Henare PeeniPEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe Mr Chair. Thank you for this opportunity. What I get asked by my constituents across Tāmaki Makaurau is when will this Government stop pointing the finger to administrations past and actually have a good hard look at its time in office now. Let me tell you a story about a family—a mother a father and seven tamariki—who were put through the stress of having to move out of their home just like the example given by my colleague here Mr Faafoi. They met with Housing New Zealand 16 times—16 times; seven tamariki all still of school age—and were constantly being denied and told that they were not a priority and that there was not enough availability. They begged the principal of the school to take them in let them put a roof over their heads let their tamariki have a shower and let them be able to give the necessities to their tamariki. Well they could not stay at the school for ever and in fact what the school was doing was breaking the law. But that is what it had to do to make sure that this family could have the necessities. The family came into my office frustrated and angry. The parents were in tears—tears of embarrassment tears of frustration and tears for the fact that they felt inadequate because they were not able to provide for their tamariki. I am proud to say that my office has helped 122 families into accommodation. Some of it was emergency accommodation where we knew that they would be there for only a temporary time but most of them have got into homes through the hard work and advocating done by my staff. The sad thing about that—the sad thing about that—is we know that the Government has sold off the Housing New Zealand stock and in fact it did it with the support of the Māori Party. The Māori Party has said that this will provide Māori housing providers with the opportunity to provide social housing for our people to be able to manage housing stock with values of tikanga as espoused by our Māori people. Here is a number for this Government: how many of those Māori housing contractors have been able to pick up a contract for social housing in this country? Zero—none. That was supported by the Māori Party. The housing stock was sold off—no Māori social housing providers. I want to ask the question of where the Māori Party is in this particular debate because I blame it for this State housing sell-off and for the fact that more and more Māori people are ending up in my office looking for support looking for somebody to listen to them and looking for somebody to actually advocate on their behalf with Government departments. The point has been made quite well on this side. I was sad to see one of the exchanges earlier given that the Minister of Health turned a blind eye to the fact that the state of a lot of rental properties today means they are incubators for illness. The tragedy in this whole debate is that on that point those illnesses are preventable. They are preventable. That is what the problem is. Those illnesses are preventable yet we are quite happy to ignore the fact that a lot of the social housing that is available to our people now is actually substandard. Those properties are incubators for illness and they are not making our people better. We all know that what is going to happen when a family moves into a safe warm dry home is that the life of that family will be improved exponentially—exponentially—and what this Government fails to see is that for the many families in Tāmaki Makaurau in particular but also right across the country its policies have got a negative impact on them. Minister Anne Tolley mentioned that the Government's increase in benefits has been welcomed by the people of Kaitāia and Tokoroa and she mentioned a couple of other small townships. Well in my constituency of Tāmaki Makaurau it means nothing. It is barely even a bus fare. It is not enough for a kai. It is not enough to give the tamariki the educational resources that they need to thrive and to be successful at school. So I ask what this Government has done and so do the people of Tāmaki Makaurau. I will be telling them that there are zero Māori housing social providers that over 120 families have come into my office looking for assistance on housing issues alone and that this Government has turned a blind eye to the critical issues of the people in Tāmaki Makaurau.