In the housing sector, changing approaches to emergency housing, land supply and affordable housing were tested and debated.

A less talked about conversation is the housing needs and aspirations of Māori and Pacific people.

There are several aspects as housing and health care intersect in these communities that are just as important for other groups as they are for Māori and Pacific people.

All too often we hear and see Pacific families struggling with housing issues such as rheumatic fever, which thrives in the cold, damp conditions of older, poorly insulated housing in New Zealand.

This issue has been widely publicised in a recent book by epidemiologist Jason Gurney (Ngāpuhi) and in the work and research of He Kāinga Orangi and Professor Philippa Howden-Chapman.

For Pacific people, the issue of urban displacement is a recurring theme.

While at first glance the removal of urban-rural boundaries may seem like a productivity-based solution, memories of ‘gentrification’ in places like Grey Lynn and Ponsonby in the 1970s and more recently in Glen Innes, where families have been relocated to the outskirts of towns in west and south Auckland, are still fresh among Pacific people.

With more housing estates being built on the outskirts of already expanding urban centres, will we see history repeat itself, with families forced to move further afield and commute to work for longer periods?

The “Drive for Housing Growth” policy advocates freeing up land for development on the outskirts of cities, enabling intensification through liberalisation and deregulation, and promoting mixed-use development.

While this may indeed increase the supply of housing, it is important to ask what long-term costs this will entail?

These investments will require strong infrastructure for the next 50 years and it is important for everyone to benefit fairly. The cost of favouring upmarket suburbs over other areas will be a price that future generations of New Zealanders will pay.

Building new homes that are warm, dry and safe is urgent and necessary; homes that are close to job opportunities, schools and community centres. It is vital that Māori and Pacific children live in such homes.

At MĀPIHI (Māori and Pacific Housing Research Centre), a transdisciplinary research centre based at the University of Auckland, we work to find better ways to ensure that Māori and Pacific people can live in healthy, sustainable and affordable homes.

There are three components to this: self-determination of the Māori and Pacific housing industry, intensification of housing development and access to health care for Māori and Pacific people, and successful housing development for papakāinga and Pacific communities.

In the second case, we can turn to community housing providers (CHPs) such as Penina Health Trust, headed by Tupuola CEO Roine Lealaiauloto.

Penina Health Trust has built new solar powered homes for Pacific families. And they recognised the critical need for multi-generational homes as key to the wellbeing of Pacific families.

Similarly, the housing needs of Māori can often be of a communal and familial nature.

Te Puni Kōkiri supports the development of papakāinga on Whenua Māori. This is done on a small scale, less than 10 houses at a time.

Wouldn’t it be great to see them on a larger scale?