Salesa JennyHon JENNY SALESA (Minister for Building and Construction): Malo 'aupito 'Eiki Sea. Malo e lelei. This week it's Tongan Language Week and I greet the House in the language of my ancestors. The theme for Tongan Language Week in 2018 is Fakakoloa 'o Aotearoa 'aki 'a e 'Ofa Fonua—enrich Aotearoa with the love of duty and service to country community and people." This indeed is the approach that underpins my life and my service as a member of Parliament and as a Minister of the Crown.When we came in to Government we inherited a whole lot of issues. You heard from the Hon Minister of Housing and Urban Development Phil Twyford about the plans and what we're implementing to address housing issues. We also inherited a lot of issues in terms of health and education. After nine years of not building enough houses not investing enough in hospital infrastructure not investing enough in the maintenance of our schools there is indeed a lot of work for our Government to do.We have a clear plan though to address these and we are getting on with the job. We are a Government of action. We are addressing these issues and—just to go back to the housing issues—one of the things that we were confronted with when we came in was the fact that we were short 71000 residential houses across Aotearoa. We also as a country are number one in the OECD for the rate of homelessness.Hon Dr Nick Smith: Rubbish.Hon JENNY SALESA: We see homelessness Hon Nick Smith when we go to every single city including out in the regions. You only have to walk through the shopping centre and you'll see people who are homeless right there Hon Nick Smith. We are a Government that has come in to address those issues. It will take us a few years to build the houses that we need to house all of our people.Hon Dr Nick Smith: It's getting worse.Hon JENNY SALESA: About 50000 people we estimate now Hon Nick Smith are homeless and it will take years to build houses to house all of our vulnerable people. But I'd like to get back to education. The previous Government left us a billion-dollar shortfall to meet the demand for school property over the next four years. I'd like to acknowledge the honourable Minister of Education the Hon Chris Hipkins for the work that he is doing. He's doing a whole lot of work and he is leading a whole lot of work in the area of education—and today is also his birthday. Happy birthday Mr Hipkins. One of the things that both the right honourable Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Minister Hipkins did in the last couple of weeks is they went across Aotearoa and announced a whole lot of new school buildings—for instance $24 million to modernise Wainuiomata High School an additional $13.7 million to rebuild Redcliffs School in Christchurch and $47 million to modernise Otumoetai College in Tauranga. There is a whole lot more. Mr Speaker you heard the honourable Minister earlier on speak of the fact that there are about 100 other classrooms across Aotearoa. This Government is indeed getting on with the job.This Government has also in the Budget of 2018 invested new funding over $200 million to support a further 1000 of our Kiwi kids with high or complex needs an additional 2900 who are deaf or hard of hearing and 1500 low-vision students. This Government has also provided the first universal cost adjustment for centre-based early learning services including for our kōhanga reo since 2008 and this will benefit over 200000 of our children and over 4100 of our providers.When we speak about hospital infrastructure one of the previous speakers spoke about how we should listen to advice that comes through from Treasury. One of the pieces of advice that we've been given from Treasury is the fact that it would cost up to $14 billion over the next 10 years just to get our hospital infrastructure in all of the district health boards across Aotearoa up to the level where it should be. So it's not actually a matter of whether this Government is actually investing in hospital infrastructure; we are. In the Budget of 2018 we put aside $850 million for infrastructure. You compare that to the previous Government: they put aside $150 million. So we are focused on what matters to our people in Aotearoa and we are doing our best to ensure that we serve all of our people. Thank you so much Mr Speaker."