Brownlee GerryHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): Well it's interesting to see that the general theme of delusion continues among Government speakers today as they do their best to articulate what they see as being the greatness of the current Government failing to recognise that there is not one social service in this country that has got stats going in the right direction; everything gets worse. We had the Minister of Health coming in here today talking about the appalling situation in mental health where the facilities that were supposedly funded with a very large amount of money $1.9 billion in 2019 have seen only $500000 spent in that period of time. The pathetic arrangement yesterday where he goes out and says Oh I'm going to ask my department to review what's going on." Well what was he doing with the weekly reports? Where was the fantastic Treasury looking at how the money was going out the door advising about these things? It's simply because there is no will inside the Government to actually deliver beyond the announcement. And the people who suffer in the end don't come in here. Former Minister of Health Clark can tell us that there are 10000 people now getting appointments who didn't have them before. Those needs were always there and they were there when this Government came in and cut $100 million out of the mental health budget—from our Government four years ago and they wonder why it's got worse ever since. It doesn't stop just with that. There's so much more. Look at the truancy in our schools at the moment: 14 percent of the children in our schools are not attending on a regular basis. Fourteen percent of our children in our schools are not there to get the basic learning that the system is there to provide for. And what's the follow-up on that? Nothing. Apparently it's a reasonable life choice for people to say to their kids "You don't need to go to school." Or it's just excused because we've got a COVID-19 crisis. They are not reasonable excuses and the Government does have an obligation to make sure that the parental responsibility to get kids to school is exercised.Then look at the situation with gangs in this country. Why have gang numbers exploded so much? They'll come out and say "Oh it's the 501s who are coming from Australia." It is not; the numbers do not match up. It's because those gangs are not being pursued vigorously by the police because the Government has made it clear they don't want that to happen. I know that'll sound ridiculous—there'll be someone standing up and saying "No that's wrong. Look what we've done." The facts speak for themselves. Look at a small town like Blenheim—a really nice lovely place to live a great part of New Zealand—having that massive gang fight in the middle of the town last week that led to all sorts of other confusions going on and almost four people dead: two very much injured at the moment in the Wairau Hospital and another two lying dead in the morgue. That's the sort of thing the breakdown that's happening in our country because the Government is very very soft on crime. Then of course if they ever get into the system they've got Kelvin Davis there telling them that actually they don't need to be there the system's far too harsh on them let's make it nice and cushy and easy. So we are seeing people exiting those prisons at a rate that is only going to exacerbate that violent crime inside our communities.The other point I'd like to make is around the issue of housing. Minister Little came into the House today and started talking about what a wonderful job the Government is doing at providing housing. Well in four years—in fact not even four years; in the 3½ years that this Government's been in office—the rental price in New Zealand has increased by over $100 some say $120. It's a lot—an extra $5500 a year for families. That's why there are now 4000 families living in motels. That wasn't the case four years ago. Ask the question: what's happened? It's because the rental stock has retracted because it's become completely uneconomic for many people to offer that sort of accommodation to others who need it. But of course the Government will feel good about themselves by saying "Well it's our healthy homes programme." What do they say to the children in those 4000 families? It could be 20000 kids living in motels. That's no life for them. And more than that the waiting list for State houses has grown fourfold from just under 6000 to just over 24000. That's an appalling shift in people's housing needs and has the Minister saying "Oh look we've got record consents going on." I want to quote to him what he used to quote to us: "No one can live in a consent." In the end if you don't have the resource to buy the house you're not in good shape."