Wall Louisa: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWall Louisa: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 28 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10456. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe. Malo le soifua. Nō reira tēnā koutou katoa. I would like to acknowledge that it is Samoan Language Week which is particularly relevant for me and my electorate of Manurewa where 32 percent of my community is Pacific and 28 percent is Māori. But within the context of those school-age children 75 percent are Māori-Pacific.Like my colleague Phil Twyford I want to talk about housing and the relationship between housing and health and how it relates to the educational outcomes of our children. I would like to begin with a quote from Gandhi actually which is: “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.” Why is it relevant? Well it is relevant to my electorate when I look at some statistics. I have been readingMore Than Churches Rugby & Festivals: A Report on the State of Pasifika People in New Zealand which was produced by Ronji Tanielu and Alan Johnson from the Salvation Army. It makes very interesting reading because what it says—and I want to reiterate some of the statistics that Phil talked about—is that 67 percent of New Zealanders own their own home. In my electorate of Manurewa it is less than 50 percent. What is relevant is that 37 percent of Pacific people own their own home. There is a huge disparity if we look at the general population and who owns their homes and then the relevance I guess of that statistic to my electorate because what I do know is that 58 percent of Pacific people rent.When I think about my electorate of Manurewa I think about what a home represents. For me it represents a stable base where I can learn my language learn my culture and be fed and where for me my parents ensured that my basic needs were met. Unless we all have a stable home it is very difficult to then go out into this vast world and fulfil our potential. The relevance to my electorate actually is when I look at rates of transience. All of my schools collect data and one of the most shocking statistics that I have come across in my time as the MP for Manurewa is from Takanini School. Linda Kelly is the principal there and at one stage she had 120 percent transience. You may ask how you can have 120 percent transience. She had some children who were there—they left. They came back and they left. One child went to nine different primary schools in 1 year.What is the relevance of that? The relevance of that in terms of the electorate work I do is that we see between 120 and 140 people every month come into my electorate office and 16 percent of those people have housing problems. The people who come to my electorate office usually come because they are living in cars they are living in a garage or they have been booted out of their home because they cannot pay the power.I have a community that lives on the breadline. Because they live on the breadline having a stable home is incredibly important and as I have said if families do not have a stable home then that affects their children’s ability to learn.When I look at the housing stock across the board we have approximately 67000 Housing New Zealand houses. Under this Government’s watch that has not increased at all. The relevance to my community is that between 1996 and 2006 the population of Manurewa increased by 35 percent. If the population of Manurewa is increasing by 35 percent but the housing stocks have basically not increased at all the relevance when I look at my population is that if I look at my 29 schools—and this is an indicator of need—I have 14 decile 1 schools nine decile 2 schools and four decile 3 schools. So 27 of my 29 schools are deciles 1 2 and 3. What that means is that my community is living in poverty. My community has families that either are living off the benefit or if they are working are working in jobs that pay them the minimum wage.What is the relevance of the National Government’s policies to improving the lives of the most vulnerable members of society? As my colleague Phil Twyford said it is absolutely nothing—absolutely nothing. In fact the communities of South Auckland where predominantly Māori and Pacific people live are not better off under this Government. I have huge concerns about the provision of basic services to our community.I look at that relevance then to health and I look at the rheumatic fever statistics. We have approximately 200 people who die every year because of rheumatic fever - related illnesses—200 people. There is a report from the Auckland Regional Public Health Service and its medical officer of health Katherine Jackson. What is the relevance of that to statistics in Auckland? It is that 60 percent of the people who suffer from rheumatic fever are Pacific and 35 percent are Māori so we know this is a Māori-Pacific disease related to the quality—or lack—of housing that they have.I find this appalling. I find it appalling that the Government’s response to those statistics is to treat the symptom in one way. We are going to find out the kids who have strep A and then we will give them basic antibiotics but they will continue to live in those cold damp houses and at the end of the day unless we address the underlying cause of rheumatic fever which is the quality of the housing stock then nothing is going to change.When I look at the priorities of this Government they are not to address the needs of Māori and Pacific communities; they are to continue to have health targets where the Government can pat itself on the back because we can get elective services through and we can do a whole lot of other things that have nothing to do with preventing some of the illnesses that are disproportionately affecting Māori and Pacific people.I am on the Health Committee. One of the pieces of information that we have got before our select committee is about the provision of general practitioners midwives and obstetricians. What we do know is that the Counties Manukau District Health Board has 13.5 percent of births in New Zealand. Nearly 9000 children are born in South Auckland every year and guess what? They are mostly Māori and Pacific. How does that translate to this Government’s provision of those basic services—general practitioners midwives and obstetricians? We have 293 general practitioners in South Auckland which means if you compare it with the number of children born and the number of general practitioners there are in the country South Auckland gets 8 percent of the general practitioners that we have in New Zealand. In terms of the midwife count we get 5.3 percent of the midwives in New Zealand. In terms of obstetricians we get 4 percent of the obstetricians in New Zealand.If this Government really wants to make a difference what it would do is ensure that there was some benchmarking in terms of what the provision of general practitionersmidwives and obstetricians should be and it would also ensure that those resources those clinical resources went to communities in South Auckland. You kind of wonder why it is not going to address this issue.What this means is that our families our parents are not choosing not to take their children to a doctor and they are not choosing for them not to be immunised. The reality is that where our most vulnerable community members live those services are not provided. Where they are they are not provided to the level of need for those communities.So for me when I look at my role as an MP in a community that is high Māori and high Pacific I think about the priorities that this Government has and the priorities in electorates like mine and I think that actually it does not care because if it did care it would start to address some of these systemic problems. It would make sure that these basic resources were provided because what we do know is that every child has equal potential to be successful. If they do not have access to those basic resources then they are not going to be on a learning and development pathway so that they can be full citizens of our country. Thank you. I just want to conclude fa‘afetai. Ia manuia le Vaiaso o le Gagana Sāmoa. Kia ora.