Salesa Jenny: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSalesa Jenny: General Debate[Sitting date: 04 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10763. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): I would like to say that all of us in this House—all 121 MPs—are fortunate because we all have a roof over our heads. Having a roof over your head or a house to call your own to house your family is a basic human right. However it is unfortunate that not all of our families in Aotearoa New Zealand have this basic human right. I see way too many families way too many people coming to seek assistance from our electorate office just because they do not actually have a house.I know that the Hon Nick Smith has made various statements including that Auckland does not have a housing crisis and that apparently it is just a housing challenge. Let me say this on behalf of the many families we see in South Auckland as well as across New Zealand: when you do not have a house when you do not have a home that you can call your own it is not just a challenge—one is actually homeless. Our families do not just wake up one day and think: “Oh I’d like a challenge today. I’d like to choose to become homeless just so that I can know just how challenging life can be. I would like to choose the challenge of living in a car in a caravan or in someone else’s garage.” That is not a challenge; that is called homelessness.Professor Asher the head of paediatrics at the University of Auckland and a respiratory paediatrician at Starship Children’s Hospital has led research that shows that New Zealand is at triple jeopardy for preventable disease and mental illness the causes being (1) unhealthy housing (2) inadequate basic health-care and (3) poverty. Unfortunately I can tell you that South Auckland has won this trifecta. We have all of these issues.The health of many children in South Auckland—children who are the future of our good country—depends on this Government giving them a great start in life. They are at risk because of the disgraceful state of the houses that they live in—cold damp mouldy housing that is linked to increased levels and rates of respiratory disease such as asthma bronchiolitis pneumonia and rheumatic fever. The name Emma-Lita Bourne—a little girl from Ōtara in my electorate—is one that has become well-known in Aotearoa New Zealand for all the wrong reasons. A defenceless toddler her death was linked by the coroner in part to the condition of the house that she lived in which was cold damp and mouldy.I am pleased to say that Andrew Little’s Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) is coming to this House to be discussed today. This is a bill that will have an enormous impact on the health and educational achievement of our children. Some of New Zealand’s rented homes are damaging for our children and this is inexcusable in a country like ours. Bronchiectasis—which is scarred dilated airways—is caused by repeated or severe pneumonia and it is eight to nine times more common in New Zealand than it is in the UK and Finland.I would just like to say that I have met one of the kids who actually has this condition—a child who was born healthy. This is a child who was in and out of the neonatal intensive care unit of a hospital for many many months of her life. For most of her life she was homeless but I am glad to say that our office was able to assist her to have a home for the very first time. I visited this family just 2 days ago and the mother was really quite emotional and actually saying: “Thank you not only for the assistance to actually be placed in a home but also for the fact that for the longest period of time of this child’s life since March”—which was when she went into this house—“until today she has not had to be readmitted into hospital and into the neonatal intensive care unit.” Thank you.