Faafoi Kris: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 20 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18129. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): It is always a pleasure to follow the Hon Dr Pita Sharples especially in this Budget debate. Dr Sharples used the analogy of the roadrunner in his speech to describe the Māori Party and the Budget. I would like to take a similar approach because he has done that and use a cartoon character to define this Budget. I would call this amickey mouse Budget. I have got nothing against Mickey Mouse; he is a pretty good cartoon character. I am using the phrase “mickey mouse” in its slang usage as to me being a bit of a pretender and something that it is not. This Budget is amickey mouse Budget. It is amickey mouse Budget. I say that because before the Budget was delivered—and I think it was in the Fairfax media—the polls said that 80 percent of New Zealanders wanted something to be done in this Budget around housing and for first-home buyers. This Budget has failed to deliver in that area. It has also failed to deliver in the social housing area.Before I get on to housing—because I am going to spend most of my contribution talking about housing—I wanted to pick up on something that Dr Sharples said around health and the extra investment apparently that this Government has made around health funding. Well Dr Sharples David Cunliffe and I visited the Cannons Creek Pharmacy yesterday with the pharmacistKasGovind whom my colleague Maryan Street and I have visited a number of times. You should see the bulging prescriptions that have not been picked up by the people in my community who cannot afford to pick up their prescriptions because of the extra surcharge that this Government put on those people to pay more for their medicine. So it is fine to add more resources to making sure our youngsters can go to the doctor but this is the same Government that made it more expensive for those families to pick up a prescription. Those families are not picking up those prescriptions because that extra couple of dollars for those prescriptions is making a huge difference and they cannot afford it. If you want the evidence I will quite happily take anyone from that side of the House to that pharmacy to see just how many of those prescriptions are not getting picked up.So do not believe the hype from this Government about what it is trying to do to help families around health care because there are some fiddly things going on with the Budget numbers there. The reality is that this is the same Government that put up prescription charges and families out in our communities—and that is the reality if you want to go into that chemist or that pharmacy—are not picking up their medicine. They are not picking up their medicine that from day to day is meant to keep them healthy usually when they have long-term illnesses. I do not want to see the Government members crowing about all the fantastic work they have done with health care given the damage they have done with health care with some of the basic things in terms of making sure families have got their medicine after they go to the doctor. I think what the party over that side is trying to say is disgraceful when it says it has done good things around health care.Housing is a big issue. New Zealanders wanted to see something in this Budget around housing around housing affordability and around making sure that there is enough social housing. This Government has not delivered one little bit. It was interesting to hear what the Prime Minister had to say when he was asked whether or not there was a housing crisis. He said that there is no fundamental underlying reason to believe that there is a problem in our housing market. Well that is simply not the case. As I said David Cunliffe and I were in Cannons Creek yesterday and we visited a great organisation Wesley Community Action in Cannons Creek. That organisation told us ofa number of examples about the stark reality that there is a massive housing crisis—certainly in my community that I represent and not just there but around the country.First I want to talk about one story that one of the staff told us about one of their family members who had been slaving away and doing the right thing to make sure that they could put together a deposit for a house. Then the loan-to-value ratio scheme came in and they were shot. They basically put their hands up in the air and said: “Well we can’t get to 20 percent. We won’t even bother looking at buying a house any more.” That is the reality of the situation in many many families. They try to slog their guts out to get 10 percent. That is hard. Some families can call on their parents or other family members to put together a deposit but this family were slogging their guts out had almost got to where they needed to get for their 10 percent deposit and then the bank said: “Well we can’t deal with you any more because it is now a 20 percent deposit.” That was out of reach for that family.Those kinds of families out there were looking for some relief in this Budget to make sure that the Kiwi dream of buying a house could come true for them but there was nothing at all in this Budget to help those families. As I say theIpsos poll said that 80 percent of New Zealanders wanted something for those kinds of families but not one measure in this Budget helped that family one little bit. They were looking for some hope so that maybe the money that they had squirreled away might be useful again for them to get into a house but no there was nothing whatsoever. And what did we get? We got a few changes around construction materials which will save $3500 for those who want to build a new house. That is 1 percent of what it costs to build a new house and that Government over there thinks that that is going to be some kind of sea change for our housing crisis. Well it just does not cut the mustard.The other area that Wesley Community Action was concerned about was social housing and we have seen this Government take a backward step in terms of its responsibility for social housing. Over the last 5½ years we have seen what it has done to Housing New Zealand. Certainly in my area because we have got such a large number of Housing New Zealand tenants it used to have a big office which serviced all the tenants. You could go in there and you could have an appointment and make sure that all your matters were dealt with. That turned into an 0800 number on which it sometimes took hours to get an answer. After a bit of a furore locally we got a little booth that opened up in the smaller Housing New Zealand office which was no longer—Iain Lees-Galloway: You were lucky.KRIS FAAFOI: Yes we were the lucky ones. That is basically a service where they put your name on a piece of paper and someone from the 0800 number answers the call. The way that this Government has completely distanced itself from offering and providing social housing in those kinds of communities is a disgrace. It has said: “That’s not our responsibility any more.” and as we can see it is starting to palm off that responsibility to other people in the community.In theory that should work if you resource it well and I am a big fan of making sure that communities should be part of the solutions to issues in communities. But the big fear in our community—and we have seen this happen before about 25 years ago—is that we will have a rerun of history. Those well-meaning organisations get into that sphere they start up managing x number of former State houses but over time that funding gets reduced and they put their hands up and say: “We can’t do this any more.” I was speaking to one of those providers about a month ago. We should learn from that lesson and if we are going to give more responsibility to community organisations we should do it properly for the sake of the people who are living in those houses—for thefamilies who are living in those houses and will depend on those social agencies within our communities to do a good and decent job of providing social housing.There is an alternative to what this Government is doing which is nothing and that is a number of the policies that we have already outlined over the last couple of years to be honest. The first one is ourKiwiBuild scheme. It is brave ambitious and absolutely needed to make sure that we can get Kiwis into good affordable homes—100000 homes over 10 years. Not only will that provide good affordable homes to the Kiwis who need it but also it will give the shot to the system that our youngsters and our country need in terms of jobs. I think that there are certainly a lot of youngsters—and I know there are a lot of Pacific Island youngsters because our unemployment rate is twice the national average; it is about 13 percent at the moment—who would love that opportunity to get into that kind of scheme and to learn some basic skills. Gosh I wish I had learnt some of those basic skills when I was younger because some of the youngsters in our community are away laughing because they have got some of those basic skills.But again this is a Government that cut apprenticeships about 2½ years ago. This is—Jacqui Dean: Oh nonsense.KRIS FAAFOI: Nonsense? It is actually true.Also there will be the introduction of a capital gains tax to make sure we take the heat out of this inflated property market because as I say it is hard for those first-home buyers to get into the market because the prices have gone up so much. Also we will get that investment out of property speculation and into the companies that want it and need it so that they can buy the capital and hire the Kiwis whom we know need and want the jobs because that is what people really want. They want a good place to live they want to make sure that they have got a good job to support their families and that is what this Government has not done or given any hope for in our communities. This was a Government that once said it was ambitious for a brighter future but what is in this Budget is mundane and it offers no hope to anyone especially in housing.