King Annette: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
King Annette: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 18 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3626. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
10. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
 to the  
Minister of Housing 
: What recent reports has he received on Housing New Zealand’s Smarter. Faster. Fairer. housing service? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Building and Construction) 
 on behalf of the Minister of Housing: The Minister receives regular reports about the progress implementation and evaluation of the corporation’s new service delivery model. These reports include updates on the corporation’s customer services centre which show there has been recently a vast improvement in the level of service customers are receiving. For example the average time to answer a call in July to date is just 1 minute and 54 seconds compared with 6 minutes and 53 seconds in April. Pre-assessments are now done at the customer services centre. This is a much more efficient process. The number of pre-assessments has more than doubled since the launch of the customer services centre programme. This shows that changes that the corporation is making are modernising the way it does business and making it quicker and easier for its customers to engage with the corporation. 
Hon Annette King 
: Is it smarter faster or fairer to house people in squalor and for the Minister to never seek a briefing on the slum conditions some of his tenants are living in to never seek an investigation into the many complaints about those conditions and to never question the safety of his tenants? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: No because that is not the case. 
Hon Annette King 
: Has he been advised that King Cobras gang members have accessed empty Housing New Zealand Corporation flats in Auckland are squatting in them and selling drugs and are frightening the neighbours and that the flats are now without proper security or a resident caretaker because of his “Smarter. Faster. Fairer.” policy changes? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Nothing in the brief I received today mentions the King Cobras gang. 
Hon Annette King 
: I seek leave to table written answers from the Minister of Housing telling me that he has never sought— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! Members know we do not table answers to written questions in the House. All members have access to those. 
Dr Megan Woods 
: Under his “Smarter. Faster. Fairer.” policy what priority would a family of five including two sick children living in a damp poorly sealed caravan parked in a relative’s driveway for the past 6 months receive from the Housing New Zealand Corporation? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: The Minister is advised that all cases reported to the Housing New Zealand Corporation are prioritised based on the level of need. It is a triage process that has worked for a long time and those people who are in real need are dealt with quickly. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Tena koe Mr Speaker. Kia ora tatou katoa. Is he satisfied that the Crown is a good landlord given the state of overcrowding in poor-quality housing and what will he be doing to improve the conditions of Housing New Zealand Corporation homes particularly recognising that those living in crowded homes in crowded conditions have increased risk of the transmission of certain infectious diseases? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Yes the Minister is satisfied but he thinks the Crown could always do better through the Housing New Zealand Corporation. However the Minister wants to share some numbers with the House. The average money spent on maintenance of Housing New Zealand Corporation properties nationwide since 2008 has been $202 million. That is far more than the average spend of the Labour Government which for a similar period was about $133 million. 
Dr Megan Woods 
: Has he ever sat down with agencies and individuals working on the ground in the housing sector—such as the Baptist Church and other Churches health workers and the Salvation Army—to see whether the Government can work with them to fix the housing crisis in Christchurch? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: It is always difficult to answer a specific question like that but I am certain the Minister has sat down with a number of organisations and talked through the issues just as most members in this House have done.