3. Question No. 3—Housing and Urban DevelopmentHon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing and Urban DevelopmentQuestion No. 3—Housing and Urban Development3. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: Does he stand by his statements that KiwiBuild has a total Budget allocation of $6.2 million for full-time staff this year of which $4.9 million is spent on officials' salaries?Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): I'm advised that there is no specific Budget allocation for full-time KiwiBuild staff as the member asked in her recent written question. The answer I gave to that written question refers to the total amount spent on full-time KiwiBuild staff currently planned to be filled this financial year. I thank the member for drawing my attention to the error and have corrected the answer to the written question with the Bills Office. The $4.9 million figure is the total annual salary spend for all full-time KiwiBuild staff employed at 5 April.Hon Judith Collins: Does he stand by his statement that KiwiBuild has 38 fulltime-equivalent staff with a total salary of $4.9 million?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes.Hon Judith Collins: Is he aware that those ratios result in an average total salary of $130000 per KiwiBuild official?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes I am. The reason that we're investing in staff at that level is that we are building the capability of the core Public Service to do something that no Government has tried to do in this country for 40 years and that is to get affordable houses built. Our side of the House make no apologies for intervening in a failed market to get houses built for young Kiwi families.Hon Judith Collins: Why with spending an average of $130000 per official did he also spend $5 million on consultants in just the first four months of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: We have spent a sum on contractors in the first four months. The reason for that is that most of that spend is related to people who have been taken on on fixed-term contracts because the new Ministry of Housing and Urban Development does not yet have a Budget appropriation which would allow it to employ those people on permanent contracts. We're also dealing with a Public Service that we inherited that had no capability to implement our housing reform agenda in large part because the last National Government ran down the Public Service for nine years.Hon Judith Collins: Is it acceptable that he has spent over $11 million on KiwiBuild staff and ministry consultants which is more than $300000 per house that KiwiBuild has actually delivered?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well I think the House can see that the error of the member's assumptions is that she's comparing fixed costs right at the beginning of a 10-year Government house-building programme. Mark my words: as time goes on and we build thousands and thousands of extra houses those fixed costs per unit built will go down. Our Government is committed to building affordable houses en masse.Hon Judith Collins: How many of the staff he has hired have any experience building houses?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: We're recruiting staff right now and attracting staff from the private sector because we're building capability in this area that that Government had no interest in for its entire nine years. We're doing something that no Government has tried to do for decades. It's long overdue and New Zealanders want us to do it.