Davis KelvinKELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): Tēnā koe Mr Chair. It gives me pleasure to speak on the Māori side of the Estimates. I have to take issue with Nuk Korako who just sat down who said that the National Government has a comprehensive set of housing policies. The only thing comprehensive about it is that it is a comprehensive failure because the housing crisis in New Zealand is the worst that it has ever been. It is an absolute shambles and Māori are indeed suffering from it. He raised the issue of the Māori Housing Network—$12.6 million over the next 4 years. That is $3 million a year. When the Budget was announced I rang up Ricky Houghton in Kaitāia and I said to him: Ricky at this very moment how many people are on your waiting list to get a house?" and he said: "Ninety-nine. There's 49 families and 50 individuals who right now could do with a house." So even if that $3 million was spent in Kaitāia on building houses for the families and the individuals who need accommodation up there it would not meet the need and that is just in Kaitāia alone let alone every other town and hamlet across New Zealand. So the Māori Housing Network fund is just a drop in the bucket. Let me say that I lay the blame not just at the feet of the Government but also at the feet of its partners the Māori Party members who to be quite frank are the Māori caucus of the National Government. Those members say it is good to be sitting at the table. Well let me tell you there are two tables. There is the big Cabinet table which all the Cabinet Ministers get to sit at and then outside in the foyer there is the little coffee table which Minister Flavell sits at and it is the coffee table because that is where the crumbs fall—underneath the coffee table. Māori homeownership in 2001 was at about 31.7 percent. It has now dropped into the 20s. That is unacceptable. At that time there were about 105000 Māori homeowners. That has dropped. The biggest decline has been up in the far north in Whangarei. The Māori Housing Network says it has built over 200 homes in the last year and look those 200 homes I am sure for the people who are living in them are fantastic—they will be warm they will be dry they will be comfortable—but those 200 homes make up less than a quarter of a percent of the total Māori housing stock and that is unacceptable for Māoridom. Then let us look at Māori unemployment. Well it is over 12 percent. It is more than double the rate for the rest of the country. That is unacceptable and I lay the blame there at the feet of the Minister for Māori Development. There are Māori in prison. There are close to 10000 people in prison at the present moment and over half of those are Māori. What is this Government doing to help prevent our Māori people from going into prison in the first place? And it cannot say "Oh we're doing all these things and they're really working." because the number is going up exponentially. It is not just going up year upon year; it is going up month upon month.Māori have been let down severely when it comes to homeownership unemployment and Māori going into prison but Whānau Ora—and I do not want to steal Nanaia Mahuta's thunder here—is a concept that we really hope is going to be successful for Māori. We like the concept. There are six goals: self-managing so that whānau will be self-managing; they will be living healthy lifestyles; they will be participating fully in society; they will be confidently participating in Te Ao Māori; they will be economically secure and involved in wealth creation; and they will be cohesive resilient and nurturing. And yet when we look at the figures on how well Whānau Ora has been achieving over the 6 years it has been going—I looked at the two commissioning agencies and admittedly they have been going for 19 months or so but I could only see in the annual report just the results from one of those commissioning agencies. In terms of self-managing 78 percent or close to four out of five of those whānau were not self-managing. Seven out of 10 of those whānau that it has been working with were not living healthy lifestyles. And confidently participating in Te Ao Māori? Ninety-six percent were not yet confident in participating in Te Ao Māori and the other figures are just as bad. OK it will take time. It will take time but it could be done better."