O'Rourke DenisDENIS O'ROURKE (NZ First): I want to talk about the housing crisis holistically because one aspect of it is linked to another. Lack of the number of houses available for people to buy leads to demand for rental houses lack of rental houses causes demand for social housing services and so on. Since the National Government took office in 2008 it has been rather like a frog in a saucepan waiting for the heat to increase to the point where it really has to jump. It should be jumping high now because the housing crisis is chronic. It is chronic and the Government has done far too little about it. In the last 9 years house prices have gone through the roof in Auckland so we now see that in that city houses cost on average 12 times the annual income of the average wage-earner. It should be more like four times because that is historically what it has been in New Zealand. So it gives you an idea of the magnitude of the problem.The Government has done some little things about it. It has caused greater access to KiwiSaver funds—for those who have any to access but of course there are many who do not and so it is a rather limited solution. Then when you look at rent you will find that the situation is not much better than homeownership. Between 1991 to 2015 there was a shrinkage from 74 percent homeownership as a proportion of the whole population in homes to 64 percent. Those who rent have gone from 23 percent of the total to 32 percent. That is caused by the huge ballooning in rent throughout the country but mainly in Auckland. The result has been more poverty more homelessness and more waste of Government money on emergency housing which should never be necessary in the first place.The root causes are mainly—we say mainly—immigration. Immigration numbers of over 70000 per year for the last few years are just not sustainable. Reduced immigration is therefore a central plank of New Zealand First's policy. That is something we would want to do first. We want to further discourage speculation by making it not possible for overseas buyers to purchase homes in New Zealand. We would stop them doing it altogether.Looking at the special housing areas and accords—yes they have helped to some degree. But the real problem is the Government's unwillingness to invest directly in housing. New Zealand First policy is to do just that: to invest in land and see that it gets developed through a special agency for the purpose and to make sure that people can afford them by allowing them to purchase either a section or a fully built property over 25 years at a low interest rate. The Government has done that to some extent with Crown lands. But it is looking at places like Point England and Point England has got its own problems: it is a drop in the bucket and it causes a loss of public amenities open space and conservation values as well.A much greater Budget provision is needed for the Government to invest in real housing solutions by making sure that the houses are there by actually building them. It needs a long-term strategy of the kind that New Zealand First has in our policy together with assistance for first-home purchases as I have mentioned.The Government's record is even worse in rental housing. Rents have increased under National by over 20 percent well above the Consumers Price Index. It is the lowest-income earners of course who are hurt. Typically people paying rent in Auckland have to pay more than 50 percent of their take-home income. You can understand how crippling that is for them and how bad it is for New Zealand's social cohesion. The problem is that the whole thrust of the Government's housing programme is wrong. It minimises its efforts in social housing and has done far too little for first-home buyers. It is really a poor performance overall.