Woods MeganHon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): I will address some of the issues that have been raised. The issue around the relationship around the Housing Acceleration Fund (HAF) and how that works with the up-zoning legislation that is currently going through this fund—yes there is some relationship in some places that there could be either through the money that is being paid to large-scale projects where we've seen that both in Porirua and in Auckland that there has already been allocations to those large-scale projects. There could be some interplay there. But then also between the Infrastructure Acceleration Fund and the up-zoning there also could be interplay.One of the things that we're also very aware of is that one of the things that this legislation is doing is bringing forward the National Policy Statement on Urban Development. And of course this is one of the first times that a requirement was put on councils to account for infrastructure costs associated with projected housing needs in their areas and they needed to account for that in their long-term plans (LTPs). So yes some of it will be through central government funding and I think we're seeing across a suite of Government funds that there is funding available for local authorities around infrastructure for housing—of course that's just a fancy name for roads and pipes. So there's various ways—the three waters funding. There's the Waka Kotahi and the transport funding as well as our HAF funding. But then there is also a requirement for councils to start accounting for this in their LTPs and making provision across projected housing needs in their needs as well.The Green member asked me about why it was that we didn't take the advice from Te Puni Kōkiri about putting in a rental freeze with the lockdown this year as we had actually in the March 2020 lockdown. The reason for that was that in the intervening period between the March 2020 lockdown and the lockdown this year there had of course been the amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act and there was only the ability for landlords to raise rents once a year. It did not exist when we went into lockdown in March 2020. So it was under quite a different environment that we were operating there as well.I'd also like to address some of the other questions that were raised. One was about the State house waiting list and how we account for it being so large. Part of that is the fact that there weren't simply enough State houses when we came into Government because the previous Government had sold off so many. In fact over a period of nine years not only did they not add to the stock at all but they ended up with 1500 fewer State houses than they started with. That is less State houses than we are adding every year. So I would like to point to the fact that if the previous Government had not sold off State houses and if they had built at the rate we are—or actually below the rate that we currently are—we would have nearly an extra 16000 State houses. So when I look at that State housing waiting list and I think about the families in my electorate whom I represent who can't get into public houses I also get a little bit angry. And I get a little bit angry that we had a Government that decided it was better to flog off our State houses and to end up with 1500 fewer than when they started.So in terms of a commitment of when it will be that we will get the State house waiting list back to what it was when we came into office well what we won't be doing is having a State house waiting list like when we came into office that suppressed the demand that did not show the real demand. I know there were people in my electorate that were too scared to come forward and go on the State house waiting list because they were living with other families in a State house in the electorate and they knew that that family would get evicted because they were breaking the terms of their lease. So there was so much suppressed demand. So I can give that member an assurance there will never on our watch be a State house waiting list like we found when we came into office. If there is a problem you have to know what it is and you need to actually add to the houses and not sell them off.The member also asked about what the arrangements around the Kāinga Ora fund the land acquisition fund are. She had asked in previous contributions with a conspiratorial lens around meetings between myself and the Minister for Infrastructure and the Minister of Finance—what we were talking about. We were actually talking about the governance arrangement that goes around that fund—what the tipping points before it needing ministerial or Cabinet signoff would be and what that framework looked like. So there is a very clear process that involves governance and it involves triggers of who it is that needs to sign it off. And of course this is something that we've given a great deal of thought to and Ministers do from time to time gather in the same room talk about it—it's called a meeting"—and put together what that framework is going to look like and they ask officials for advice."