Cunliffe DavidHon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): I wonder whether I could make a somewhat technical contribution pointing out the structure of proposed new section 98B(2) which specifies that joint Ministers must ensure that the number of funded places available in emergency housing each year is not less than 8000. I would also like to draw the Committee's attention to proposed new section 72A on income-related rents in clause 12. Again the proposed amendment to the principal Act inserts a quantitative target of a further thousand houses a year. I would like to draw the distinction between that approach of inserting the number in the primary legislation versus inserting an enabling power to allow those numbers to be dealt with by ministerial action through an Order in Council i.e. a regulation-making power.I think this is an important point because frankly New Zealanders have given up trusting this Government. They would not want to see in an amendment to this a power delegated to a Minister—or indeed to Cabinet through the Order in Council process—that was not brought back to this House. Because the track record of the current Government in failing to meet the needs of everyday New Zealanders has been appalling.I would like to concur with recent speakers who have said that this is not only a very practical crisis of children living in cars enduring the cold of winter or living in at best substandard wet damp accommodation but a moral crisis. It is a very practical crisis. If a child is homeless the child cannot learn. It will have lifetime proclivity to disease. It will not develop its learning abilities. Its employment opportunities will be constrained. It is much more likely to end up in the prison system or the mental health system which in turn will be a burden on society.The irony of the current Government which has utterly failed to address the housing crisis but speaks in this year's Budget of the social investment approach—is it not about time we had—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. As I have indicated previously this was a marginal call as to scope and therefore will be strictly enforced as to relevance. Members cannot wander all over the park on it.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Thank you Mr Chair and Mr Chair I take your point which is why my comments were embedded within the quantification of proposed new sections 98B and 72A and related that as you recall to the question of the reliability of the policy around homelessness.Let me touch on another section which is proposed new section 98C in which subsection (1) quite specifically refers to the need for a plan to end homelessness. I think the wording here is really important because it does not talk about a plan to mitigate homelessness or a plan to reduce homelessness; it talks about a plan to end homelessness.When combined with those rigid quantitative requirements in the proposed amendment as the proposed part inserts I think the Committee can infer that this is a matter where the cost benefit of the intervention is so obvious over the lifetime of the child concerned that there is no excuse for homelessness. There is no non-zero amount of homelessness that should be acceptable or in the language of social investment where it is not worth investing to rid the country of it. That is why subsection (1) in proposed new section 98C talks about ending—ending not just mitigating.In proposed new section 98C(2)(a) we are required to Consider whether the official definition of homelessness needs updating and recommend accordingly." This is the one subsection where I am not sure I am comfortable with the drafting and that is because this Government has had a tendency to use data and the updating of methodologies to political effect—but I take it you do not want examples of that in this debate Mr Chair. I think we all know many of them. In the following paragraph (b): "Assess [the] evidence on the current scale of homelessness whether it is changing …". I think the wording could also have said by how much it is changing because it is clear to all New Zealanders that the homelessness problem is getting worse—exponentially worse—all over the country."