O'Connor Simon; Rurawhe AdrianSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you very much and I will then say Mr Speaker that if I do use the term you" I'm turning myself a little rural—"ewe". Hon Amy Adams: And it baas. SIMON O'CONNOR: And it baas—that's exactly right. I firmly oppose the PM's statement and I want to affirm the suggestion of the Leader of the Opposition the Hon Simon Bridges that this House has no confidence in the Labour-led Government because in just two short years it's plunged New Zealand into deficit and failed to deliver on any of its promises. But I have to say that in opposing the Prime Minister's statement part of me is actually not worried—not about the Opposition per se but about the Prime Minister's statement. If we have learnt anything in 2 to 2½ years it's that what the Prime Minister says leads to nothing. Arguably if you want to be attempting the generous and somewhat paradoxical all that it delivers is non-delivery. The Prime Minister's statements are empty. They are empty statements. They are empty promises. They are a world of rhetoric as you were. They're just words that go nowhere. In fact arguably things go backwards and speaking of going backwards I want to address the area of social housing. It's one of my portfolios one of my areas and it's something that the Prime Minister doesn't talk about a lot. But she said in the PM's statement—her statement of course—that she was proud. She said "we are also proudly a Government of housing. And I say that firmly and proudly." Again a perfect example of the Prime Minister ratcheting up the rhetoric but she didn't go on to talk about housing and what the Labour Government had done because I would suggest of course that there is nothing they would want to talk about. Instead she rambled on about what the previous Government had done and her perception of what had happened years and years ago. It was a glaring absence not picked up I note in the media so perhaps they might pick up something from this speech today and begin reporting on it. The Prime Minister said she's proud of housing. I'd like to put to her—rhetorically of course; it's always good to meet rhetoric with rhetoric—that if she's proud of housing is she proud that under her watch almost 15000 Kiwi families are waiting for a State house? I want to repeat that: 15000. That's almost triple—almost triple—what it was when National left office. I myself have not stepped back from saying that 5000 and a bit under National was not good enough. We were working hard to fix that. It was still too high—you never want it that high. But it's been remarkable that a Government—a now Government that used to wax lyrical of a housing crisis at 5000—are now silent—Marja Lubeck: Who was selling those State houses? SIMON O'CONNOR: Oh we'll come to that actually. We'll come to that because this Government's meant to be factual. So we'll silence them in a moment. But they were very very loud. They were very very loud about 5000 families but they're remarkably silent now about 15000 Kiwi families waiting for a State house. But I just repeat that the Prime Minister is proud of what they're doing in housing. Even in a year there's almost a 40 percent increase in that list. So we have seen it consistently rise time and time again. I predicted last year—this time last year—that it would go higher and the latest stats out a few days ago have just shown that. It is an absolute tragedy for those families and National is determined when it returns to the benches to fix it. The spend on emergency housing grants has gone from $9 million before National left office—so we were spending $9 million. You can make the argument or someone can make the argument that we needed to spend more. That's fine. It's now at $48 million. So not only do we have 15000 families waiting for houses not only do we have trump-it-up talk about houses built—and strangely enough many have actually been purchased and leased; they don't again tell us about that—but $48 million now is being spent on emergency housing grants. This is for people to be in tents. This is for people to be in motels and other accommodation. They said—and again it illustrates my earlier point that the Prime Minister talks but doesn't deliver other than words—that in their first year they were going to solve it. They were going to solve it. They said there would be no one sleeping in cars or otherwise in the first winter under that Government. Well we've been through at least three now and we're still having—still having—these problems. As I say it's getting worse. It's getting worse and the Government is directly to blame. It has had an obsessive focus on KiwiBuild which objectively on all levels is an absolute failure. It is such a failure that the empty KiwiBuild homes can't even be given to Housing New Zealand. They're that bad. They won't work—the Government that is—properly with community housing providers. This is a left-wing—I would suggest—Marxist-inspired Government which means it's only the Government that does the work. Why engage with the wider community? Community housing providers had their up-front funding cut. When I challenged the Minister about that he said "Oh no no no. There are at least 12 community housing providers that have talked to me about this." But in written questions it turned out that 11 of them had been declined and the twelfth was only lucky that they got their application in before the axe fell. We have of course had a Government that's introducing through its housing bills more and more regulations on landlords. I've said quite happily in the House before that it's not a problem that we want to increase insulation ventilation and so forth. But when you dump it all at once or when a person Mr Speaker dumps it all at once—as this Government's done—along with the threat of a capital gains tax getting rid of ring-fenced losses trying to remove 90-day notices and the like there's only one logical conclusion. You don't have to be a genius—you certainly can't be a lefty—to understand that this is going to put rents up and we've had evidence day after day. In fact a survey came out recently of more and more landlords wanting to exit the market. Now some might say "Great those houses can be sold." Well I've got news for this Government: they're not being sold. The landlords just sit with them. That is not helping. And what ends up happening? Those tenants end up on the State waiting list. Even worse we've had reports of Housing New Zealand buying private homes and turfing out private tenants. How's that for irony? Oh and today—I shouldn't forget—we had an interesting omission by the Minister of Housing when she was put under pressure by Judith Collins around progressive homeownership. We're still waiting for it—again another illustration of talk that leads nowhere—but there was a suggestion that community housing providers will not be part of this because the Government knows best and nobody else. It's an absolute shocker. As I say we have a waiting list going through the roof but what we also have unfortunately is some in Housing New Zealand exhibiting terrible antisocial behaviours and a Government that is not willing to make the hard decisions. In fact instructions have been given that there are to be no evictions and effectively no consequences. Now I want to be really clear: most tenants within Housing New Zealand are fantastic and they do a great job but there are those who cause immense harm and trouble. We have had almost 14000 antisocial incidents and reports since this Government came to power—almost 1000 a month. These are not minor; these are incredibly serious. These are tenants who are harassing their neighbours abusing their neighbours; barking dogs rubbish defecation. There was even a report and I can't use the person's name but their three-year-old daughter has been assaulted three times. What does Housing New Zealand do because of the instructions of this Government? Sweet F you-know-what—nothing. Absolutely nothing. There's meant to be supportive intensive care—God forbid or knows what that is. Well it doesn't appear to be working. I for one stand on this side and say we try to work with those people and you try to change behaviours but at the end of the day when the carrots have been given a stick is sometimes needed. I say that this Government needs to see that evictions are needed at times. The final thing of course is they all go "Oh no no no." Well I've got a bit of a suggestion for all the Labourites who are going soft: give us their addresses—give us their addresses. We'll buy houses next to those MPs and we'll send those troublesome tenants there and then they can wax lyrical and do all their virtue signalling with those State house tenants. By the way we can add all the meth addicts into that as well. We all know the meth standards have changed but did you know that in the last three months the number of State housing tenants whose homes are reporting not at the old standard and not even at the new standard but at double the new standard of meth is increasing? More and more State houses are being meth-contaminated. It's not reported to police. It's not reported to police. Marja Lubeck: Who sold them? Who sold them? You haven't answered the question. SIMON O'CONNOR: Oh sorry who sold them? We actually sold them to the likes of the Tāmaki Redevelopment Co. and other community housing providers. The problem is that Labour talks about the selling; they don't say about who bought them which again was the likes of the Tāmaki Redevelopment Co. for social houses. The thing is—and she's gone quiet now—they're Marxist. They're lefty Marxists and if they don't own it they don't want anybody else to. We will stop that. But as I was saying meth contamination is not reported to police. You know what happens if someone has contaminated their home destroyed it in a State house? They're given another one. They're given another one ahead of 15000 other Kiwi families—shameful. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I understand this is a split call. I call Greg O'Connor—five minutes."