9. Question No. 9—Housing and Urban DevelopmentSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) to the Minister of Housing and Urban DevelopmentQuestion No. 9—Housing and Urban Development9. SIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: How many social houses has this Government built that weren't already consented or under construction under the previous Government?Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): I'm advised that officials were not able to compile building consent dates in this time frame for this question. This is primarily because each community housing provider and Housing New Zealand would need to compile this information often from reviewing the consent documents for each and every development. However I can advise the member that approximately 700 completed homes started the construction process after late 2017. I should note that this programme of work was not fully funded when we took office but it was fully funded as a result of Budget 2018. The yearly build season is now under way and last month Housing New Zealand had 2155 new homes under construction. Overall consent data shows that Government agencies including Housing New Zealand are building more homes than any Government since the 1970s and we will keep ramping this up.Simon O'Connor: Will the Minister stand by the statements of his Housing New Zealand chief executive who told the Social Services and Community Committee today that most of those houses were started under the previous Government?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I don't believe that that statement has been taken out of context in relation to the primary question.Simon O'Connor: What does he say to first-home buyers who are missing out on a home because Housing New Zealand is buying houses at 5 percent or sometimes more above their market value due to his inability to construct new State houses?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well of 1884—gross—State housing additions in the financial year that we're talking about only 249 homes were bought. That happens for a number of reasons. One is that we often need to acquire more homes for development or to rehouse tenants while new homes are being built. Also Housing New Zealand was told by the previous Government that it wasn't able to plan new housing in areas that had been previously identified for the sale of State housing—Porirua Hutt Valley and parts of Christchurch—so the organisation is now playing catch-up in those areas. We're also committed to providing additional State housing in areas where we need it and I reject the premise of the member's question that poor people do not deserve to have homes tenanted to them.Simon O'Connor: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think that's an imputation against the Standing Orders—happy always to be corrected but that last point is well ascribing something to me that I did not say.SPEAKER: I'll give the member an additional supplementary.Simon O'Connor: Thank you Mr Speaker. When Housing New Zealand statistics show that 53 percent—53 percent—of recent State housing acquisitions were actually existing houses purchased or leased off the market has the Minister not simply taken houses away from Kiwi families who are trying to buy their own home?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: We're committed to ramping up the building of more State houses and I will say that when the last Government was in office they reduced the number of public housing—that is State and community housing. Five years in a row those numbers fell under the last Government. We're committed to building additional supply increasing State housing and increasing public housing overall. That's what we're doing. We can't do it overnight but we will do it.Simon O'Connor: Does he accept then the view of Bernie Smith spokesperson for Monte Cecilia Housing Trust that the Government's decision to pause tenure review and other Labour Government policies is only creating further homelessness."?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I think what the member means is tenancy reviews and actually I disagree with Bernie Smith of Monte Cecilia in this respect. Even at the peak of the former Government's much-hyped review of tenancies fewer than around 200 people a year were moving on to private tenancies as a result of that policy. The only difference—and we have recommenced tenancy reviews. The key difference is that our Government will not be throwing disabled people families with young children and pensioners out on the street as the former Government was doing.Simon O'Connor: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Seeing as it was a question on notice is it the expectation that an answer will be eventually delivered to the House or is your expectation that a question would have to be answered again to actually get the figures?SPEAKER: I'm going to ask the member whether he is serious in that point of order and in bringing it up now because if he is he needs to have a very good look at the Standing Orders and Speakers' rulings.Simon O'Connor: Well always a serious question. But while in respect to the Minister' answer he wasn't—SPEAKER: No the member's not asking a question—well he might have been asking a question of me. If he wasn't satisfied with the primary answer he should've brought it up at the time."