Williams PotoPOTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I rise to take a call in this Estimates debate. My specific area of concern is about investing in communities. This Budget sees a decrease of $4.775 million in the area of investing in communities down to $39.163 million. The specific area that this affects is the appropriation that is limited to approving community-based social services; managing the relationship with service providers including funding and monitoring; and the coordination of social support services to strengthen families and whānau. In my experience this is the appropriation that supports the relationship between the Government and communities and the Government and social service providers. It is the basis of the infrastructure development that might go into supporting those community organisations to support communities and it is a very important part of enabling the Government to put into effect its policy for better social services for communities. It is a very important part of how communities engage with the Government.It is to my distress that I see that there is a decrease in the funding to this particular area because there is no doubt that it is hugely important to support the development of strong and resilient communities. One of the aspects of that of course is ensuring that people are able to access long-term affordable decent housing whether they own it or whether they rent it or whether they are State house tenants. The ability to have long-term tenure in a house and the ability for families to put down roots and build social capital and to network into communities is very important for their social well-being long term—being able to reach out to the resources that are there within the community such as the schools the sports clubs the churches the coffee groups and the community organisations and activities.Community organisations achieve a huge amount within their communities and it is the soft skills that they provide to people that is important. Often we look to crises and how we intervene in crisis areas such as family violence. But if you build resilience within your community by building in soft skills the ability to deal and cope with some of the issues—how you learn to deal with those things—often prepares you well for when times get tough. Places like women's centres where you get some social contact you can build some self-esteem you can work through your issues with counsellors and with people who have an affinity for you allow you to actually put in place some steps and mechanisms to cope before you are in a place of distress.The decrease in funding and at such a large extent really troubles me as places like the women's centre—and there have been a couple that have closed over the last year—will no longer be able to provide this kind of soft support that actually builds resilience and thereby saves people from the real hard-end harm that they may experience later. Can you imagine supporting kids to build their self-esteem and their social skills so that when difficult times come later when they are teenagers they are actually in a much better position to cope with that. That is at the real heart of where community support lies and the decrease in funding puts us in a position where we are unable to prevent more serious harm from happening to people.Families in crisis are in crisis because often they have not built up the ability to deal with issues along the way and become resilient. Community groups are at the heart of that. The result of the decrease in this funding will have a serious impact—will have a direct impact—on a community's ability to be resilient. I would like to at some point later in this debate talk a little further about that. Thank you.