Sharples Pita: General Debate 
Text is subject to correction 
Sharples Pita: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 01 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4165. Text is subject to correction.] 
Hon Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 I would like to take a call on the housing situation in Tamaki Makaurau in Auckland City. We have a desperate need for medium-priced and in some cases low-cost housing—a very acute housing shortage. One of the activities we have in place at this time is the Tamaki Transformation Programme. 
Tamaki is a central eastern suburb of Auckland City and the project basically is to remove old Housing New Zealand Corporation housing—take it out—put in new housing there make more houses available and move other people in amongst the suburb. It is based around Glen Innes township and there are two marae operating in that area. What has happened is there have been quite a lot of protests about this project. I would just like to acknowledge that the Housing New Zealand Corporation has taken every step possible to communicate the process and the people on the ground I have met with are doing a very good job. However when you take away houses from a community and when you bring new people in to be dispersed amongst them you actually interrupt a society and a community.  
As a result there have been widespread protests. A number of us local MPs in Auckland have attended some; I have attended all of these protests. They are pretty vigorous and are aimed at MPs councillors and so on. However they got so political that they conjured up a sort of fear amongst many of the residents about coming forward and stating their wishes to the Housing New Zealand Corporation about what they would like to do whether they would like to move stay or have their house mended repaired or whatever. As a result the protests got pretty hot and you ended up with people lying under the wheels of trucks that were shifting buildings—one woman ended up in hospital—and stuff like that. But the reality is that a lot of people did not come forward to say that they wanted to shift because they were scared of the protest movement.  
So I think we have got to think about this when we do a mass project in a community because what you are actually doing is you are interrupting the sports club the kura kaupapa Maori the marae the bridge club the schools and all the community things that have made Glen Innes and that whole community what they are—taking out selected places and interrupting the community activities the bridge club and all those kinds of things. There is a real need for us to take the community into account and not just deal with the residents who are involved there. 
Hon Annette King 
: So has that happened? 
Hon Dr PITA SHARPLES 
: Yes it has happened. 
Hon Annette King 
: What influence has the member had in resolving these issues? 
Hon Dr PITA SHARPLES 
: Well I have set up an office there to assist the process and I have put two of my Kaitoko Whanau workers in. They have visited the houses of the people who are too frightened to come forward and they have taken them to the Housing New Zealand Corporation to negotiate its service and stuff. Nevertheless there is still that disquiet amongst the community that their whole community has been disrupted that the people who meet there will not meet there any more. It has been a really traumatic thing for them. So although it is good that we are bringing more housing into Glen Innes and into Tamaki nevertheless it is a lesson for us that if we intrude into a community we take the community with us. Kia ora.