Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): In answer to the first part, like all fixed household expenses, rent can be a cause of material hardship for some people. This is why our Government has been working hard to improve household incomes, including increasing Working for Families tax credits, the minimum wage, benefits, and superannuation; indexing benefits annually to the increases in wages; and increasing the accommodation supplement from 1 April 2018. In response to the second part of the question, the Government has taken steps to specifically improve affordability for renters, including limiting rent increases to once per year, prohibiting landlords from seeking rental bids, and banning letting fees, but ultimately, the best way to lower rents is to increase the supply of affordable housing. It is important to recognise that rent increases are driven by long-run supply shortages in the housing market. This is the housing crisis that has been decades in the making, and it's why this Government is so focused on delivering new supply. For example, the national increase for the Statistics New Zealand rents price increase for the year to February 2022 was 4.6 percent. In regions like Auckland and Canterbury, which have had a lot of residential building activity, and, therefore, increased supply, rents increased by 2.7 percent in Auckland and 3 percent in Canterbury for the same period.