hoi anō. Because if reports are true that there hasn't been money set aside in this year's Budget for Māori housing then this Government is complicit in entrenching generations of inequality. My question is: will you be setting aside substantial funding to support Māori housing?Pākehā have net worth almost five times higher than Māori while non-Māori have a 13 percent higher median wage. This disparity in wealth and income is locking Māori out of the housing market. Māori homeownership rates have been falling since 1999. In the latest Census Māori individual homeownership fell to 26 percent compared with 41 percent for non-Māori. My question Minister is: what are you doing to increase Māori homeownership?It's disgraceful that more than 11000 Māori are currently on the social housing register waiting list—49.6 percent of the entire waiting list. The current data indicates that 30 percent of Māori pay rent that is over 30 percent of their weekly income which is an indicator of household poverty. I've said this all before and I'll keep on saying it until it really sticks: for the majority of whānau finding an affordable house to rent let alone a house to own is currently unattainable. My question Minister is: what are you doing to help Māori get into homes?The Crown needs to recognise the severe disadvantage that Māori face in the housing market and immediately introduce a Māori housing package that includes targeted financial support schemes to help with deposits such as the old Māori affairs loans in the past. They also need to address supply through building thousands more social and affordable homes. My question Minister is: what targeted financial support are you providing for Māori?We have heard a lot of positive talk about partnership from the other side of the House which is great but the question is: what is this Government doing as Tiriti partners for the 12000 tangata whenua who are homeless in their homeland? Māori homelessness and the issues surrounding it is the most significant Tiriti issue of today. It is time that this Government treats it as such. Kia ora rā.Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): I thank that member for that contribution and some really good questions and ones that I'd like to reassure the member that our team of housing Ministers—obviously the Hon Peeni Henare is the Minister responsible for Māori housing but also Marama Davidson with homelessness and Poto Williams in public housing. This is something that we address constantly in our team as a group of Ministers.I do have some good news for the member in terms of targeted funding pathways. We do acknowledge—and certainly it's something that I discuss often with my colleagues and it's certainly a message that is coming through loud and clear from the Māori caucus within the Labour Party as well as our team of Ministers—that we have to have targeted pathways. We have to have by Māori for Māori solutions that can be in there. It is why such a considerable effort has been put in to working to build capacity in the Māori CHP sector the community housing provider. The solutions for many of the issues around homelessness and around social housing do lie within communities themselves so that is why we've been working to identify projects that we can fund in a dedicated way.I'll describe it as very very imminently that we will have the launch of the dedicated iwi Māori pathway for progressive homeownership. So what you were talking about in terms of wanting to have a look for some of those schemes that existed in the past that provided ways that the State could help people into homeownership that is coming very very very soon and it is something that has its own ring-fenced funding and it is targeted funding.We have also said in terms of the infrastructure package that we launched—the $3.8 billion package—that that was something where we have to do the work to identify how that's going to be divvied up in terms of our own Leadership Success Profile—how that's going to be divvied up with iwi with Māori with councils with developers. We understand that in order for us to realise the potential that lies within Māori communities we have to have ways to make sure that there is funding for the infrastructure that lies beneath that whenua as well. That is work that is ongoing. Peeni Henare is leading as the Minister for Māori housing and he is working not only with the rest of our housing Ministers in Marama Davidson and Poto Williams but also with our colleague the Hon Willie Jackson who has responsibility across Māori development around some of the papakāinga funding as well."