Whaitiri MekaMEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): E Te Tiamana o Te Whare tēnā koe otirā ngā mema o Te Whare nei tēnā tātou katoa.[Acknowledgments to you Mr Chairman and at the same time to all of us members of this House.]I am pleased to take a call in this Estimates debate and I want to focus on the burning issue that has come to light not just in recent weeks but ever since I have been a member in this House which is of course social housing—particularly the concerns that I shared when I first came to this House around our homeless the way the Government is treating our homeless. I particularly want to make some comments on the Government's emergency housing priorities. Like this side of the Committee when I listened all this week and the days that have ensued since the National Party had its conference—like many people on this side I felt a mirage of caring for those who are homeless and those in real need. It is a mirage that reminds me of a movie.Hon Nanaia Mahuta: Which one?MEKA WHAITIRI: A 3-D movie. It is a Government that denies diverts and then does nothing. That is what we have got in these Estimates from this Government when we are dealing with social housing. On Monday I had a social housing meeting with the good people of Maraenui. Maraenui when I came into Parliament was subjected to this Government's social housing plan—well if you can call it that—which was essentially to remove people from their homes with this promise of building and replacing the State homes with affordable homes. We were talking at that time of some 120-plus State homes. When you speak to the locals of Maraenui they say that they welcomed those homes coming down but they welcomed them coming down with a promise by this Government of replacing those homes—of replacing them for the local people who had lost their homes. After 3 years' time I can tell you many of those State homes have come down in Maraenui and I would ask the question to the Committee: how many have been replaced with affordable homes? How many? Have a guess. Seven. There are seven homes in Maraenui; 120 have been removed. Seven homes—seven homes! The audacity of the Prime Minister to come to Maraenui to open them with a fanfare and a promise that more were coming—more were coming. But they are not there. On Monday they were not there and people in Maraenui are desperate for homes. I want to just take the time and look at the numbers that are on the Ministry of Social Development's own social housing register. It makes for interesting reading. Of course the No. 1 is Auckland super-city. Over 2130 people are on that waiting list and that is from March 2016. Then we go down to Christchurch—403. Then we go down to Wellington City—211. Then we go up to the Tauranga district—180 are on the waiting list. Then we go to Hamilton City—166 and then to my own electorate city of Napier at 135. What is interesting is that some of those places that I have just mentioned are actually represented in this House by National MPs—National MPs. So when they cannot admit that there is a housing crisis when I know that over 90 percent of inquiries in my electorate office are all housing related then I would say: where have you been National MPs of those electorates? Where have you been? Where have you been and what are you doing about it? Back to the Estimates because as we see—homelessness and my colleague Peeni Henare alluded to it too. We have a Minister for Social Housing who was asked through an Official Information Act request from our colleague Carmel Sepuloni to actually give us the number of the homeless. It was a straightforward question. And what did the Minister say? What was her response? No definite number—no definite number. So again a Government that is supposedly saying that it has a comprehensive housing plan cannot even put its finger on the number of the homeless in this country. But let us look at the reports tendered by as part of the Estimates debate both of the select committees. When you read there around the definition—and I am talking about the social development report that talks about homelessness and gives a definition of how many. It is interesting because when you read that report—