Sio William; Bakshi Kanwaljit SinghSu'a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): Mr Chairman I appreciate getting the call—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): And I might say that winking at me does not help to the two people who did it.Su'a WILLIAM SIO: Can I remind members that this Committee has not had the benefit of having a select committee scrutinise this bill and therefore we have been denied the opportunity of receiving the experience and advice from that particular committee. So I am going to go through a clause by clause analysis of this amendment to add a new Part 8 and I will be asking questions of the Government whether it has any comments to explain what it is that it is doing to address the housing crisis. First I draw members' attention to the explanatory note. I do so because the Minister challenged the validity of this amendment. In the explanatory note we find that this amendment has two purposes. The first purpose is to require the Government to increase its State housing stock by 1000 units per year in any year that demand for State housing is not met." and that it be income-related rent. Secondly it requires the Government to "make sufficient funding available to house those who are homeless and develop a plan to end homelessness." That is what this amendment is about and I believe it meets the primary purpose of this bill as it was introduced by the Government. We look to new clause 11 which is common sense and it refers to the principal Act that we are amending the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Act. We look to new clause 12 and the introduction of new section 72A "Income-related rent places" and there it talks about enabling the Housing New Zealand Corporation to "increase its supply of [Housing New Zealand] housing by 1000 per year." There is a real need for that. My own experience is that when we see people sleeping in cars in overcrowded housing conditions and in garages it requires the Government to build more social housing. The term "income-related rent" in new section 72A is important because in our engagement with budgeting services and with community organisations at the coalface they tell us that once upon a time people renting from Housing New Zealand used to spend 25 percent or 30 percent of their income on paying rent to Housing New Zealand but today it is 65 percent. This was revealed to me by budgeting services in Auckland in Nelson and in Gisborne. I am not saying that this does not exist. This does exist. We go to new clause 13 which inserts new Part 8A "Emergency Housing and Homelessness" and we see there in new section 98A the interpretation of terms used in this part. We look at "homeless" which means "a situation where a person meets the definition of 'homelessness' set out in Statistics New Zealand's New Zealand Definition of Homelessness.". We find that that definition says that that is when somebody has "no other options to acquire safe and secure housing". It makes reference to people living in conditions without shelter. I suspect that these are people like with the situation in Auckland who are living under bridges or next to gravesides where there is no shelter—under trees. It makes reference to people living in temporary accommodation that is not their own. It makes reference to sharing accommodation. Let me go back to temporary accommodation. I suspect that people living in garages consider that temporary accommodation. The definition from Statistics New Zealand says that that is classed as being homeless yet we have had Work and Income refer people to live in a garage and it says that that would be appropriate accommodation. Yet in the definition of the statistics department it says no. We have people sharing accommodation. We have people living in uninhabitable housing. This is people living in debilitated situations. I cannot imagine that here in New Zealand this Government would allow people to live in these conditions. I refer again to the definition of homelessness given by Statistics New Zealand which says it is where people have "no other options to acquire safe and secure housing". I refer to new section 98B "Joint Ministers must ensure sufficient places for emergency housing". That makes sense. This Government has three Ministers all with housing portfolios—three Ministers. Every other Government has had only one housing Minister and—KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): I move That the question be now put."