11. Question No. 11—Social DevelopmentHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) to the Minister for Social DevelopmentQuestion No. 11—Social Development11. Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) to the Minister for Social Development: Does she agree that there has been a 155 percent increase in the number of Emergency Housing Special Needs Grants as a direct result of her Government's policies?Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): No it comes as a direct result of a Government who for nine years denied there was a housing crisis and were guilty of underinvesting in housing and infrastructure. The housing need existed well before we got into Government—Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You've been very clear today that there shouldn't be any extraneous material placed in the questions that are asked in the House. The mirror of the Standing Orders would make the same apply to answers. We've had various answers from Mr Nash for example and also from Mr Clark that relied heavily on extraneous material and now we've got more following on from Dr Woods from Carmel Sepuloni. Now at what point do you start to separate out the fairness in the way in which questions and answers are asked and then replied to in the House?SPEAKER: I think the member if he reflects carefully will remember that I did interrupt the Hon Dr David Clark in his answer because I thought that he was putting extraneous material into it. In fact it might have happened twice. I stopped the Hon Stuart Nash when he started attacking the Opposition off the basis of a patsy Government question. In this particular case the Minister was asked a pretty direct question about her views on the responsibility for or what caused a particular set of circumstances and she was giving I think a robust but in order reply. Had the Minister finished when she was interrupted?Hon Louise Upston: Is she satisfied with the fact that there were 23754 emergency housing special needs grants in the year to June 2019 compared to 9245 in the year to June 2017?Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Can the member repeat the question please?Hon Louise Upston: Is she satisfied with the fact that there were 23754 emergency housing special needs grants in the year to June 2019 compared to 9245 in the year to June 2017?Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I don't think any Government should be satisfied with the idea that we even need an emergency special needs grant for housing. But we need to reflect back and remember that this particular special needs grant was introduced in 2016 under the previous Government. It was unfortunate at the time that it came on the back of Jenny Salesa taking media out to South Auckland and shining a light on the homelessness problem that we were experiencing as a country.Hon Louise Upston: Does she agree with Statistics New Zealand that beneficiary households were the most affected by rising rent prices in the June 2019 quarter; and if yes what is she doing about it?Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I am not the housing Minister. However we're very aware of the fact that housing puts pressure on the overall budget of households where there are beneficiaries. That is why I'm very relieved that this Government is finally responding to the needs of beneficiaries in low-income households by investing in things like public housing—we've seen 2300-plus additional public housing spaces—the investment in things like transitional housing and the investment in Housing First. Thank goodness this side of the House is doing something because nothing was done for nine years which led us to this point.Hon Louise Upston: How much of the 808 percent increase in emergency housing special needs grants in Rotorua—257 to 2334—is a direct result of her Government's assault on the cost of living?Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: That member is being disingenuous. We came in at a time when there was a housing crisis—a housing crisis that had been denied by the previous Government—and we're responding but it's taking us a while to fix up the damage that was done under that Government but we're committed to doing so. That's why we've invested in public housing that's why we've invested in transitional housing that's why we've invested in Housing First and that's why we put $5.5 billion into the pockets of people that needed it through the Families Package. This side of the House is doing something and we're not going to apologise for giving help to people that need it through the welfare system.Hon Louise Upston: How many of the 23754 emergency housing special needs grants are repayable? Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: What we've seen under this side of the House is a reduction with regards to the amount of the special needs grants that is actually recoverable. Under the previous Government with emergency housing special needs grants 11 percent was recoverable; under our side it's 4 percent. We don't want to throw families who are already on low incomes or already suffering from financial hardship into further debt and so this side of the House is making sure that that doesn't happen unlike the other.