SPEAKER: No. I think I have, over the last recent time, been a little bit liberal on Government members doing donkey drops about the actions of previous Governments. [Interruption] Not helpful if people want further supplementaries. The other point that I will make now that I’m on my feet is that I’ve been reviewing the Minister's answers to the questions. The questions to her are about the Government's response, as she is the Minister responsible for that, and she is responsible, in answering the question, for answering for all of the Government, not just parts of it.
Nicola Willis: Why is it that, more than four years after Labour was elected on a promise to solve the housing crisis, there are now thousands more people being forced to live in motels, at a cost of a million dollars a day?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: What I can tell that member is that if she thinks that homeless people have magically appeared in the last 3½ years, she has learnt nothing from the inaction and mistakes of her party when they were in Government. What we are is a party and a Government that is committed to finally owning up to the fact we have a homelessness problem in this country, that we have a housing crisis, and that we are putting the actions into place. Those homeless people were previously sleeping in cars, they were sleeping in garages, and they were sleeping on the street. I do not think motels are ideal, but I would put anyone up in a motel over them sleeping on the street any day of the week.
Nicola Willis: Can she confirm that the Government now has financial arrangements in place with more than 950 motels and boarding hostels across this country for the purpose of emergency housing, and is this what Labour meant when it said it would solve New Zealand’s housing shortage?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I don’t have that number—the number of providers—in front of me, because some of those won’t be direct arrangements, because they will be funded through the special needs housing grant, but what I can tell that member is that this is preferable to having 900-odd cars available for people to sleep in, which was the response of the previous Government. What I am still waiting to hear is what the alternative is that that member is proposing. Is she suggesting that we cancel those motel contracts and put those people back on the street, where her party left them?
URGENT DEBATES DECLINED
COVID-19—Alert Level Changes
SPEAKER: I have received letters from David Seymour and the Hon Judith Collins, seeking to debate under Standing Order 399 the Government’s announcement on Saturday, 27 February, putting the Auckland region into alert level 3 and the rest of the country into alert level 2. This is a particular case of recent occurrence for which there is ministerial responsibility. However, the House has had the opportunity to question the Government following the ministerial statement made earlier in the House this afternoon. I do not think that an urgent debate is also warranted.
SPEAKER'S RULINGS
Urgent Debates—Updated Procedure for Applications
SPEAKER: I would, however, like to advise the House of updated procedures for applying for an urgent debate. Speakers' ruling 198/4 requires that the written notice required under Standing Order 399 must be handed to a member of the Speaker’s staff. In practice, most applications are emailed to my office. Notices that are emailed will be treated the same way as hand-delivered ones. Notices should be signed by the member making the application, but I will accept a notice sent from the member’s email address, or sent from another parliamentary address if it contains a statement that the application
