Salesa JennyHon JENNY SALESA (Minister for Building and Construction): Madam Deputy Speaker thank you so much. May I begin my address by congratulating and acknowledging Mr Venkat Raman. He's the founder of Indian Newslink and last night we celebrated 10 years of businesses under Indian Newslink—so many businesses across New Zealand—and I'd like to just acknowledge all the work that Mr Venkat Raman has put in to our country. I would also like to congratulate Crimson Education the overall winner of last night's Indian Business Awards. In particular it was a young lady called Sharndré Kushor—22 years old. I'm just extremely proud that it's a young lady that actually won that award.Our new coalition Government was sworn into office just over four weeks ago. We are bringing new ideas to solve so many issues that we're facing in Aotearoa New Zealand today. Just earlier on during question time we heard that there is a Budget funding hole of just over $10 billion in infrastructure. The two main issues I would like to talk about this afternoon are child poverty and homelessness. In addition to addressing those two issues we also have to look at that particular funding challenge.One of the main issues that we are finding ourselves having to address is this issue of homelessness. Now I remember about two years ago when I was trying to highlight this particular issue from South Auckland and initially when I became a member of Parliament I did not expect to deal with such volumes of homelessness on a daily basis in my office. But the most shocking thing to me as a local MP was the fact that so many of these families coming to ask for assistance were working. They were working full time and yet they could not find a place where they could actually afford the rent.And so I'd like to also acknowledge at this time the assistance from a journalist who actually came and spent a lot of time in Ōtara—three weeks and he was doing other work as well. I am talking about Mike Wesley-Smith of The Nation. In that time one of the things that he actually uncovered was that in Ōtara in the previous year 80 percent of all the houses that were sold were sold to investors. It actually answered one of the questions I had in my mind because so many of these families coming to ask for my assistance had never lived in a State house. They've always lived in private rentals. I was wondering why I was seeing so many people from my local community coming to ask for assistance—people that had never asked for assistance in terms of social housing in the past. He actually helped me answer that question. When they are given eviction notices told to leave those houses and they cannot find another house that they can afford—and yes they're working full time—it is actually really desperate. I find a lot of these families in desperate situations. Initially when I saw families who had come to see me in the minivans they live in and in the cars that they live in and when I went out as a local MP—I found so many cars parked in the street and all of these folks were living in those cars—I found with the assistance of the journalist that half of them work full time and that a quarter of them had degrees.So they're educated 25 percent of them; they work full time 50 percent of them; and they're still living in cars. This of course is a really concerning issue to me as a local MP but it has become a big issue for us as a Government because we know now—and we know this from Yale University—that New Zealand now has the highest rate of homelessness in the OECD.We know—a little earlier on from Otago University—that there are over 41000 homeless people in Aotearoa New Zealand but that is 2013 census figures. I'm looking forward to the census figures of next year because if we go by the kinds of numbers I'm seeing in my office in Ōtara the figure will probably be more. When I first became an MP I was seeing a certain number of families who were coming to ask for assistance because they were homeless but three years later I was seeing three times those numbers of families. So on the one hand I'm looking forward to the actual numbers from Statistics New Zealand but on the other it will probably confirm that we have so many more who are living in these situations.One of the things that we read in the media lately is some criticism of the kinds of experts that we the Government are bringing together to give us the actual reality of homelessness of rental and of the conditions of our housing but let me just say that what my parliamentary colleague and Minister of Housing the Hon Phil Twyford is doing in bringing these folks together is actually going to inform us. They will actually tell us: this is the status of housing right now; this is the status of rental accommodation; and this is actually the status of homelessness. For us as a Government those statistics—yes they did exist and they do exist in the Government departments—haven't actually been out there in the public. And so I look forward to when that report is going to be released which is going to be just before Christmas.In terms of child poverty can I now reflect on a lady who is one of my heroes someone I look up to and how she served children and how she served those who were living in the most dire of circumstances: St Mother Teresa. We celebrated her birth just a couple of days ago and as many of you already know she had a life journey that was filled with love and compassion filled with kindness towards our most vulnerable. She founded the Missionaries of Charity a Roman Catholic religious congregation and she has over 4000 sisters in over 100 countries. Some of these sisters are right here in Aotearoa New Zealand. I met a few of them over the weekend.One of the things that St Mother Teresa did is she reached out to anyone and to everyone in need. She offered practical help no matter their race their faith or their social status. And one of the things that is occurring over in my electorate in Ōtāhuhu where there are a few Catholic churches but also a few Catholic schools is we have a non-governmental organisation that helps those who are homeless; it's called St Vincent's. This particular organisation works in collaboration with McAuley High School. They have what is called Vinnies. Now what this organisation does is it assists our youngest students and helps them to serve those in need. On a yearly basis they come together and they go to St Vincent's and they help them with food they help them with clothes and they help sort things out because too many of our families are in need.But if I can go back to St Mother Teresa one of the things that she is quoted as saying is this: and I quote Stay where you are. Find your own Calcutta. Find the sick the suffering and the lonely right where you are." And other quote from her "If you can't feed 100 people then feed just one." At this time I'd like to refer to a young boy not in my electorate—a young boy from Manurewa; we know because this was covered in the media. This young boy he would go past this older gentleman a Pākehā gentleman and what he would notice was that this gentleman was crying. But what he did was he stopped. He asked him "Why are you crying?" This was a homeless person. This older gentleman shared with him that he had lost his wife. He had lost his home as well because he had lost his job. But what this young boy did is he shared his lunch with this gentleman. This gentleman now we know tells us that that act of kindness that act of love gave him hope and every day he would look forward to this young person stopping by to share his lunch. Can I just say that if many of us in this House just share a little bit of kindness just like this young boy and just like St Mother Teresa we would help a whole lot more people. Thank you very much Madam Assistant Speaker."