Turia Tariana: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Turia Tariana: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:633;Page:5077] 
TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Tena koe te Kaikorero o te Whare. In the mid-1980s a Te Awamutu lad Neil Finn created a band that produced one of the all-time favourite New Zealand songs. That band appropriately called Crowded House released the hit “Don’t Dream it’s Over”. The No. 1 hit song described a hole in the roof and trying to catch a deluge in a paper cup and ended: 
There’s a battle ahead many battles are lost  
But you’ll never see the end of the road 
While you’re travelling with me. 
It is a theme song that may well sum up the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill. The expression of hope amidst the battles of a vast alienated world reflects also the faith of tangata whenua that despite the persistent Maori housing crisis they will see the end of the road. It is an expression of faith that we will carry into this latest scheme to provide homeowners with a more effective alternative to the courts for the resolution of leaking buildings claims. 
It is an expression of faith that has endured through the decades. And it has literally been decades in which Maori have endured leaky homes houses that are far from weathertight substandard houses and poor housing conditions. In the 1920s Maori housing was restricted to urban pepper-potted situations. Tangata whenua were forbidden from building on their own land. Instead they had either to sell or swap their land in order to obtain a deposit to live somewhere else. In the 1930s funding was used to replace dilapidated housing with housing that was both smaller and on a much simpler scale than State-sponsored Pakeha housing. Indeed until the late 1940s Maori families were outcasts excluded from mainstream State housing on the grounds that their presence would allegedly “lower the tone” of State housing communities. It is what we call “privilege”. 
Hon Member 
: Which Government? 
TARIANA TURIA 
: National. We remember our people’s homes at Bastion Point being burnt down because the Queen was coming. Finally in 1948 Maori were concentrated into communities characterised by high Maori deprivation; areas such as Porirua and South Auckland—interestingly the same areas that the New Zealand Police is targeting with its Taser gun trial. The scheme administered by State Advances and the Department of Maori Affairs in effect created ghettos of Maori housing. 
Yet through it all Maori communities had faith that their housing aspirations would be realised that their battles would be won that the lack of insulation floor coverings floor space quality paint wall coverings concreting fencing sewerage and community facilities would one day be part of a nightmare that they had survived through. 
So although we support the goal of addressing the leaky building crisis in many ways we have a certain amount of irony in doing so for as the homes of tangata whenua would reveal concerns around the weathertightness of buildings in New Zealand existed long before 2002 when the Building Industry Authority raised concerns regarding leaky houses. To misquote another Finn hit the housing experience of Maori has been far more than “six months in a leaky home”. The homes of tangata whenua for decades have shown signs of damage from water leaking into the house from the outside. They have suffered from the use of untreated timber. They have borne the impact of monolithic cladding systems that retain moisture. The houses of tangata whenua have been built with inadequate or poorly constructed flashings around doors and windows. And tangata whenua have had to put up with musty smells with wet or rotting carpet with paint blistering wallpaper peeling or cracking and visible water damage embellishing their family homes. So although for some sectors these so-called leaky homes are a relatively recent phenomenon for Maori communities it has been with us for ever ake ake tonu ake. 
 Almost 50 years ago in 1959 the Young Maori Leaders Conference unanimously endorsed Maori housing as the most crucial issue of the hui. In rural areas particularly the housing stock owned or occupied by tangata whenua is often of poor quality and often poorly provided with the usual facilities. These problems are made even more complex by difficulties of remoteness and access which serve to increase the costs of construction. If this House were seriously to review the situation of generations of deprivation as reflected in the Maori housing crisis we would all be seriously embarrassed at the priority given to the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service. 
If members of this House were to travel to the Bay of Plenty up to Northland and up the East Coast they would be appalled. The Cooperative Housing Association of Aotearoa New Zealand has identified at least 5000 substandard houses in Northland alone. About 4 year ago when I was the Associate Minister of Housing we reviewed the housing situation in the Northland East Coast and Bay of Plenty areas. There was a lot of caution about exposing the issues surrounding the quality of the building materials the workmanship the assessment of the work authorised at local body level and public health—sewage disposal. Walls were rotting from the internal panels; they were like polyurethaned Weetbix. Many of the people were fastidiously clean but their floors still rotted. 
I recall the statement of an official about the situation in a small Maori community in the Bay of Plenty: “If this were to happen to white middle-class people there would be hell to pay.” In Rukumoana the situation was so extreme that sewerage was seeping over the lawns and coming up into the sinks of houses through the piping. People could not get the council even to pick up their rubbish as the council did not want to offend—and I quote—“their redneck ratepayers”. Funnily enough none of these Northland East Coast and Bay of Plenty areas benefited from a change in compensation or in legislation. 
While the provisions for assessment reports negotiation processes for resolutions and strengthened adjudication services are all very helpful the Maori Party must draw the attention of this House to the deteriorating conditions which cannot be overstated. The  
Social Report 2006  
has highlighted that the proportion of low-income households spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing is over twice as high as it was in 1988. Among these Maori are highly overrepresented. 
It was precisely because of the severity of this crisis that a group of eight agencies—including the North Hokianga Housing Trust the Cooperative Housing Association of Aotearoa New Zealand and the Child Poverty Action Group—got together in 2003 and made a submission for the New Zealand report to the Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights. That submission reported: “There continue to be real problems of social exclusion and poverty in New Zealand manifested in an affordable housing crisis. We contend the situation is far worse than the Government accepts. Figures show that rising overcrowding impacts on Pacific families in South Auckland in particular. Overcrowding is associated with poor health status and respiratory diseases infectious disease and psychological stress.” The conclusion from this group of social service providers was that “remediation of sub-standard housing has not on the whole delivered sustainable outcomes that take into account the realities of impoverished under-developed regional communities.” 
The Maori Party is not in the practice of comparing one oppression with another of contrasting one case of deprivation with others. But when will the very real difficulties in the housing experiences of Maori of Pasifika of low-income communities in Aotearoa emerge as a worthy serious consideration? Housing is essential to survival to dignity to individual and whanau well-being. Our homes are key to our sense of security; they are our havens to nurture and bring up families. 
We have many proverbs that speak to the central role that stable housing plays in the lives of Maori. One recorded by White in 1887 gives particular insight: “Ko nga tama whakatamatama a Tane motu te nganahau.”—the bold and daring sons of Tane defiant of the storm. It literally reinforces the value of strong houses built of bark and wood of trees from the forest of Tane. It reminds us of consumer protection of the need to address the persistent deprivation. The Maori Party stands today to inform the House that we will indeed stand tall if the Government honours its obligations to respect protect and fulfil economic social and cultural rights by ensuring that the basic entitlement to housing remains intact.