Henare PeeniHon PEENI HENARE (Associate Minister of Housing (Māori Housing)): Tēnā koe Madam Chair and thank you very much for this opportunity to contribute to the annual review debate. What I'll do here is I'll just take some short time to lay a bit of context more broadly around Māori housing and then address directly the questions that were offered by the Māori Party in this debate. We're proud on this side of the House of our contribution to Māori housing and the support for Māori housing aspirations. The Government committed to the vision of whānau and iwi in making sure that we have healthy affordable homes with secure tenure across the Māori housing continuum. The national Māori housing strategy MAIHI Ka Ora puts into action what was already built with our strategy to make sure that we can get Māori housing initiatives off the ground and supported. One of the key tenets of that is making sure in the first instance that the relationship is there. We know that iwi hapū and in particular Māori land corporations for the most part have been locked out of any housing solutions that this country is looking towards. Resetting that strategy was important and over the past 12 months we've done a fantastic job to bring together our strategy but more importantly it's to make sure we have actions that will equal homes and amount to outcomes for our whānau and our hapū and our iwi wherever they might be. As a result of that we as a Government invested $730 million into our Māori housing aspirations: $380 million of that is for Māori housing and $350 million of that is for infrastructure as has already been mentioned here in the debate. So with that $730 million combined we look forward to continuing to grow Māori housing outcomes across the entire housing continuum. Now that's really important as I look to address some of the questions very shortly by the member from the other side of the Chamber. So of our commitment in last year's Budget of $730 million we had a target of 1000 homes and to date I can say we have approved 378 homes to be delivered. We also had a target of 700 homes for repairs and maintenance. To date we have approved 257. Of the 2700 homes requiring infrastructure support we have enabled approximately 411. We've supported 11 Māori iwi and Māori groups to build capability to accelerate housing projects and support services. In direct answers to the questions that have been offered the answer is yes Māori housing iwi and hapū and incorporations that are currently involved and looking towards Māori housing aspirations can access what we'd term the general fund if you like for housing in general. So the answer to that question is yes. The $730 million that I've already spoken to was quite specific and targeted. I've already given the numbers and I'm looking forward over the coming weeks to sharing with that member and the rest of the House some more of the great initiatives that we have. What I'm proud of too given where I know the member who asked the question comes from is also our focus on our regions. We have spoken already about some of the urban centres but we know that in places where the member comes from and even where I come from in Te Tai Tokerau housing is abysmal and we want to make sure that we can support those housing aspirations. Just recently we announced—on Friday last week—Ka Uruora which the member referenced in his contribution today and I'm proud of that particular kaupapa because that sees us supporting a tribal collective spanning from Ngāti Rungi which is in the north at Ōhākune and Tūrangi all the way down south to southern Taranaki to places like Stratford and everywhere in between. It would have been easy just to simply walk into Ngā Motu or New Plymouth to say Here we go." but what we've gone and done in partnership with iwi and those who are involved in Ka Uruora is we've identified families and opportunities in places like Ōpunake. When I was speaking to the local mayor from Ōpunake he said "Oh the only thing people build around here are holiday homes." and we're saying "No we are here to build family homes for people in Ōpunake." We also spoke to the local mayor for southern Taranaki and he said "You know Stratford hasn't seen any new homes for families in some time." and he was proud that we will partner with them to make sure that we can meet those aspirations. I will leave it there for now but I suspect that I might get the opportunity hopefully again to continue to contribute to the debate."