Harawira Hone: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Harawira Hone: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Tena tatou katoa e te Whare. I will start with a quote which will come up a bit later in my speech: “If this was a White middle-class community there would be hell to pay.” 
The Maori Party welcomes this move to change the law so that the Weathertight Homes Tribunal can make awards to those families who have suffered mental distress as a result of the leaky homes saga of the past few years. It is appropriate that this bill is coming up now because of the trauma and distress that are being suffered by the victims of the recent storms and floods that have hit Te Tai Tokerau Whitianga Kahungunu and Taranaki over the past few weeks. It is really sad that this bill ain’t going to help any of them at all. This current proposal came out of a court decision that noted that the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act did not allow for awards to be made for mental distress and anxiety. This bill will allow such awards to be made which will be a big relief for those with claims relating to weathertight deficiencies. Mind you it would be better if people could get decent affordable good-quality housing first rather than have to try to claw back compensation for shoddy construction later. 
Although the Maori Party acknowledges the genuine distress caused by the deficiencies damage destruction and loss of value that this bill deals with we also want to widen the debate to deal with housing stress more broadly. Of course we support any move that acknowledges the stress of having a home and then losing it. Like the Law Society we see this bill as being forward-looking and in the best interests of those who have suffered mental distress and anxiety caused by damage and loss of value. But we are also aware that since 2002 the Government has spent nearly $76 million on the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service and then the Weathertight Homes Tribunal. We wonder when the Government will get around to funding a “Substandard Homes Resolution Service” to respond to the desperate needs of those people who live in homes where there is no bathroom where the long drop toilet is hidden behind a shabby wooden door where the wind whistles through paper-thin walls and ill-fitting doors and windows where there is no heating or protection from the cold and damp where there is no hot-water cylinder and where the only tap that works is the cold one. 
If members think I have made that up they should just ask John Carter Parekura Horomia or Pita Paraone himself. They will tell them that what I have said is true. There are way too many of those instances for the Government to continue to ignore the situation. Indeed all members will be aware of quotes such as this one from a regional health strategy recently: “Hospitalisation for preventable diseases among Maori is high along with health issues associated with poverty and poor housing.” That confirms an ongoing reality of housing stress for Maori a reality that includes overcrowding substandard housing and poor heating further impacting on Maori health. 
So it is hard to think about this weathertight homes bill separately from the impact of wider housing policy on Maori. The facts are that up until World War II Maori were specifically excluded from mainstream State housing and that in a study completed just last year by the Family Centre social policy research unit and by the Massey University research centre for Maori health and development we find that the same problems are still there: It states: “Local councils and government departments are reported to have struggled to meet changing housing demands for Maori.” This was just last year. It seems to me that if legislation can be fast-tracked through to allow for awards for mental distress for leaky home victims then there is no reason why legislation cannot be fast-tracked to cater for Maori housing needs. The research has already been done into housing discrimination and there is a whole host of recommendations for affordable homeownership communal housing designs and innovative rental deals. 
If I might be so bold I would ask this House to think about the societal status of those New Zealand families who are affected by this bill and to ask whether there are certain suburbs certain income brackets and certain socio-economic categories that mostly benefit from the work of the Weathertight Homes Tribunal. I dare not ask this House to think about the communities in my own electorate for example—the northern territory—where poverty often determines people’s housing choice and where people live in houses built from polyurethaned “Weet-bix” where septic tanks have been put in below the level of the water table where sewage runs over the sections where poor workmanship is grossly evident and where one senior Pakeha policy analyst was so shocked and disgusted at the conditions she saw that she was moved to say: “If this was a White middle-class community there would be hell to pay.” That was not a quote from me but from a senior Pakeha policy analyst who was shocked at the housing conditions she had seen in Te Tai Tokerau. 
Then of course a few years ago the middle class went into shock over the leaky homes saga and to no one’s surprise—bang bang bang—we have this legislation. It is different treatment for two groups of people: one brown rural and on a low income and the other white more affluent and in a higher income bracket. Perhaps the criticism of my comments about John Howard was right: maybe I should have been firing my bullets a lot closer to home than I did. Why indeed has this Government treated those two groups of people so very very differently? 
We know from the leaky homes saga that deregulation of the building industry led to cowboy operators and a lowering of standards but what about those Maori houses that were built before then? They are houses built on swamp land because the whanau had been moved off their original papakainga houses approved by the Housing Corporation over the past 20 years that have already been condemned and houses that whanau cannot sell because they were built of inferior materials. But none of the owners of those houses are eligible for the Weathertight Homes Tribunal compensation that those other folks are to receive. We know too from the  
Social Report 2006 
 that there are parts of this country where household overcrowding is rife: places like Manukau Opotiki Porirua Wairoa Kawerau and places in the far north where 25 percent of all homes need more bedrooms and where to no one’s surprise the populations are primarily Maori and Pasifika. 
This bill to allow for awards for mental distress for those who are suffering the effects of the leaky homes saga is a good idea—there is no question about that. But let us not be so blinded by this saga that we do not see a real crisis that has been rotting in our country for generations: a crisis of shoddy homes a crisis of people in desperate need and a crisis of a Government in denial. Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker.