6. Housing—Emergency and Transitional Housing and HomelessnessSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) to the Minister of Housing and Urban DevelopmentHousing—Emergency and Transitional Housing and Homelessness6. SIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: Does he agree that nobody should be sleeping in cars this winter?Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): Yes.Simon O'Connor: When he accepted on The AM Show on Friday there are indications that in fact homelessness is getting worse before it will get better" under this Government how much worse will it have to be before he increases funding to at least the level that the previous National Government funded?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: It's true that the housing crisis that we inherited and a masked level of hidden homelessness that's come to the fore in recent months indicates that in fact homelessness may well get better before it gets worse.Hon Judith Collins: What?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I want to respond—sorry "get worse before it gets better". I do want to respond to the member's assertion that the former Government—Hon Todd McClay: Are you going to get better before you get worse?SPEAKER: Mr McClay.Hon PHIL TWYFORD: —actually put more money into dealing with homelessness than this Government. The member should realise that actually we have continued to fund the emergency and transitional housing that his Government promised but failed to properly fund and the $100 million that the Prime Minister announced only last week will properly fund the emergency and transitional housing that wasn't funded fully by his Government. On top of that we have been putting in place 1500 extra housing places since last winter on top of what that Government provided.Simon O'Connor: When he said that the previous Government was "spending $140000 a day putting people in motels."—that "this is not housing policy; that's an admission of failure."—was the Minister wrong then or is he now admitting that by funding motels he has failed by his own standard?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: By rolling out more emergency and transitional housing in the last six months we have cut in half the daily spend on motels that that Government was undertaking only a year ago.Simon O'Connor: Will his housing for winter 2018 programme be of any use to people in winter if his plan is not to be completed until spring?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: We ramped up the building of State houses. We stopped that Government's sell-off of State houses. We've added more than 500 additional emergency and transitional housing places since we came to office. We started building extra houses. We're not going to stop until demand is met and homelessness is ended.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Minister as to whether or not after nine years if he were to be the Minister of Housing for that period and the crisis was still the one he inherited would he not regard himself as a "miserable blue failure"?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes I say to the member that I certainly would. To take nine years and deny there's a housing crisis to hardly lift a finger to address the social and economic disaster—Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Minister may well be responsible for his own condition and may well want to explain that he would in certain circumstances—although I can't think what would be worse than now—describe himself as a miserable failure but he has no ministerial responsibility or accountability to the House for his personal failings in that regard.SPEAKER: The question was a hypothetical one and—Hon Gerry Brownlee: It shouldn't have been asked.SPEAKER: Mr Brownlee: the member knows that hypothetical questions and matters of opinion have been allowed in this House for some time—most of that member's career. So the question was in order. I will also say to him that he is sailing very close to the wind using the point of order process in the way that he did to make inappropriate references to a member. It's a very tight process and should not be used in that way. Shall we move on to the next question? It might be the best thing to do I think."