Ngaro Alfred: Financial Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNgaro Alfred: Financial Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 04 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16298. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ALFRED NGARO (National): I want to acknowledge Mr Hone Harawira and his comments especially around Glen Innes. I want to talk about Glen Innes because I have lived in a home in the area for the last 18 years. I know the people well and the community well. I know the struggles and I know the issues that he talked about.Phil Twyford: You’re not very popular there now.ALFRED NGARO: I am Mr Twyford actually. The fact is that we have worked quite hard there for quite a long time.Tāmaki Transformation which came under the Labour Government started to look at a whole-of-community perspective and housing was one of those issues. Out of that issue we worked collectively with the Government agency a whole community working together to address these issues.But here is one of the shameful things that the Labour Government needs to be held to account for. It had some of the worst housing stock in the whole of New Zealand. Fifty-eight percent of that area the communities of Glen Innes Panmure and Point England was State housing stock. It had some of the worst stock. In other words under that Government’s watch there was a lack of maintenance and there was a lack of repair. In other words there was a lack of concern—there was a lack of concern. For all the talk let us talk about the action and let us talk about the reality. Nothing was done over 9 years in those very communities. I can take you to the streets. Flanders Street—we can go up there—andRopata Avenue. We can name the streets. I am not sure that Mr Twyford can name the streets but we can name the streets where the homes and the houses that these families had to live in were really shameful. If you want to talk about Government responsibility that was shameful.So what did this Government decide to do? This is what it decided to do. It was time for change. Inside of that change yes there were difficulties and struggles because some of those families had been there for such a long time. But I can say this. A number of the community initiatives are there even at the moment. There is an organisation calledNgā Iwi Katoa which Monte Cecilia Housing Trust is involved in with DavidZussman and there is a collective of the community working together with theTāmaki Redevelopment Company to try to address some of the critical concerns that are there. This is what we are doing as a Government to address them. There have been 6960 new tenancies started and 200000 people in our houses. But I want to talk about some other things. When they were asked and surveyed right across the board with regard to how they found the service and what it was doing yes there were some areas of need but 76 percent of those surveyed were satisfied with their house maintenance and the customer services centre. That was not the figure under a Labour Government of 9 years. That was not the figure that was there.Hone talked about the importance of having healthy housing and home insulation. One of the things we have had over this period of time is 2000 whole-of-house upgrades. We have spent $190 million to improve the quality of our houses. You see again this is a Government of action not just of talk. This is a Government that has made a difference to those homes. We have insulated 8295 homes. In other words we are making a difference to the care and concern of the families—even those families that are in Glen Innes. There have been 390000 maintenance actions. We know again that the maintenance of and repairs to a number of those homes was quite critical to our families.I also want to talk about social housing and the whole thing around the third-tier sector—the third sector of the housing market that is out there. I can say this. We know that Brian Donnelly for instance of the New Zealand Housing Foundation the Salvation Army the Monte Cecilia Housing Trust and a number of these collectives have come together and said that this is the right intent this is a good initiative and they want to see the ability to come in to that sector to truly make a difference. Here is the difference that they can make. They can make a difference because they can meet the needs of those housing issues for their communities in particular. So there is $2.9 billion for housing to add bedrooms to 3000 homes to build 500 new homes and to complete home insulations and repairs inside our Housing New Zealand stock.That is the difference that this Government is making. We are now starting to hear families that are saying: “Now not only do we have healthy homes but we can access things like health services and education.” There has been a concern about some of our families even in Glen Innes. We had the petition forPōmare and Maraenui as well. What we know is this. I want to commend the new Chief Executive of Housing New Zealand Glen Sowry who even in his first month went and visited the homes. He visited them with the case managers to see what was actually happening on the ground and saw how it was making a difference. Here is the difference. Mr Chris Hipkins was in Maraenui about 2 or 3 weeks ago and he celebrated the success of what was happening. They were making a difference to address the issues—