Walker Holly: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Walker Holly: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Sitting date: 14 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4306. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
7. 
HOLLY WALKER (Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Housing 
: What are Housing New Zealand’s time frames for responding to maintenance requests and in what percentage of cases are those timeframes met? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Housing) 
: 
 I am advised that response times are determined by the urgency of work. This is categorised in three ways: urgent health and safety which needs to be responded to within 4 hours and recent results are 93 percent of jobs completed within that time frame; urgent responsive maintenance which does not meet the health and safety criteria but is of an urgent nature which should be completed within 2 working days and recent results are 93 percent of those jobs completed within the time frame; and general responsive maintenance which is work that includes general repairs and must be responded to within 10 working days and 91 percent of those jobs have been completed within the time frame recently. Where work will take longer to complete I am advised that the corporation ensures there is no health and safety risk at the property and when necessary supplies tenants with interim measures until the work can be completed. 
Holly Walker 
: Does Housing New Zealand Corporation keep records of how many maintenance requests are outstanding at any given time; if so how many are currently outstanding? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: Housing New Zealand Corporation records all maintenance requests and clearly makes a judgment whether those are sensible requests and maintenance does need to be done. Clearly it measures how many are responded to—in most cases it is well over 90 percent—so I would imagine it would have a record of what requests that have credibility have yet to be responded to. But I must say that not every request for maintenance is necessarily one that is credible because sometimes people would like a couple of garages some carports or whatever which may not fit within maintenance criteria. 
Holly Walker 
: Can he confirm that the urgent health and safety maintenance that should be responded to within 4 hours can include correcting faults with toilets and drains; if so why was a tenant in Invercargill who discovered her toilet leaking in January left to wait until August for it to be repaired while black mould caused by the leaks spread from the bathroom to the hall and into a child’s bedroom making her family sick? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: With 69000 houses there is a possibility that for some reason a request has not been attended to. I would not necessarily know about every request. What might be of interest to the member is that if it is a health and safety issue the corporation will respond. But reasons for not responding can include being unable to contact the tenant to arrange a time the tenant refusing contractors access or a specific product or material being required that needs to be ordered. I am not saying that was the case in this instance; I am unfamiliar with this instance and this instance at this stage to me is just an allegation. I would be happy to pass it on to the corporation should the member pass me more detail. 
Holly Walker 
: I seek leave to table a time line from that tenant outlining her communications with Housing New Zealand Corporation in the months from January to August. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The time line is prepared by that tenant? Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 









Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Holly Walker 
: Can he confirm that urgent health and safety maintenance that should be responded to within 4 hours can include fixing a broken exterior door or window; if so why was a tenant in Porirua who rang the 0800 number to request that a gap in her exterior window be fixed because it was making her house and her children cold told that it was Housing New Zealand Corporation’s safety policy to leave gaps in windows so that smoke could escape during a fire? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: As I say I am not across all 69000 State house requests but what I can say is that urgent responsive maintenance is work that does not meet the health and safety criteria but is of an urgent nature—for example the repair of a smoke detector when there are still other working smoke detectors in the home. This should be completed in 2 days. I welcome the member passing on those allegations; at this stage they remain just allegations. If it needs to be addressed I am sure the corporation will address it. 
Holly Walker 
: Given those examples will he require Housing New Zealand Corporation to publicly report the number of outstanding maintenance requests at any given time to ensure that Housing New Zealand Corporation is not routinely breaking the law under the Residential Tenancies Act 1986? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: No. I am comfortable with the corporation reporting to shareholding Ministers and more particularly its board on its response times. Obviously response times are over 90 percent which is good. There is always room for improvement. If the member wants such urgent attention given to State houses why does she wait a couple of weeks until question time to raise it with me? Why does she not just contact my office or the corporation directly?