Roche DeniseDENISE ROCHE (Green): I rise to take a call for the Greens to look at the Housing New Zealand annual review. There is a wise saying that a society will be judged based on how it treats its most vulnerable. I think that if we look at the case of Housing New Zealand and social housing generally in this country then we should be judging the Government very harshly indeed since our vulnerable are not cared for very much at all.Over the last 8 years there has been a real ideological shift around housing and social housing in this country. National has applied its ideology of free-market economics to the housing situation and it has not only refused to invest in social housing Housing New Zealand but sold off its assets. The total stock under National has fallen from 69173 homes in 2009 its first full year in Government to just 64000 last year. Through a combination of sales divestments and lease expiries 3633 houses have passed on from Housing New Zealand. During the time that National has been in office the population has increased. In the 2009 census it was 4.3 million and it increased last year to 4.69 million. That is an increase of around 400000 people. So while there has been an increasing need for social housing and an increasing population there has been a decrease of the investment that this Government has actually put into social housing in New Zealand.I guess one of the things it has done is provide emergency housing in motels at the cost of around about $100000 a day for emergency accommodation which is incredibly short-term thinking. If we were wanting to build communities to support families so that they can thrive then we should not be sticking them in motels with the hope that they will be able to find something later on when there is nothing there. Those are the lucky ones. According to the Otago University research last year there were over 4000 rough sleepers people sleeping in their cars or people sleeping in the streets and we have no provision for them. It is growing. That is not even recognising the people who are doubling up who are actually sleeping in garages or three or four families together. That rise in rough sleepers is actually incredibly disturbing. To quote economist Shamubeel Eaqub Our housing market is fundamentally broken—it can no longer provide decent warm safe houses and that basic human right which is shelter is no longer available to all New Zealanders." I believe that the Government has a responsibility to support those human rights for all New Zealanders and that we should be looking at social housing provision and that Housing New Zealand should definitely not be selling off homes particularly to the private sector in the guise that they will be building affordable housing—because it is not affordable housing certainly not in Auckland. What it is doing in places like Glen Innes is it is fracturing communities well-established communities which have been there for generations.We can do better. We can do much better. We have got a Homes Not Cars policy which would let Housing New Zealand keep its dividend so it could build emergency housing. We have got a Home for Life policy to increase the level of homeownership in this country particularly for the lower-waged people like we used to do.Phil Twyford: Very sensible.DENISE ROCHE: Very sensible—you are quite right Mr Twyford. It is a very sensible policy. But the biggest change of all that we need is we need to ensure that this Government changes in September and that we get a much more progressive Government to support our people the vulnerable people of Aotearoa New Zealand."