Radhakrishnan PriyancaPRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you Madam Assistant Chair. Talofa lava. I greet you in Samoan both to acknowledge Samoan Language Week but also because the Ministry for Pacific Peoples is one of some 25 entities that the Social Services and Community Committee conducts annual reviews for. I want to begin though by addressing some of the—gosh I don't know where to start really with the member Judith Collins who's just resumed her seat. She must really hate poor people—that's all I can say. The fact that she began with almost five minutes of how much she loves the previous Government's policy of selling off State houses—which is just the State abdicating its responsibility—and was sneering at ambition and aspiration; it was just woeful.I want to begin actually with one of the points that the Hon Judith Collins mentioned and that was about the merger of Housing New Zealand with its subsidiary Hobsonville Land Company (HLC) along with KiwiBuild to become the Housing and Urban Development Authority. We did hear about that at the select committee and the intention we were told was to use the combined assets resources and expertise of these three agencies to drive the development of programmes for new State-affordable and market housing. How is that not transformational? How is that not aspirational? It absolutely is and sneering at that is sneering at ambition. What about increasing the supply of State houses? Can I just absolutely underscore the fact that we heard that that mass State house sell-off has been stopped by this Government which we on this side of the House are absolutely delighted by. Not only that but we heard that the corporation provides housing to a significant number of people some 185000 people who live in its properties. Of course the Hon Judith Collins sneered at Housing New Zealand as well and said they were one of the worst landlords. I absolutely beg to differ. They have actually now become a compassionate landlord—thanks to this Government's work as well. But we've also heard that there's been a ramping up of the building programme with 2500 houses that are under construction—2500 houses about 1511 in Auckland alone. Building houses—when we've seen over the past nine years people living in cars—and members opposite sneer. That's all they can do: sneer. Well I'm here to talk about what has been happening what we've heard at select committee that is actually working really well. We did hear that the building of new houses hasn't been as fast as would be ideal. But there are a number of factors for this—there are a number of factors for this [Interruption]. We've heard the corporation said that a number of factors affected its ability to build houses as quickly as it would like. It is a "brownfield" as opposed to a "greenfield" developer and its consistently high occupancy rates (98 percent) reduce the number of opportunities to re-develop its properties". Housing New Zealand also told us that "its commitment to quality urban planning also can affect the pace". So they want to do it well not just quickly and build any old houses for its State house tenants that members opposite continue to sneer at. The commitment involves going through a process with the community to determine with them what some of the best outcomes can be and that I think we should be lauding. In terms of buying houses now Opposition members brought this up at the select committee hearing as well and sort of tried to look down on Housing New Zealand in a sense for buying houses. But at the end of the day what we heard was that the corporation has been changing the way it works and it actually said that "the Government sets targets for how many houses it must have available for people to live in. Some of this target is met through [new builds]". The numbers that cannot be met through new builds must be met by buying houses. I don't see what's wrong with that. At the end of the day it's about people having a roof that is warm dry and safe over their heads. So let's not quibble about how that happens—the fact remains that it is happening under this Government and we did hear that. The other point that I'd like to make is also about the changing of culture and this sits across both Housing New Zealand as well as the Ministry of Social Development who of course we heard from as well. In terms of Housing New Zealand and this goes back to one of the previous points made by the Hon Judith Collins Housing New Zealand actually is taking a much more compassionate view of its tenants. I just want to actually elaborate on what we heard in response to the Hon Judith Collins' view that tenants who are destructive or disruptive are no longer being evicted because that's not actually true. We heard that from Housing New Zealand who have told us that they actually have intensive tenancy management teams who work with those people who have been disruptive in the past to help them to manage their behaviours. Evicting tenants just shifts the cost—Jan Tinetti: To somewhere else in the community.PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: —to a different pool of Government money in some other part of the community—that's absolutely right Jan Tinetti—towards emergency accommodation for example like motels. How is that the better solution? How is working with these people to change their behaviour not the better solution? But of course we didn't hear that from the member did we? She also didn't talk about the fact that Housing New Zealand now has a much more focused approach when it comes to the needs of tenants. It's actually much easier for tenants to interact with Housing New Zealand. They have an expanding range of services to support the needs of various groups of tenants and they match homes built with those needs as well. So a much better approach is what we've heard in terms of the culture change at Housing New Zealand. The same applies to the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) where changes have been made. We heard through the annual review process about the Client Commitment Charter with goals of giving people the best possible services and providing them with information that they need to access services. This is key because we know—we've heard from members opposite—the fact that for example their applications have increased on the social housing register over the review period. That is true but that's partly true because these people who need to be on that register have a greater awareness of what support is available—something that they didn't have necessarily in the past. We also heard that an increasing number of households are moving from private rentals to public housing—an increase in need—and fewer people are exiting public housing. That goes right back to the issues around supply and housing that Housing New Zealand is trying to address as well.The other point I want to touch on that came out from the MSD portion of the annual reviews is an increase in the number of 18- to 24-year-olds who are receiving jobseeker support benefits. In response what has been proposed what has been implemented? The Mana in Mahi programme that we heard about as well which supports employers to take on apprentices. Up to 4000 young people will benefit this year alone from that one programme. So what we're seeing is an issue and we've seen a response over the annual review period.The other package that we heard about was the Families Package: 384000 families with children better off by $75 per week on average major changes to the Working for Families payments the biggest boost in household income in a decade for thousands of families the introduction of the Best Start payment and the introduction of the winter energy payment that helps a million people stay warm this winter. Officials told us that there was a huge amount of work that went into ensuring that these were rolled out as well.So really what we've seen from across agencies through the annual review process—some 25 or so entities that sit within the purview of this particular select committee—is that the work that they are doing absolutely backs up the fact that this Government is transformative it's aspirational and I would encourage members opposite not to sneer at ambition. Thank you."