12. Question No. 12—Housing (Public Housing)SIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) to the Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing)Question No. 12—Housing (Public Housing)12. SIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) to the Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing): Can he confirm that almost 14500 New Zealanders are currently waiting for a State house and that the waiting list is more than double what it was when National left office? Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House) on behalf of the Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing): Yes. The Government has always been clear that it is going to take some time to reverse the damage that nine years of neglect caused. Five thousand State houses were removed from the State housing list under the last Government. Since we took office we've created 4258 new public housing spaces and we have a further 3480 houses under construction. If that rate of progress had been in place over the nine years prior to when we became the Government we would not have a State house waiting list at all. Simon O'Connor: Can the Minister once again confirm to the House that a large number of those new builds were actually started consented or contracted by the former Government? Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Some of those were at various stages under the previous Government as would have been the case when the previous Government took office back in 2009. Had they sustained a rate of progress of building new houses during that time we would not have had a waiting list. Unfortunately they took the view espoused by Paula Bennett that if the Government sold State houses other organisations like banks would step in and fill the void. It was that kind of befuddled thinking that created the mess that we have now. Hon Stuart Nash: Has the Minister seen reports that in the city of Napier under the previous Government over 140 State housing units were torn down and not one replaced? Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes I can confirm that example. There are other examples—for example in Trentham where hundreds of State houses were demolished and replaced by the land being sold to private developers so further State houses were not built on that. There are examples of that all over the country. Simon O'Connor: Is he able to confirm that if the number of people waiting for a State house is increasing and the wait times for such houses is over 3½ months then by definition things are getting worse under this Government? Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The waiting lists are increasing. That is an unavoidable fact and the fact is that we do not have enough houses to accommodate those people. Our Government is working as fast as we can to build additional houses but what we will never do is what the last National Government did when it purged people from the State house waiting list in order to try and create the impression that there wasn't a problem when there was. Simon O'Connor: Is the Government proposing to make New Zealanders who are having to live in motels still pay 25 percent of their income towards it because the Government is running out of money after a 440 percent increase in emergency housing expenditure? Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No. It is because we don't want to create a situation where people in emergency housing are better off financially than people who are actually paying rent in normal houses or in transitional houses. Simon O'Connor: Is it still the Government's intention that no one should have to live in a car" and if so why is the Government including an exemption in their Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Bill for people who do live in cars? SPEAKER: Order! That's not an area the Minister is responsible for."