Williams PotoPOTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Before I begin my substantive contribution can I please send my best wishes out to those people of the Port Hills who are watching with some distress that properties are under risk of the fires. May I send my condolences to the family of the helicopter pilot who appears to have lost his life in fighting those fires.As I am an electorate MP—and I know that my colleagues who are electorate MPs here in Labour do this every single day—my office opened its doors after the summer break on 11 January. In the next 2 weeks my office was swamped with 85 requests from constituents for support and advice—85 requests in 10 working days. A quarter of these requests were about financial hardship and many of these people had gone to Government agencies to seek support only to be turned away—a significant number of people turned away from Government agencies that are charged with their support. For them the National Party's brighter future the economic dream is actually an economic nightmare because they struggle every single day just to be fed just to be housed and just to get on with life. There were 85 requests in 10 days and I am hearing from my colleagues that it does not seem like that is unusual—from members on this side of the House.We have had people come to us in the last 6 months—it is a practice of mine to keep a count of the number of interactions my office has with people and I must absolutely acknowledge my team: Heather Leeann and Paul. They do an extraordinary job between the three of them and I even get to pick up some of the work we do so much. What we are finding when I do my annual report or my 6-monthly report is that many of our people are the ones for whom this Government claims that it is doing a good job. Government members say that they are doing a great job at getting people off benefit and into work when many of the constituents who come to me in my office for support are people in employment and they are struggling to actually keep a roof over their head and keep food on the table for their kids and to get their power bills paid. I have these numbers for anyone who cares to look. I have these numbers for anyone who cares to look. And we care to look. We care to look at the numbers of people who come to us for support.I want to talk about housing because currently this Government wants to sell 2500 Housing New Zealand homes in Christchurch and about 350 of them are in one of the suburbs in my electorate Shirley. We know that Government officials went to Australia after they announced the sale of these houses because they knew that social housing agencies in New Zealand would not be able to actually take over the role of purchasing and running these homes. So they have gone to Australia. Why is it that we are looking to Australians to care for New Zealanders and keep New Zealanders in homes because let us face it the profits from that will not stay here; they will go offshore.If this Government is serious about housing Kiwis then it should not be looking offshore for community housing providers in Australia to take up the reins. Housing is a core Government function. Keeping Kiwis in Kiwi homes is a core Government function and Labour when it becomes the next Government will do exactly that. It will build houses and it will make sure that Kiwis actually get the housing that they deserve. For New Zealanders out there rest assured that the economic nightmare that this Government has delivered you will be no longer. We promise you an economic dream where every Kiwi will have the house they deserve the education they deserve and the healthcare they deserve. Thank you.