Warren-Clark AngieANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee): Thank you Madam Chair. It's my pleasure as the chair of the Social Services sand Community Committee to lead off this debate for Vote Housing and Urban Development for the 2023-24 Estimates. The Hon Dr Megan Woods the Hon Barbara Edmonds and the Hon Marama Davidson appeared before the select committee to discuss the vote. Thanks to the Ministers respective board chairs chief executive officers and officials for appearing and responding to written and oral questions. The Minister of Housing is responsible for all appropriations under Vote Housing. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development or HUD administers the vote. HUD is responsible for the strategy the policy funding monitoring and regulation of New Zealand's housing and urban development system. Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities or KO manages the public housing estate and their tenancies. KO is also responsible for planning coordinating and undertaking housing development to create a mix of public affordable and marketing housing and it administers the Infrastructure Acceleration Fund. The most significant change to the vote is the $5.24 billion increase to the borrowing capacity of KO. In November 2022 the Government announced that KO would no longer be able to borrow money directly from the private market to build and renovate public housing. We asked what analysis had been undertaken of the forecast debt being taken on by KO. The Minister informed us that KO is undertaking very long-term financial planning looking 60 years ahead to ensure its financial stability. As at March 2023 there were 24000 applicants on the housing register. This is a 7.7 percent decrease from March 2022. Budget 2023 proposes funding of $1.76 billion to purchase and provide public housing and related support services. The Minister noted that one of the consequences of previous Governments' selling public housing assets was the loss of affordable rentals on the market. The Government is working with community housing providers iwi and councils to increase the supply of affordable rental housing. This is critical to reducing the public housing wait-list. The Government aims to have a supply of 81000-plus public homes by 30 June 2024. The Minister told us she is confident that the Government's target will be met. She highlighted that through its housing delivery system project KO is currently averaging 105 days to build new houses. The Minister explained that this is half the time taken for a standard construction. KO is ultimately aiming to reduce construction time to 65 days. Over the last five Budgets approximately $1.1 billion has been allocated to Māori housing. We heard that this funding has increased capacity for Māori to build houses through Māori housing providers. This includes preparing Māori community housing providers to prepare their own land for development. We also heard that about 1.5 percent of KO homes are fully accessible and that it has retrofitted nearly 8000 homes to make them more accessible. Building contracts from 2021 are being completed now and she expects the proportion of fully accessible new builds to increase. We heard that the Housing Acceleration Fund provides $3.6 billion between years 2021 and 2026 to upgrade infrastructure for housing development. We asked whether these infrastructure upgrades helped to prevent the flood damage in early 2023. The Minister told us that Kāinga Ora ensures that its developments account for necessary infrastructure upgrades so that public housing built on flood plains would be more resilient during severe weather events. The Social Services and Community Committee recommends that the appropriations for the year ended 30 June 2024 for Vote Housing and Urban Development be accepted. Thank you.