Paul TamathaTAMATHA PAUL (Green—Wellington Central): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Well it's Groundhog Day today and history is repeating itself because before us we have another National-led Government trying to create the social licence to sell off tens of thousands of public houses that are owned by the people—a move straight out of the playbook of John Key and Bill English's National-led Government. In the past in Aotearoa in the face of housing insecurity when our people returned from war when our cities were controlled by urban slumlords who had people living in their own filth in our cities the Government made a conscious decision to build public housing at scale because they knew that public housing is a way that we can ensure people have secure housing affordable housing and relative protections from market forces. We've made that decision before and we can make that decision again.In fact I learnt recently that if we had the same amount of State housing that we had in 1991 we would have enough public housing to clear the public housing wait-list and have an additional 10000 houses in our country. That is to highlight the fact that these are political decisions that our leaders are making to keep people in a state of housing insecurity. Public housing is as essential as public education public schooling public transport public healthcare. Aotearoa is in the midst of a housing crisis and what we need is a Government that backs Kāinga Ora to tackle the housing crisis not a Government attempting to micromanage every single thing that Kāinga Ora does.Public housing has become a safe haven for young families seniors disabled people and those living with complex needs because when housing is treated as a public good it can provide a stable home for those people to live without fear of discrimination without fear of unfair evictions without fear of unforeseen rent increases. We should be building thousands of new public homes now and confirming ongoing funding for those community housing providers that the Minister was just talking about so that they can continue to build with certainty around sustainability of funding. How can you expect community housing providers if anybody to build more housing when their funding doesn't even extend between 2025? That is why thousands of build projects are being cancelled and delayed across the country. Desperately needed homes in urban centres and in the regions are being cancelled because this Government does not have the courage to actually face the housing crisis.I want to repeat that public housing is important. We need to stop trying to micromanage Kāinga Ora and get out of their way and actually allow them to build the housing that our people desperately need. We need to see and treat public housing as the public good that it is and actually look beyond financial viability. I hate to break it to the other side of the House but some things are more important than turning a profit such as making sure that people have a stable roof over their head being able to pay the rent being able to continue to send your kids to school in the same neighbourhood that they've grown up in—not displacing and gentrifying our communities by only building houses that rich people and property investors can afford.