1. Question No. 1—Housing and Urban DevelopmentMARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister of Housing and Urban DevelopmentORAL QUESTIONSQUESTIONS TO MINISTERSQuestion No. 1—Housing and Urban Development1. MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: Will he commit to ensuring that the 800 tenancies terminated or otherwise affected by Housing New Zealand's previous approach to meth testing receive compensation that genuinely reflects the level of harm done and takes account of both direct costs and emotional distress?Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): Yes. Housing New Zealand has outlined an assistance package that is flexible and will take account of each tenant's individual circumstances. It will cover costs incurred debt that may have been charged or possessions that may have been lost but it will not cover emotional distress. Other forms of assistance will focus on activities that Housing New Zealand can offer through its operations including housing affected tenants who are on the public housing register and formally apologising to tenants.Marama Davidson: Is the proposed payment of between $2500 to $3000 only reimbursement or is it intended to be compensation for the harm suffered by families forced out of their homes through no fault of their own?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: So the compensation package that will be tailored to the individual circumstance of tenants could end up being several thousand dollars more than the base $2500 to $3000. It's designed to address actual costs and losses incurred. Sometimes that refers to possessions that were lost and costs involved with losing a tenancy and having to find somewhere else to live.Marama Davidson: Will the Minister urgently prioritise finding homes for the over 90 tenants and their families in unsuitable housing and on the social housing register as a result of inhumane meth-testing policies?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes. Housing New Zealand is working on ensuring that every tenant who is eligible for public housing who was on the public housing register is rehoused. The assistance package includes rehousing tenants who used to be Housing New Zealand tenants but moved because of methamphetamine contamination and who are currently on the register.Hon Judith Collins: Has he seen any report that shows a house can test positive for meth at any level if no one has been smoking or baking a highly dangerous and illegal class A drug in that house?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well the meth-testing approaches that have been used over the last few years have a very high level of sensitivity and there are many cases where contamination or residue from meth consumption in a house has registered in the testing. In fact it's sometimes been above the threshold in the guidelines that were earlier provided by the Ministry of Health but independent scientific experts have pointed out that that level of contamination is equivalent to the contamination of methamphetamine that you might find on a banknote in ready circulation.SPEAKER: Order! No I am going to ask the Minister to—it was a very tight question. I can't insist on a yes or no. He gave a very good answer but not quite to that question.Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Would you mind repeating it?Hon Judith Collins: Has he seen any report that shows a house can test positive for meth at any level if no one has been smoking or baking a highly dangerous and illegal class A drug in that house?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No.Marama Davidson: What is the Minister doing to make sure affected tenants not on the register have somewhere decent to live and get the compensation they are entitled to?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Housing New Zealand has urged any former tenant who was affected by this situation to get in contact by either calling 0800 006 077 or emailing . They will also be partnering with other agencies and groups to find people who have been affected. Over the last few weeks there's been an extensive effort to track people down through Government databases to get in touch with them and ensure that assistance can be provided where appropriate.Marama Davidson: Does the Minister agree that the report released today demonstrates a series of significant failures by Housing New Zealand over an extended period of time and what steps is the Minister taking to ensure this never happens again?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The report that Housing New Zealand released today makes it clear that there were significant mistakes made over a number of years mistakes that included applying a meth contamination standard that the Ministry of Health designed for properties where meth had been manufactured in a home which was then applied as a threshold for decontamination. Housing New Zealand now acknowledges that in hindsight that was wrong. They have acknowledged that they applied a zero-tolerance approach to this issue that caused undue hardship to hundreds of tenants many of whom were made homeless. They were in some cases denied natural justice. They were thrown out on the street not only on the basis of a bogus contamination standard but often without reasonable evidence that the tenant had in fact been responsible for the contamination. The report identifies some failures of governance and overseeing of this policy over a number of years. This is an exercise in Government accountability. Housing New Zealand is stepping up acknowledging that it got it wrong and putting things right.Hon Judith Collins: Is the Minister saying that it is wrong to end a tenancy when someone is using a house to break the law?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: We're saying that it's wrong to make innocent people homeless on the basis of bogus science and no decent evidence of responsibility or culpability. Hundreds of people were made homeless under this policy people who in some cases were vulnerable—people with addictions who were made homeless. The worst possible thing that you could do to someone who has an addiction is to make them homeless.