Brownlee GerryHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): There is no doubt in my mind that today was the first day in which the future Labour leader aspirants began to show their colours. We know the old saying When the cat's away the mouse will play." Well the mice were out today very much in that mode.If you have a look at the question sheet today which is question time the great theatre piece for Parliament Grant Robertson had two questions Kiri Allan had two questions there was a cursory question for Kelvin Davis and of course Chris Hipkins got one question as well as did Stuart Nash. All of those names are sort of in the mix. But of course coming through the middle were three questions today to Michael Wood long believed by many to be the future leader of the Labour Party. I think what is sad is that they all kind of missed the mark. When Mr Robertson was asked to talk about the economy and to justify the billion dollars that's been expended on people over the last four years being put into motels instead of houses he came up with the suggestion that no Government has built more houses in New Zealand's history than the current Government. Well they had to do that because their plan was to build 100000 houses in 10 years; they've built only 1300 under that programme. The rest were Kāinga Ora doing what it always does. And the nonsensical suggestion that National sold off the State housing stock was of course once again trotted out as some kind of mantra. Those houses never disappeared—they never disappeared. They're still there still part of the national housing stock. Then they're of course dismissing the fact that Kāinga Ora in the last couple of years has managed to demolish more houses than they've actually been able to build.So where on earth this is all supposed to take us who knows but what it means is that that a billion dollars spent on motel bills for housing people who would otherwise have nowhere to go could have built 1000 million-dollar houses. It could have built 2000 $500000 houses. So it is an enormous expense massively disproportionate to the cost of proper housing. But of course they couldn't guarantee their housing at the moment because of the building supply shortages. And wouldn't one have thought that a Government that is making so much noise about how much they're doing in the space of solving New Zealand's housing crisis might have looked at that building supply issue? What I can say is that I was very proud to welcome Knauf plasterboard into New Zealand in 2013 trying to get the start of some competition in this country. I think the Commerce Commission has been incredibly weak and that successive Ministers have allowed that weakness particularly in the last few years because the great empire that produces most of the wallboard in this country managed to see that company off managed to put them in a position where they had to shut down after just a short few years operating in New Zealand. When cartels work like that we should have recourse to law which we have to break them up but there has been no action taken and successive Ministers have had their eye off the ball.We've got the extraordinary situation of 25000 people—five times the number that were there in 2017—waiting for a State house. There has to be a question asked: what's caused that massive number to rise over that period of time? Around about 5000 a year. And of course they say "Oh well if the Government prior to 2017 had done more it wouldn't have happened." This has happened on their watch nothing to do with the prior five years and so is the entire situation that we face at the moment. Look at the rise in rental costs—huge rises $50 alone on the average rental in the last 12 months. These are things that contribute to the massive cost of living and it is unacceptable that the Government runs off and says "Oh it's COVID-19." "Well it's the war in Ukraine." "It's supply chains." "It's everything else; it's nothing to do with us." Well I think one of the interesting things today is that the standout debutante Mr Wood said that they are building a programme of transport infrastructure that will serve New Zealand for decades ahead. The sad thing is that the smart money would be on the fact that it will be decades ahead before their plan ever sees the light of day."