Genter Julie Anne; Mallard TrevorHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I want to tell two sides of a housing story because just in the last day we've seen the latest CoreLogic data update: from 1 September 2020 to 1 September 2021 house prices increased by as much as 48 percent in every one of the 983 suburbs covered. Only 24 suburbs in the entire country saw increases of less than $50000. The annual living wage in New Zealand is less than $50000. Now I know many people are aware that house price growth has been unsustainable and it increased significantly in the wake of our initial lockdowns due to COVID. This is an understandable result of the increase in liquidity that was put out there by the Reserve Bank to try and keep the economy going. The problem here is that it's exacerbating wealth inequality. Young people Māori Pasifika people—anyone who's a renter is being rapidly left behind. I know that the Government is aware of this problem and has taken steps to address it but they simply are not going far enough or fast enough to address this horrific inequality. I realise that the whole problem started several decades ago. The very fact that we talk about a housing market is a problem. The fact that we talk about getting on the ladder is a problem. Housing is a human right.The other side of the housing problem we've seen today is the large increase in COVID cases that were reported today that are linked to transitional housing. When people are in poverty and they don't have secure affordable housing there will be other problems and particularly during a pandemic. This is not unique to the COVID pandemic. There are other problems: rheumatic fever there are problems where people can't address their substance abuse problems if they aren't in secure housing kids can't get integrated into a school if the family's constantly needing to move because they don't have affordable secure housing. People who are struggling on low incomes with precarious jobs and precarious housing are also struggling with things like high energy costs. It costs too much for them to heat their home and that leads to a whole host of other health issues not to mention exacerbating emissions from electricity use as long as we don't have a 100 percent fully renewable grid.So right now in Aotearoa New Zealand housing is the biggest driver in wealth inequality and we do need urgent action. There are a number of solutions that the Green Party has put forward for a very very long time. Obviously we do need more housing but it can't just be more housing anywhere and it can't be just more housing by the private market. I acknowledge the Government has taken steps to scale up the public house build. It's still not at the levels that we saw some decades ago on a per capita basis so we need to increase the amount that Kāinga Ora is able to borrow in order to scale up development. But they also need to be working more with iwi and enabling papakāinga housing. Just because it doesn't fit into the Western model that Kāinga Ora might be used to evaluating doesn't mean it doesn't play a critical role in solving our housing crisis.So we need to do more to enable community housing trusts co-housing and it's vitally important that the housing supply that is provided is linked to infrastructure. This is where I know some of the other Opposition parties talk about the housing crisis as though it will be solved simply by freeing up zoning allowing greenfields development anywhere. There's no point having affordable housing if you don't have affordable transport to jobs and access to education to amenities. This is where we actually need a much more integrated local government - led approach to structure planning so that developments can be provided in an integrated way so we aren't simply filling up greenfields north and south of Auckland or north of Wellington or outside of Christchurch with houses where the households will have to own two three four cars to get anywhere. Perhaps the housing seems cheaper and the banks more willing to loan on it but if people are spending more on transport it has the same impact on their income. So we need urgent action and a wealth tax or a capital gains tax—SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member's time has expired.