Lees-Galloway Iain: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 13 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5810. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I welcome the challenge from David Seymour to the Labour Party to reach across the Chamber to try to find concord on the Resource Management Act because he is too late; we have already done it. Labour has repeatedly told National and the other parties in Government that we would be more than happy to work with them on the Resource Management Act but the National Government keeps saying: “No. It’s our way or the highway. No Labour we’re not prepared to work with you.” So thank you David Seymour for reiterating the challenge to the Labour Party because we are more than welcoming of it. I want to hear the same challenge made to the National Government to encourage it to reach across the Chamber and work in a cross-party manner with parties of the Opposition so that we can actually deal with some of the real issues in the Resource Management Act—some of which do indeed relate to housing. We would welcome that challenge. We would love to have that so good on David Seymour for laying down the challenge. At least he does something useful when he actually shows up in the Chamber.I want to talk about what is really happening on the ground with housing for people because there is a lot of rhetoric being spouted in here. The Government is trying to tell us the various plans and initiatives that it has got but I want to talk about the real experience of people in my electorate of Palmerston North. The real experience in Palmerston North is that where there used to be State houses there is now acres and acres of empty land and some of that land has remained empty for years. Finally after 7 years in some cases the Government does have a plan for that land. The plan is to sell it off. That would be fine if the plan was to use the money from the sale of those houses to build more houses in Palmerston North but that is not the plan at all. The Government has been quite clear about this: it is reducing the number of State houses. It is reducing the provision of social housing in Palmerston North just as it is doing in regions right across the country. So that is a fact. That is what is actually happening if we cut through the rhetoric—if we cut through all the noise. We just have to look around us in our own communities especially those of us who live in the regions to see that actually National’s plan is to reduce the provision of State and social housing.National members argue that there is actually no need for social housing. Well if they genuinely believe that there is no need for it I have a recommendation for them: go along to your local Salvation Army go along to your local Women’s Refuge go along and talk to any number of the organisations that represent people with disabilities and ask them whether there is a need for social housing—because the answer will be resoundingly: “Oh yes. Yes we are desperately short of housing for people who are the most vulnerable—the people who are in need.” What is happening as a result of this is that Work and Income is now telling people to go and see the Salvation Armybecause they cannot get on to the waiting list for a State house—the Salvation Army that has had to get rid of its women’s hostel in Palmerston North because of a lack of funding because it lost contracts with the Government and whose men’s hostel is now under extreme pressure and has been taking people whom it is probably not fit to take which because the Salvation Army does not get the appropriate funding from the Government to house those people adequately has been raising the ire of the people who live around that men’s hostel.Women’s Refuge has had to close one of its facilities because it has lost funding from the Government and it is now having people referred to it by Work and Income. Any woman with children who goes to Work and Income and tries to get on the Housing New Zealand list and is denied is told to go to Women’s Refuge whether or not they actually qualify for the services that Women’s Refuge provides. Women’s Refuge is there to provide support for women who are trying to escape domestic violence. So now Women’s Refuge is having to waste its own resources screening women in order to determine whether or not they actually fit its criteria. Work and Income cannot do its job properly and actually ensure that those people who are in need are able to get supportive accommodation. That is the real thing. Whatever the Government tells us—whatever spin and lines it has for us—those are the facts. That is what is really happening in our regions.