Woods Megan; Pugh MaureenHon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Thank you Madam Speaker. I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this urgent debate because I think there are some very serious matters before this House that do require a conversation that goes beyond soundbites and headlines and actually look at some of the facts.So I would like to start by thanking the people who put their lives into making Kāinga Ora a fantastic organisation that has delivered more State houses in New Zealand's history than any Government since the 1950s. I'd like to thank those people from the people who governed to the people that work each and every day to deliver those houses who in the last 24 hours have been demonised—and in fact over the last years by the National Party have been demonised as have the tenants within our State houses.There are some things in this review of Kāinga Ora - Homes and Communities that I agree with. Indeed they recommend the continuation of some of the policies of the previous Government and in many ways pick up on the 2023 spending funding and financing review that our Government instituted back in 2023 to look at the financial sustainability. But there is one thing that you cannot get away from in this report and that is the elephant in the report: this is nothing more than priming the public up for the fact that (a) next week there will be no new income-related rent subsidy for housing in the Budget and (2) it is a softening up for once again the sell-off of State houses in New Zealand. These are the two things.Now to have a State house or a public house if you will or social housing you require two things: you require someone to build it and the necessary capital. But where the Government and where choices that Governments make come in is what funding is put in in the form of income-related rent subsidy funding; that's what turns a building into a public house a State house or a social house. And it doesn't matter whether it's Kāinga Ora or a CHP—community housing provider—that is providing that service. But the fact of the matter is this Government is gearing up New Zealand for the fact they are walking away from the kind of commitment that the Labour-led Government made around housing.Now we have Chris Bishop saying that he was presented with a fiscal cliff that they didn't know about because the bad Labour Government did not fund what he knew he wouldn't be able to get through a National Party Cabinet. But I absolutely remember putting out a press release during the election saying there is funding for income-related rent subsidy to 2025. The Labour Party in a costed manifesto commitment that went into the books that we stacked up—our budget that we would have implemented—was committing to an extra 6000 State houses. This present Government—the National Party—have to own up to the fact that they once again are reverting to type and they are walking away from a commitment to State housing.This so-called need to sell off 10000 houses was the result of advice commissioned in December in 2023 by the Minister of Finance after a discussion with her Treasury officials no doubt about the fact there would be no further funding for income-related rent subsidy and there are written questions to Kieran McAnulty with the Minister herself telling him this that she commissioned that advice. And what did we hear from Kāinga Ora when they came to the select committee? That if there was more Government funding to add new State houses new income-related rent subsidy they wouldn't have to sell any off. This was advice prepared for a Government that was gearing up to do what it always does and back away from its commitments.So the real test of the mettle of this Government is next Thursday and how much new funding there will be into income-related rent subsidy. I will compare that to our record in Government when each and every year we committed to funding new and additional—and additional is the key word—public houses. And this nonsense that we privileged Kāinga Ora over the CHPs and somehow we only went there—CHPs more than doubled under our Government. The fact of the matter is when you put money in to expand your public housing both CHPs and Kāinga Ora do it. We do not think it is one or the other. And the evidence is that under our Government CHPs added 7255 new places; Kāinga Ora built 7777. So there is a lot of nonsense a lot of rhetoric—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The member's time has expired.