Woods MeganDEBATE ON PRIME MINISTER'S STATEMENTDebate resumed from 10 February.Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): Thank you Mr Speaker. Together we have risen to the challenge of COVID-19. It is together that we will get through this next challenging stage that we are about to embark on. As we watch case numbers grow it is important that we stay together. That unity has got us to the unique position that New Zealand is in today and it is continuing to look after each other that will get us through this next stage. I want to thank New Zealanders for looking out for each other and continuing to look out for each other as we see the Omicron numbers rising. And while the current protesters outside are attracting much of the conversation and much of the coverage that we're seeing in the media I would like to point out: in the time those protesters have been here literally hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders have gone and got their booster shot to continue to look out for each other for their families for their communities and for their work colleagues. And I want to offer my heartfelt thanks to those people for doing that.I would like to start in this contribution by acknowledging the leadership of our PM and the leadership that was delivered in the Prime Minister's statement. There is a clear plan to continue to get us through this next phase. She is a leader who has listened to the evidence she's made the hard decisions but importantly she has provided leadership to all of us as we have gone through this. All of us enter this House right around this Chamber with a desire to make a difference to the lives of the people that we represent—the people that we are privileged to represent in this Chamber. Over the last two years the PM has led us as a Government where decisions have been made each day which were literally about life and death. And I want to acknowledge the PM for continuing the leadership that she laid out because when you are in Government these daily decisions that you make are for keeps. There is not the luxury of Opposition of doing a redo if you make a bad decision if you make the wrong call. When you're in Government leading a nation through a global pandemic these are decisions that literally are decisions of life and death for New Zealand. These are the decisions that have led to the measures that have literally saved jobs but also protected jobs and saved businesses. We see that in the case of New Zealand confirmed cases hospitalisations and deaths have been the lowest in the OECD for each of the past two years—and that is a record I want to see New Zealand continue. Unemployment is at a record low. Record numbers of New Zealanders have moved off the main benefit and into work. But as the Prime Minister's statement made clear as well as continuing to deal with COVID we as a Government must also continue to make progress on the long-term challenges that New Zealand as a nation faces. We must continue to address housing. We must continue to address child poverty mental health and climate change. We are continuing to make pragmatic progress on the transition to a low-carbon and low-emissions economy. To reduce waste to take mental health seriously and to improve New Zealand's biodiversity we have a plan to keep us as a country moving forward and central to that plan is securing our economic future. We have a plan to build a high-wage low-carbon economy that provides security in the good times and in the bad times. It's focused on increasing the value of our exports developing new and interesting skills within our workforce new technology modern infrastructure and research and innovation to drive productivity reduce emissions and increase wages. And one of the key focuses of our Government will continue to be housing. We are under no illusions; there is no one quick fix for a housing crisis. We are the first to acknowledge that. This is a crisis that is decades in the making. This is a crisis that requires a Government to have a programme of work that addresses each and every one of the issues that has led us to where we are today. And that is the Government that we are.In the Prime Minister's statement she spelt out our plan for housing. The same cannot be said for the Leader of the Opposition's statement in response. It is time for the Opposition to tell us what they are going to do in housing—not what they think the Government is doing wrong not criticising and sniping over the small things from the sideline but to tell us what they are going to do in housing. Is it to once again flog off public housing as we saw when the National Party were last in Government? Or is it continuation of standing idly on the sidelines doing nothing and letting a housing crisis grow around them as they did for the nine years they were in Government—and wouldn't even concede that there was a housing crisis? We need to start seeing exactly what it is that the Opposition would do in Government. What is their alternative? Build more houses" is not a plan. We want to start hearing how you're going to build more houses. What is the way in which you're going to do that? Because I am constantly reminded that last time the Opposition were in Government they ended nine years of Government with 1500 fewer public houses than they started with. They didn't build any. They did not add to the stock; they reduced the number of public houses in this country and we are paying the price for that now with a waiting list for public housing. We would have nearly 16000 more public houses if the previous National Government had not sold houses and they had built at least at a rate of 1600 houses a year.What is needed to solve a housing crisis is a comprehensive plan and that's what we have. It is multifaceted and it addresses the problem from both a demand and a supply perspective. We are starting to see the green shoots of Government action in housing; we are starting to see positive signs that we are turning around this multi-decade crisis. Forty-eight thousand new homes were consented in the year to December 2021. This is the most number of consents since records were kept. This is up 24 percent on the December year-end figure the year before. We are starting to not only see consents but that supply come through. And we are seeing that where supply is coming through we are having lower house-price growth and lower rent growth—evidence of Auckland. We are seeing the green shoots from our initiatives and these are the initiatives and comprehensive plan that we have taken. We banned offshore speculators. We protected renters' rights through initiatives like stopping renting fees and reducing rent increases to once a year. We extended the brightline test. We tilted the playing field towards homeownership by closing tax loopholes for speculators. We incentivised investors to help us solve the housing crisis by building new supply and not competing in the suburbs with their kids. We've turned around the previous flog-off of public housing and instead are building new public houses at a rate not seen in a generation—close to 9000 houses and counting. Over 7000 of these are brand new builds—warm dry homes for Kiwi families.We've nearly more than doubled the operational funding for our community housing sector. We're working with Māori and iwi housing providers to deliver by Māori for Māori housing solutions. We're addressing decades of under-investment in infrastructure with the $3.8 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund through the Housing Acceleration Fund. Pipes and roads are critical to building more houses. Look to eastern Porirua: $136 million investment from this fund is yielding 2000 extra houses. We're investing in transitional houses; 1123 places when we came into Government; now we have 5102 and our job is not done. We will continue to get going. We have a programme of initiatives. We will keep going because housing is important."