Turei Metiria: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 13 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5808. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): This House does know the seriousness of the problem with housing quality and affordability in this country. This House also knows that 1600 people die every winter in this country because of poor-quality housing. MPs in this House have heard me ask questions of Bill English about one of those 1600 Emma-Lita Bourne a baby who died last year from housing-related illnesses. So it is impossible to say that we do not know and we do not know what to do. We do know and we do know what to do. Although the politicians particularly the Government Ministers are ignoring the evidence and even the faces of the people who are affected by poor-quality housing the ministerial officials do seem to be taking it into account.I want to identify two areas where the officials have been listening to the evidence and putting to the Ministers solutions to help these kids and help these families. Here is one solution they proposed before the Budget: an integrated healthy homes service for families of children with housing-related health risks—this is from the Government’s own ministerial papers; this is from Treasury to the Prime Minister—like Emma-Lita had. It was a $2 million a year fund—not very much money—for 3000 children who have already been admitted to hospital for respiratory and infectious diseases. These children the officials say can be identified as being at risk of serious health problems like rheumatic fever. It was a $2 million fund for 3000 identifiable sick kids and what does the Government do? It said: “No it is not in the Budget.” No it’s not a solution that it is prepared to consider. Then we have people like Anne Tolley saying that children’s health and well-being is the Government’s priority. Well where is the plan to deal with the threat to children’s health from poor housing? Where are the Children’s Teams that are heading out to these families’ homes to insulate ventilate and put in place good heating?Why are these 3000 identifiable babies not worth this Government’s attention and a measly $2 million a year? When did these kids’ lives suddenly become optional?Here is another example: assistance with winter energy costs. It is in the Treasury paper to the Prime Minister Bill English and other Ministers. It is assistance with winter energy costs called the “winter warm-up payment” of $300 a year going to the parents of children with a child aged under 1. It would be a great start for a low-income family with a little baby to get a winter warm-up payment to help them to pay for their winter power bill. It is about $4 million a year—a bit bigger than the other one. What did the Government say to that option? “No—big ‘X’. No we are not going to provide low-income families with little babies just a little bit of extra money to help them get through this winter.” The Government could have done it—the officials said that it was possible to do it this year—but it decided not to do it. There is no justification for the Government saying that it cannot do anything about these 1600 deaths about the babies who are getting sick and being hospitalised or the babies who never come home—no excuse at all. It has the money it has the policy and it has the officials who support it. It could roll it out under existing services and it chooses not to. We can never accept a Government that is prepared to put the lives of babies at risk like this for nothing.There is not even any ideological reason for it to say no to this. What is wrong with the Ministers that we have in place? They cannot look at genuine proposals or ways to help the most vulnerable families and the sickest babies to make sure that we have fewer babies getting sick fewer babies going to hospital and maybe more babies at least coming home. The families that these options were directed towards are seeing their babies going into hospital and they are not coming out. Where is the Government in making sure that these families have what they need? The Government will make a claim about the $25 in increased benefits but everyone knows that the families will be lucky if they get to see $20 of that. It does not come in until next year and it is a farce.