Lees-Galloway Iain: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3632. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I have a couple of questions for the Minister in the chair Simon Bridges if he could lift his head out of his magazine for just a second and listen to the debate that is going on in the Chamber that he is supposed to be responsible for. I have a couple of questions for him. My first question is this: how is the Social Housing Reform (Flexible Purchasing and Remedial Matters) Bill going to make one iota of difference to the housing crisis that we face in my electorate of Palmerston North? And if the Minister does not think there is a housing crisis in Palmerston North then he should get there and come and talk to the people and talk to some of the agencies that deal with people who are in need of social and emergency accommodation in Palmerston North.If you drive around my city right now—this has been the case for quite some time and it is getting worse—there are huge tracts of empty land where there used to be State houses. On Botanical Road that land has been empty for 7 years with absolutely no plan for what to do with it. On Rugby Street that land has been empty for 3 years. On Selby Place that land has just been emptied now. And finally we hear there is a plan. Can anybody guess what the plan is for that land? Sell if off flog it off. And this land is not even going to the NGOs or the private developers or the foreign banks that the National Party wants to bring in to social housing. Oh no this is not for social housing; this is just outright privatisation—selling it off and that means less social housing for the people who live in my community.How do National members justify that? Well I will tell you how they justify that. They say there are only 20 people on the housing waiting list. Well we have just heard from Megan Woods and Carmel Sepuloni how they do that: 6000 people apply for a State house in New Zealand and 4000 of them are denied even the opportunity to get on the waiting list. And where do those people go when they are denied access to the waiting list? Well they end up at the doorstep of the Salvation Army which has had its funding cut and has had to reduce the amount of emergency accommodation that it can provide. They end up at the doorstep of Women’s Refuge which is now having to screen women with families who come and ask for its assistance. Women regardless of whether they have suffered abuse are being told by the Ministry of Social Development to go to Women’s Refuge to seek housing because Work and Income cannot satisfy their urgent and desperate need for emergency accommodation.So Women’s Refuge—which is already cash-strapped has already had to close down one facility in Palmerston North and is having more of its funding cut in this very Budget—is having to waste time determining whether or not women with families who come to it actually fit the criteria for its service because this Government is abrogating its responsibility to provide emergency accommodation to people who desperately need it.That is what is happening in my electorate and if any National MP honestly believes that the situation is rosy then get yourself down to your local Salvation Army get yourself down to your local Women’s Refuge and go and talk to any of the other agencies. In my electorate it would be Methodist Social Services or Shepherd’s Rest which have also had their funding cut. Go and ask them what the real story is.I say to Government members that your numbers do not tell the truth. Your numbers have been deliberately constructed by you to try to fool the people into thinking there is no housing crisis. The people are not fooled. The people are not fooled. We know full well there is a massive shortage of emergency accommodation. People are living in their cars people are sleeping under bridges people are having to couch surf from one friend to another just to try to find a place to put a roof over their head.Families are accommodating other families with massive overcrowding in those houses because this Government does not want to participate in a fundamental role of the State and that is to make sure that every citizen that it represents actually has somewhere to call home and a roof to put over their head and the safety and security that comes with it.I urge members on that side of the Chamber who cannot be bothered to get out of their seats and participate in this debate to go to the Salvation Army and to go to Women’s Refuge and find out the truth.