Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill

I move, That the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill be reported to the House by 26 July 2013 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 188 and 191(1)(b) and (c).

This bill is a core part of the Government’s work to improve housing affordability. It confronts the reality that homeownership rates have been in decline for a quarter of a century; that house prices have soared unsustainably over the past decade; and that far too many families’ housing, whether they buy or rent, is unaffordable. There is no silver bullet for this huge issue. It will not be solved with gimmicks or slogans but with substantive, sound policies that address the real issues that are driving up house costs for New Zealanders. We have founded our housing work on the comprehensive report produced last year by the Productivity Commission.

We are particularly focused on the issue of land supply being addressed in this bill. We have got work under way on infrastructure costs announced in February in respect of the review on development contributions. We have got work on materials costs under way with the inquiry that we announced at the weekend. We are making changes to get compliance costs down. We are investing heavily in skills in this Budget to improve the productivity of the residential construction sector.

It also has to be acknowledged that interest rates play a huge role in housing affordability and homeownership trends. Anybody who looks at the homeownership issue post World War II will see that it is very simple—homeownership goes up when interests rates are low, and it goes down when interest rates are high. I am very proud to be part of a Government with an exemplary record on interest rates—the lowest since I was in nappies in the mid-1960s. We are determined to keep them as low as possible for as long as possible. That highlights the broad reason that we need this bill. We all know that house prices are going silly—up 12 percent in Auckland in the last year. When that happened in the last decade, the Government did nothing. The Reserve Bank wound up interest rates, up went the Kiwi dollar, and there was permanent damage to the New Zealand economy. This bill is about avoiding a repeat of that negative economic cycle. The message from the Reserve Bank, from the IMF, from the OECD, and from the Productivity Commission is that we must confront and address these land and housing supply issues.

Some people are refusing to accept the link between rigid land supply policies and high house prices. I challenge them to look at the evidence. We have seen the availability of sections in Auckland plummet over the past 10 years, and the price of a section has increased over the last 5 years from $100,000 to $325,000. The study by the Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Trust showed that raw, undeveloped land in Auckland inside the metropolitan urban limit is 10 times the value of land outside the metropolitan urban limit. We are currently building only 4,000 homes per year in Auckland when we need 13,000 per year to keep up with population growth.

This bill is a circuit-breaker to get some pace and some momentum in addressing housing supply. It recognises that councils control a very important lever with their land supply and housing development policies. It makes provision for accords with local authorities where there are affordability issues. It requires the Government to work with councils in good faith to secure such agreements, like those we have achieved with Auckland, but also to enable intervention if we are unable to make progress.

The essential mechanism in this bill is the creation of special housing areas. These will be both greenfield and brownfield areas that are suitable for residential development, where infrastructure is available or can be built, and where there is demand for new housing. Within these areas, qualifying developments will be able to be approved by way of a streamlined process. There is a special limited notification process for only those affected. Council panels will be required to make a decision within 6 months on greenfield developments, and within 3 months on brownfield developments. That compares with the current situation, where it takes up to, and sometimes more than, 3 years.

In the Auckland context, this bill enables the council to get some real progress in implementing its Unitary Plan in areas that are the least contentious. This is a 30-year plan for 400,000 homes. It enables a robust process for hearings on controversial projects like high-rise apartments, but enables us to get on and build the first 10 percent of houses in that plan. It is a balanced agreement, and I wish to especially acknowledge Mayor Len Brown for his pragmatism and support in coming to this accord. It is an ambitious agreement, and sets out a plan to consent 9,000 homes in the first year, 13,000 homes in the second year, and 17,000 homes in the third year. That will have us consenting three times as many homes over the next 3 years as have been consented over the last 3 years. I have been encouraged by the response to the accord. Already a developer has come forward and has said that it will enable him to bring forward 1,000 sections next year that he otherwise would not have brought forward. ANZ National Bank economist Cameron Bagrie said that the accord “hit all the right notes”. The Employers and Manufacturers Association chief executive has described it as “infinite common sense”. He says that it will unlock the logjams to getting houses built, and that it is so refreshing to see Auckland Council and central government finding common ground on this difficult issue.

The accord is good news for households, it is good news for Auckland, and it is good news for New Zealand. Enabling the development of 39,000 new homes will take the heat out of the Auckland housing market. It is going to give some hope to families looking for a home, whether they want to rent or buy. The $20 billion build is going to create thousands of jobs. And the relief for the rest of New Zealand is that this increased housing supply in Auckland will take pressure off an early rise in interest rates, and upward pressure on the Kiwi dollar. I would also note that the accord specifically makes provision for more affordable housing. We have shown how to do that with the Hobsonville development, where we have required 20 percent of new homes to be in the affordable range and targeted to first home buyers. I was advised by the Hobsonville development company that it is not getting 20 percent; it is getting 27 percent of houses sold in that range. A similar approach is required here, where consideration must be given to providing lower-cost new homes when approving qualifying developments. This legislation gives us the tools to implement that accord. This is an interim measure. My colleague Amy Adams is progressing a comprehensive plan of Resource Management Act reforms that will be legislated in time, and then with planned changes will be able to assist with the long-term challenge of housing affordability.

I cannot help but conclude this debate by challenging the Opposition on a few points. First, it has had more positions on the Auckland Council than the Kama Sutra. It has rallied against the formation of the Auckland Council, and, in the next breath, it has rallied to the council’s support and demanded that the Government not intervene on housing issues. Now it opposes the accord that we have successfully negotiated with the council. Secondly, it has consistently opposed any measures through Resource Management Act reform or in this bill to free up new land. I have a simple question for the Opposition: how can it promise Aucklanders tens of thousands of homes at $300,000 each, when the average section price in Auckland right now is $325,000? The idea that the only way to build more affordable homes is for the Government to build them is an idea that it must have got from the same North Korean economics school that it got its electricity policy from. If it truly believes this nonsense, why stop nationalisation at the housing and the power sectors? Let us have cheaper food by the Government taking over all the supermarkets, or cheaper cars by having the Government buy them all for us! My greatest worry for homeowners is what the Labour-Greens policies will do for interest rates. Sound economic management and a comprehensive approach to housing affordability in all those areas is the best way that we can make homes more affordable for New Zealanders. That is what this Government is about, and I call on the House to support this sensible bill.

What a disappointing contribution that was from the—

💬 Grant Robertson: No, typical.

—a typical response—current National Minister of Housing. The Labour Party will be voting for the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill at its first reading, and we will be voting for its referral to the Social Services Committee. We do that in the knowledge that one does not lightly support a bill like this, which overrides key elements of the Resource Management Act.

This bill is the latest piece of legislation from the National Government that takes powers away from local councils and local communities and gives them to central government. It is one of a long line of provisions we have seen under this Government that actually strip powers from local communities. So in that knowledge we support it, at this stage, only in terms of its referral to the select committee, and we support it because the provisions in this bill represent a partial victory for Len Brown and the Auckland Council in the face of the most extraordinary drama queen behaviour from Nick Smith over the last few months.

Nick Smith turned up in Auckland 3 months ago accusing the mayor of killing the dreams of Aucklanders. He said that planning laws in Auckland and the Auckland Plan were strangling the lifeblood out of housing development in Auckland. And we had all sorts of dramas and histrionics from Nick Smith, the “Minister of Housing Shortages”, as he tried to create the same kind of crisis, the same kind of drama, he has created in every portfolio area he’s had over the last few years. ACC was perhaps the worst, and he has brought exactly the same approach to housing.

What is very clear from the announcements about housing that we have seen from the Government over the last week is that it is utterly spooked by Labour’s policy, Labour’s KiwiBuild policy, to deliver 10,000 affordable starter homes for first-home buyers. That has completely spooked the Government. We know that because we know that the New Zealand Herald opinion survey in January showed that 70 percent of New Zealanders supported Labour’s policy of putting 100,000 Kiwi families into their first home. That has spooked the National Party, and we have seen a flurry of desperate announcements as it tries to recover lost ground. So that is the context for this bill coming to the House today—the National Party’s troubled relationship with our country’s biggest city, Auckland.

National is offside with Aucklanders. Gerry Brownlee is completely offside with Aucklanders when it comes to public transport and the city rail link. Nick Smith has kindly offered himself as Len Brown’s opposition in this year’s mayoral election. No one else of any substance is willing to stand against Len Brown, so Nick Smith gallantly offered himself, and I think he has actually done a pretty good job of alienating Aucklanders on an issue that they desperately care about—affordable housing.

So what is the result of all this drama queen activity from Nick Smith over the last few months? What we see today is a cherry-picking of some elements of the Auckland Plan. That is why I say it is a partial victory for Len Brown and the Auckland Council. But, to be honest, Nick Smith could have saved everybody a lot of grief if he had simply gone along with Auckland Council’s proposal to give the Auckland Unitary Plan legal weight upon notification. So, once the plan was notified in September this year, a lot of grief could have been saved, and the Government could have saved a lot of political face if it had given the new unitary plan, which includes the measures contained in this bill, legal weight in September just as the plan would have had under the pre-2009 resource management law. But no, Nick Smith has put everyone through a whole lot of drama.

So what does the bill do? It creates the framework for the Government to negotiate accords with regional councils around the country. It has negotiated one with Auckland Council. That accord allows special housing areas to be set up with fast-track consenting, and it will have the effect of bringing new greenfield land into the supply of the Auckland housing market, which I think, as most people recognise, is one of many factors behind the high cost of new houses in Auckland. But the National Government would like to think that land supply is the be-all and end-all when it comes to solving the housing affordability problem and that deregulating the planning laws is the main solution. I think most people realise that it is not.

House prices have gone up 36 percent in Auckland since National came to office, and this bill is the best that National can do. It is rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, tinkering with planning regulations, and a whole raft of other things that we will debate over the next couple of days in relation to State housing. It thinks that by simply tinkering with planning regulations under the legislation that allows these so-call housing accords it will solve the housing affordability problem. That is the fallacy that underlines this bill.

This bill will do nothing to guarantee that one more affordable house is built in Auckland. It simply opens up new greenfield land in the supply of land and fast-tracks the consenting procedure. The numbers that National bandied around for tens of thousands of new houses are simply targets for consenting. They do not guarantee a single new affordable home. I think Aucklanders will see through this. They will see that this is a desperate attempt by the National Party to regain ground on the housing affordability problem.

The housing market is failing. It is failing to build enough affordable homes. It has basically seized up because there is no money to be made currently for developers and builders in building affordable homes. Fast-tracking consenting and bringing new land into the system may be part of the solution, but it will go nowhere near guaranteeing and assuring Aucklanders that they are going to see the production of new affordable houses.

We saw yesterday the unveiling of the new development at Long Bay, an hour’s drive from the central city. We saw houses costing between $750,000 and $1 million. Is that National’s definition of affordable housing? We have seen Hobsonville, where the Minister talked about affordable housing. Does he really think that $700,000 houses an hour’s drive from the city, an hour’s drive from where all the jobs are, is National’s solution to the affordable housing crisis? It is simply just not credible.

I want to point to one of the biggest problems with this bill, and that is the very, very weak language contained in the housing accord about affordable housing. The accord itself starts by acknowledging that improving the affordability of housing is a complex issue, it requires consideration of wider issues, not all of which will be able to be addressed under this accord. Well, you got that right.

Listen to this language, which is actually in the accord itself. It is talking about when developers are seeking consents for new housing developments. “All Qualifying Developments are … required to give consideration to the provision of affordable housing”. They do not have to build affordable houses; they simply have to give consideration to the building of affordable housing. “Conditions of consent may include requirements for a proportion of the development to include affordable housing”. They may have to give them; there is nothing in here that requires builders and developers to build affordable housing. It is a joke. It is a charade.

If the Government was serious about dealing with the affordable housing problem, it would roll up its sleeves and actually work with the private sector and local councils to build affordable housing, which is exactly what Labour will do under its KiwiBuild policy. Look at Hobsonville. Look at the Long Bay development. All the economic incentives in the building and development industries are telling developers to build houses that sell for three-quarters of a million dollars, because that is the only way they can make a decent cut, a decent margin, on those developments.

This bill will be supported by Labour as far as the select committee, but we have reservations about it. We have reservations that will require considerable scrutiny at the select committee about the constraining of the rights of appeal under the Resource Management Act, and we are very sceptical about whether this will do anything to achieve more affordable housing. It is typical of National’s weak, tentative, and timid approach to dealing with the issue of affordable housing. It pretends that tinkering with the Resource Management Act will result in more affordable housing for Aucklanders. We doubt that it will. It requires a serious response by the Government. It should pick up a hammer and actually build some affordable houses.

Talofa lava. It is a pleasure to stand to take a call on this bill, the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill, because this bill is critical to the agenda that our Government has to help those in need, to help deliver quality services, and to help provide an environment where jobs and opportunities are readily available.

I support the extensive work that our Minister of Housing, the Hon Dr Nick Smith, is doing in this area. He has outlined some of the key steps around reforming housing in this country. I am also glad that Mr Twyford is supporting this bill. I do not know whether Mr Twyford is really supporting the bill or whether he is following instructions from Mayor Len Brown to support his part in this accord.

You will hear the cries of protest from Mr Twyford and the other Opposition members. These simplistic creatures, as the Attorney-General calls them, wish to attack that which they do not understand. But what New Zealanders understand is that over the course of the last Labour Government house prices ballooned, interest rates skyrocketed, and ordinary Kiwi families were pitched further and further out of the housing market.

From 1999 to 2008 interest rates went up from just under 3 percent to over 8 percent. Inflation went from just above zero in 2000 to over 3 percent in 2008. Median house prices in Auckland went from $235,000 in 1999 to almost double—$450,000—in 2008. So it is no wonder hard-working New Zealand families were unable to get on the ladder of property ownership under the last Labour Government. Let us compare that with the John Key - led National Government. We have delivered the lowest interest rates for over 50 years, and the lowest inflation since 1999—it is under 1 percent. We have continued economic growth on the back of a global economic crisis. That is better than many of our trading partners across the globe.

But those members opposite have a shameful record on housing, leaving some of our most vulnerable families on the scrap heap of inadequate, old, cold, and mouldy State and social housing. That is their record. That is their legacy from the last time they were over here on the Government benches, and I would say that Michael Joseph Savage would be disgusted at the contempt that the current Labour front benches—

💬 Grant Robertson: What Michael Joseph Savage would hate, Sam, is a Government that sold 50,000 State houses.

—like Mr Robertson—have for hard-working New Zealand families. I have seen it in my own electorate of Maungakiekie and in Tamaki where our National Government has had to transform the local housing stock to make it warmer, cleaner, and larger, for those in need, Mr Robertson. The Warm Up New Zealand: Heat Smart programme has provided insulation for over 230,000 families. I see that the Hon Gerry Brownlee is here. He was instrumental in improving the lives of those families across this country and this Budget improves the lives of 40,000 more. You cannot trust Labour on housing—[Interruption]—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order!

—just like you cannot trust Labour on the economy.

In 2005, and the Speaker knows it, the Labour Party was talking about sustainable housing supply, affordability, and housing quality, yet it did nothing. It issued reports, it had a bunch of meetings, a couple of hui, workshops, and policy discussions, and all the time that Grant Robertson, Jacinda Ardern, and Chris Hipkins were merrily skipping around the Beehive, tugging at the apron strings of “Mother Helen”, real New Zealanders were hurting, real New Zealanders wanted some action, and real New Zealanders got nothing.

Real New Zealanders wanted a Government that cared about the issues that mattered to them. They got that in 2008 when they installed this pragmatic, stable, and forward-looking National Government. National has a busy programme of housing policies that will make a real difference to New Zealanders. We are addressing the root causes, as the Minister alluded to, and freeing up land supply through this bill. We are launching an inquiry into building materials and construction costs, and substantive changes to the Resource Management Act are coming up. We are working on development levies and better coordination of core infrastructure.

We cannot say the same about the Labour Party. It has come up with this gimmick of a policy called KiwiBuild—100,000 homes in 10 years, all at the plum price of $300,000 per home. Well, Mr Twyford says that we are spooked by that, but what New Zealanders are really asking is how the Labour-Green plan will be able to build a house in Auckland for $300,000 when the average land price alone is $350,000. [Interruption] What are they going to put on these sections, Mr Twyford? A tent? Maybe one of those playhouses from Toyworld.

With respect, Labour members’ slogans will not meet the needs of real New Zealanders looking for real homes. Unless they address the issue of land supply, which this bill does, their policy, like many of their policies, will be consigned to the depths of the nearest recycling bin. On the other hand our Government is clearly working with the Auckland Council so that we can address land supply and housing affordability issues, and get that across the line in the near future. Our Minister has laid out our expectations for the housing sector, and we are not ashamed to be ambitious but also realistic.

What the Productivity Commission talked about in its report are current land restrictions, charging for infrastructure, and looking at excessive building costs and low productivity. The International Monetary Fund, Treasury, and the Reserve Bank have all said so much, and that is why we are acting right now. This Government stands on its record. The Budget delivers more for all New Zealanders, ensuring a bolder, brighter, and better future. This bill will deliver New Zealand’s largest city with the opportunity to meet the housing needs of thousands of families who need affordable housing. I commend this bill to the House.

That was a shabby speech from Sam Lotu-Iiga, because his side of the House has to take some responsibility for turfing out 13,000 households from State housing in the 1990s. That is what Sam Lotu-Iiga’s National Government did. In the 1990s people lost their homes under National—13,000 State houses were sold off, and it takes years and years, Mr Lotu-Iiga, to come back from that kind of shabby policy. So do not lecture this side of the House on Michael Joseph Savage’s legacy. What Michael Joseph Savage stood for was actually looking after people, not turfing out people into the street like National has a record of. This party on this side of the House stands proudly on its record on social housing. That side of the House has no idea whatsoever about what social housing is about, and we will not be lectured by Mr Lotu-Iiga and his colleagues on that.

Once again, National has come to this House with a programme of tinkering to try to solve a housing crisis, because that is what this is about. Yes, availability of land is an issue, but availability of land is only one small aspect. It will not deal with the greatest element of the housing crisis and the issue that the National Government should be focused on in this legislation today, and that is the affordability of housing. Mr Lotu-Iiga and his colleagues think that a $700,000 home, 1 hour’s drive from the Auckland central business district, represents affordable housing. That is what Mr Lotu-Iiga and National believe, and that is wrong. There is nothing in this piece of legislation that will really address the underlying issues around affordability of housing, because this Government is not prepared to roll its sleeves up and ensure that there are houses being built. That is what Labour’s KiwiBuild policy is about. It is about actually rolling up our sleeves and saying: “We’ll get alongside construction companies and we’ll make sure those affordable homes are being built.”

All this legislation does—all this legislation does—is set up some targets. It does not ensure at any point that there will be affordable housing. All it says is that the land will be there. It does not say anything about affordable housing. Labour has the plan that says we will actually get that affordable housing. This simply does not go there.

💬 Melissa Lee: How?

They, on that side of the House, ask how. It is really simple, for my National Party colleagues. We build houses—10,000 houses a year in the affordable frame. Melissa Lee, answer me this. Is a $700,000 house affordable?

💬 Melissa Lee: The average price is $350,000 for a section.

A $700,000 house is affordable. Yes, she does believe that a $700,000 house in Auckland, an hour from the central business district, is affordable. It might be affordable for Melissa Lee, but it is not affordable for most Aucklanders, and that is what is missing from this piece of legislation. It is very important to focus on the fact that what this does is set up special housing areas that will give consideration to affordable housing. [Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! I have a member on my left and a member on my right who are interjecting on each other and they do not have the floor. It is totally out of order and disrespectful to the person speaking.

It is important to note that what is set up under this legislation, under the accords in the special housing areas, is a process that will give consideration to affordable housing. It will not actually ensure that affordable housing is built; it will simply give consideration, and that is typical of the tinkering. There is a lot of talk about giving consideration to things in this Budget. National is going to give consideration to warrants of fitness for rental housing. It does not think it will actually do it; it is just going to think about it. This is the Budget about thinking, not about doing, when it comes to housing. We actually need warrants of fitness for rental housing across the board. It may come as a shock to the National Party to learn that only 20 percent of children in poverty live in State housing. Eighty percent of children living in poverty live in private rentals, and that is not covered at all by this.

💬 Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: Wait for the next bill.

We certainly will be talking about it in the next bill. This bill, the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill, does enable, once an accord is developed between central government and local government, a process to go in place that will see some fast tracking and some streamlining of processes within the Resource Management Act.

We on this side of the House are saying that we are prepared to see this bill go to the Social Services Committee so that we can debate those issues. But I give fair warning. Sending a bill of this nature to a select committee for a few weeks is completely unacceptable. If the Government is going to propose major changes to the Resource Management Act, to the way that the Resource Management Act is implemented when it comes to land, we need to know that that has been thoroughly debated. Sending it off for a few weeks will not make that happen. There may well be improvements that can be agreed on between central government and local government in this area, but we are not going to be able to give that adequate consideration without a proper select committee process.

When we look at the relevant bit of the legislation that covers this, what we discover is that under this bill the rights of appeal, when there is a special housing area established, will be limited to developments of four or more storeys. That fits in with elements of the Auckland Unitary Plan, and it is quite clear that the Government has finally got around to working out that it should actually do something to facilitate the implementation of the Auckland Unitary Plan. But bear in mind that this legislation will now cover the whole of New Zealand. It is not just about Auckland any more. Therefore, if we are going to be deciding that the limit of four storeys or more is the relevant limit, we actually need to think about what that means in other parts of New Zealand. So it is all very well to propose to this House these changes when they are based on what happens in Auckland, but that is exactly why we need a full and proper select committee process, so that we can actually analyse how this will have impact on the rest of the country. The proposal from the National Government today is to restrict that select committee process to a few weeks, up to the end of July, and I do not believe that that is acceptable at all.

The fact is that land supply is only one part of the equation, and if National had a fully comprehensive housing policy that it was bringing to this Parliament, it would talk about far more than this. Mr Lotu-Iiga cannot rely on the next bill, because that does not do it, either. It does not do it, either, because the National Party has been in denial about housing from the moment it came into office. The Government has finally caught up with the fact that there is a housing crisis. It has finally caught up with it after house prices have gone up by 36 percent in the time that this party has been in office—36 percent. But for the last few years all we have heard from John Key is that there is no housing crisis, and along the way people in Auckland have been priced further and further out of the housing market. To come to this House with a bill that tinkers around and says: “Yes, we’ll put some things in place that might allow there to be more development in Auckland.” is not enough to make sure that we address that housing crisis.

If National was serious about addressing the housing crisis, it would add to this a process of how to build more affordable homes. It would put into place a capital gains tax, which members on that side of the House have refused to acknowledge is an important part of dealing with the housing crisis. They cannot see why all but two developed countries in the world have a capital gains tax, but, apparently, it is a terrible, terrible thing for New Zealand to consider. Taxing capital, taxing the National Party’s mates—that would be a terrible thing to consider. A capital gains tax is an important part of a good, sustainable housing policy.

The housing market has failed. Labour has recognised that with our KiwiBuild policy. National has come to the party very late with a bill here that will address one aspect of the problem of housing in Auckland—one aspect of the problem of housing across New Zealand. This is a bill that needs thorough debate. We are prepared to send it to a select committee because we believe it needs to be analysed. We are prepared to send it to the select committee because the Government has finally caught up with the needs of Auckland and the fact that parts of the Auckland Unitary Plan need to be put in place. But we send it there with significant reservation, because this bill changes important aspects of the process of resource management approval. We want to have a thorough debate about those processes. Our support for this bill is not guaranteed past the select committee consideration, and the Government needs to give serious attention to a proper select committee process so that we can put in place a proper affordable housing policy. This bill falls well short of the mark of the kind of housing bill that should be coming to this House.

Well, I guess we can start on a good point, and that is it is good to see that the Government has finally realised there is a housing crisis going on in New Zealand. It has taken it long enough, but it has cottoned on, and it has cottoned on to the fact that that crisis is particularly apparent in Auckland. We have known for some time, and we have been saying in this House for some time, that Auckland needs approximately 13,000 new buildings—new homes—to be consented and built each year in order to keep up with the growth and the population change and the demand for housing in Auckland, and yet over the last several years the average has been between only 3,000 and 4,000 new homes built each year. That is nowhere near enough to keep pace with the demand for housing in Auckland, and that has created a crisis.

It means that homeownership is increasingly out of reach for young New Zealanders and first-home buyers. Just last week we had reported the staggering news that the average house price in Auckland is $735,000, which is certainly a pretty high bar for your first-home buyers. That is up by 12 percent over the last year.

The Minister of Housing, when he spoke earlier in this debate, talked about interest rates. He said that when interest rates are low, house prices are low, and he was very proud to be part of a Government that had presided over very low interest rates, and yet the average house price in Auckland has increased by 12 percent in the last year. It is now $735,000 and it is forecast to reach $1 million in the next 3 to 4 years—$1 million will be the average house price in Auckland. This is a crisis situation and the Government has finally cottoned on. This bill, the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill, is its attempt to do something about it.

We have been saying for a long time that the solution to this crisis is to increase the supply of housing. The Government has finally cottoned on and it is at least attempting to do something about the supply side in this bill. This bill, indeed, is the Government’s answer to the lack of supply of affordable housing. The first thing I think we have to say about this bill is that it is nowhere near enough, and it never will be enough without a dedicated Government house-building programme and houses that are set aside for progressive ownership by young families and first-home buyers, to give them a foothold on the property ladder. Unless this bill incorporated something like that, it could never be enough to address the urgent supply crisis that we have.

The Green Party will oppose this bill at its first reading, but we will listen carefully and contribute constructively to the debate at the Social Services Committee with an open mind. But with the limited time that we have had to consider this bill, we cannot support it at its first reading, because it raises a number of significant red flags for us. The first of those is that it is modelled, as the Minister said in his speech, on the Hobsonville model. I thought we could perhaps go into that a little bit, because, in my submission, the Hobsonville model is hardly the model you would want to roll out across Auckland and across the country for the provision of genuinely affordable housing. It could have been when it was first established. Indeed, it probably was the model that you would want to roll out, because when it was first initiated it was a mandated mix of social, affordable, and private housing developments with concurrent community development. It was a groundbreaking development, and it was a real experiment in creating both affordable homes and a livable neighbourhood in the same area.

But, tragically, this Government axed the social housing component of the Hobsonville development when it came in. In fact, the local MP in that electorate—one John Key—said when he announced that decision that it would be “economic vandalism” to have State houses and, presumably, their riff-raff tenants in such a nice area as Hobsonville. So—

💬 Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: He didn’t say that.

He did. He said that it would be “economic vandalism” to have State housing in Hobsonville. Look it up. Not only did National axe the social housing component but also it axed the Gateway Housing Assistance loan scheme after only 17 families had used it to buy their first affordable home in Hobsonville. All that is left, which is a quota provision for so-called affordable housing, puts that affordable housing into two brackets. The first bracket starts at $400,000, and the second, and larger, bracket of affordable housing starts at $485,000. I would challenge anyone on the Government benches to go and ask a family in Auckland on the average income who are renting and hoping to buy their first house whether $485,000 is affordable for them to buy their first home. They would laugh you out of their overpriced, low-quality, rental property. They would laugh you out of their rental property, because $485,000 might be affordable for some of those on the Government benches, but it is not affordable for families on the average income who are looking to buy their first home.

As Phil Twyford pointed out in his contribution earlier, there is absolutely no requirement in this bill that the new special housing areas that it creates will have to guarantee the provision of affordable housing, even using that Hobsonville Point definition of affordable. They will merely have to give consideration to the provision of affordable housing, and they may well go on and actually create housing developments that have no affordable housing component, at all. There is absolutely no guarantee that this radical trumping of the Resource Management Act process that this bill contains will actually produce any more affordable housing for Aucklanders or for anyone else in the country.

The second big red flag for the Green Party with this bill is the powers that it grants to the Government to overrule and override local councils’ planning processes in these new special housing areas. We know that this bill is prompted largely by the crisis in Auckland and we know that it is based on the Auckland Housing Accord, which was reached last week between Len Brown, the Mayor of Auckland, and Nick Smith, the Minister of Housing. In the case of Auckland, the Government and the council have, indeed, agreed on the terms of the accord, although, I might add, not without some incredibly heavy-handed tactics by the Minister to begin with. But they got there in the end, and they have now committed to work together to implement the housing accord that they have agreed on.

But this bill does not apply just to Auckland. In fact, although Auckland is the only region specified in the schedule to the bill for now, there is the provision that other regions of the country can be added later on based on data from Demographia and Roost Mortgage Brokers about affordability of housing in those areas. Based on that data, we might be looking at areas like Waikato, the Bay of Plenty, Nelson, Christchurch, and Wellington, which could be some of the next areas to have a special housing area. But there is no requirement that the Government reach an accord with the councils in those areas before it goes ahead and sets up special housing areas. There is no requirement that the Government works collaboratively with those councils. There is a requirement that it tries to reach an accord with them, but if the Government cannot, it can just unilaterally say: “Well, we tried, but we couldn’t reach an accord with the council. But we think there needs to be a special housing area in this area and we are just going to do it anyway.”

In that situation, the bill grants considerable powers to the Government to override local planning processes if it cannot reach an accord with those councils. The Government can appoint the panel that will make decisions about the developments in those social housing areas. It can essentially control the process and override local democracy. There are incredibly Draconian amounts of power that the Government can take in that situation, if it tried and failed to reach a housing accord in one of these other regions. I suppose we should not be particularly surprised by that, given that this is this Government’s modus operandi and we need only look at Christchurch City Council and the former Environment Canterbury to see what the Government thinks about local democracy and the credence that it gives to the local decision makers. So if I was in Christchurch, where, indeed, the housing crisis is almost as bad as Auckland’s, I would be very, very worried about what the Government was going to come in and do to my city, under this bill.

We could perhaps have supported legislation to set up special housing areas in areas where a genuine accord had been reached by the Government and the council working collaboratively together, but we cannot support the Government coming in over the top and running the process in the way that this bill allows. And there is another risk with special housing areas, because since there are no quotas on affordable housing and there is no emphasis on in-fill and brownfield development, it is a potential recipe for sprawl. We have seen this Government’s obsession with land supply and opening up the urban fringe and rural land for housing developments, which does not actually increase affordability. Indeed, with the transport and infrastructure costs, it can be a real cost to families.

So there are a number of red flags for the Green Party in this legislation. We cannot support it at first reading. We will engage constructively and collaboratively at the select committee, but with those red flags about affordability, about the Government’s powers to override local councils, and the recipe for sprawl that it could potentially represent, we cannot support this legislation.

Ahn nyung ha se yo, Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a great pleasure to rise in support of this Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill. Before I begin, though, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister of Finance, the Hon Bill English, who has delivered a magnificent Budget—a Budget that builds momentum for a brighter future for all New Zealanders.

Moving on to the bill. As I get into the bill I would like to give a piece of advice to Ms Holly Walker, who just sat down. People who want to get into their first home do not actually pay median house prices. Often, they buy at the bottom of the market, which is affordable. When you look at the websites that actually sell houses, you can buy plenty of houses—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Order!

Sorry—members and people can buy lots of houses that are priced well under $400,000.

Too many New Zealanders, however, have to spend too much of their income on purchasing their ultimate Kiwi dream. Owning their own home—the piece of land with the house on it—has been a dream for Kiwis for many, many years. This situation is bad for people who have these dreams, because in Auckland, as many members have said, we actually do have a crisis and it is a given that having high housing costs means that New Zealanders owe more. The rising house prices affect interest rates and the exchange rate. The lack of housing—an affordable house at a cost people can afford—will mean more demand for State housing assistance as well.

The situation is obviously not ideal. This National-led Government is doing something about it, unlike the empty promises of the Labour Party claiming it will build 100,000 homes in Auckland for under $300,000, which is a complete lie because an average section in Auckland costs roughly around $350,000.

Does Grant Robertson know how to build a house? Does he actually know that you have to purchase a section to build the house on top of it? Does he know that it actually costs money to purchase the materials required for building that house? Does he know that the tools for building, the hammers, in fact cost a lot more than the $300,000 that that party promises New Zealanders it can deliver? I say to Labour: stop misleading the good people of New Zealand who desperately want to dream about getting into their dream home. Stop misleading them, because that is totally, totally unfair, and it is a lie.

The National Government, however, is doing something about house prices. We are going to improve the affordability of homes. This bill provides for a special Auckland housing accord that sets a target over 3 years of 39,000 new homes being consented to. This is a greater number than the 3,600 homes currently being consented to each year. The accord will allow for greenfield development to be consented to in 6 months instead of 3 years, as it is currently. This accord is a great example of how Government can work collaboratively with councils to make housing available.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: That’s right.

That’s right, Simon. It is collaboration. This bill will allow the same success to be repeated in other areas, other centres, around New Zealand. Up and down the country this can actually be repeated.

The Productivity Commission identified land supply as one of the key areas that constrains housing development. It is the view of this Government that when five key areas are targeted, we will improve and achieve affordability of the homes that Kiwi dreams are built on. The five key areas are land supply, material costs, infrastructure, productivity in the construction sector, and compliance costs, and we are dealing with these five sectors. We are delivering for New Zealand.

This bill will speed up the provision of new housing in areas where housing is least affordable. Faster approvals will help meet demand and help to put out a bit of the fire in the overheated housing market in Auckland, and that has to be a good thing. I commend this bill.

New Zealand First considers that there is some good—and some bad—in the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill, but we think it is far too little and we think it is far too late. The basic problem with it, of course, is that it is reactive to a huge problem that has been suddenly realised—just like a light going on for the National Government. National is impulsive. Like a possum in the headlights, it knows it has to move. It is likely to move the wrong way, and it is probably moving too late.

The bill is based on simple expediency and is ideological, rather than balanced, in its approach. It favours developers’ agendas and sidelines local democracy. It is ad hoc rather than strategic. It is careless about planning documents and substitutes quick-fix, band-aid solutions. It is short term, not the enduring, long-term plan that New Zealand needs. It is superficial, rather than well considered, and it is incomplete and inadequate, rather than the comprehensive plan we need to solve the housing crisis. And it is a housing crisis in New Zealand at this time. Overall this Government is a bit like the crew of a sinking ship all racing to find a lifeboat, instead of actually trying to save the ship itself.

I can say to you already that right now, as we speak, profiteers are buying up land that might be used under the new bill’s provisions. They are out there right now, having heard what was said in this Budget, trying to buy up as much land as they can. It will be a boom time, especially for Chinese investors and other quick-fix, quick-dollar merchants.

But there is some good in the bill—[Interruption]—and if those people opposite want to know what it is, because so far they do not even seem to know their own bill, then perhaps they should spend more time listening than caterwauling from the other benches. New Zealand First would support special housing areas as a concept, but we would do so only on the basis of a genuine accord with local government, we would do so only with appropriate streamlining, and we would do so only within appropriate, specified time frames for consents. So far we do not see anything in this bill, or in anything that members opposite have said, that would give us any real comfort about those things.

New Zealand First would oppose the general non-notification approach as set out. Our concerns, especially with that, would be the loss of local democracy, with too much power given to developers, and the fact that it would lead to ticky-tacky developments, which are not the quality developments for housing that New Zealand needs. We do not see any reference or intention to try to integrate these areas into transport, health, and other plans, and what New Zealand fundamentally needs is a much more integrated policy framework for these things.

New Zealand First would also oppose the width of the proposals concerning plan changes. We think these are too likely to completely compromise district plans, and the proposal needs to be somewhat more limited. They need to be consistent with plan objectives, and in this, coming from Christchurch, I would have to say that we should be learning from Christchurch’s experience. There are far too many developments there for housing in inappropriate areas—housing built on areas that we all knew were subject to liquefaction in an earthquake, subject to sea level rise, and subject to flooding. The developments should not have gone on in those places. So it is very important that these sorts of proposals for special housing areas should be consistent with the objectives in district plans, otherwise we are going to entrench all the mistakes that we saw happening in Christchurch.

We would support the Government’s proposals for the go-it-alone provision, enabling it to issue its own consents where an agreement has not been reached, but we think also that that proposal needs to be more limited. Again, there needs to be a requirement for consistency with the objectives of the district plan. We do think that it should require notification where the plan itself had required that.

Overall, we think that we need to balance speed—and we know that this is an urgent issue—with quality, because that is just as important a consideration. We are not seeing much of an assurance in this bill or in anything that the National members have said that would address those issues.

Another issue is what the Government is not doing, and there is plenty. The first question I would ask is how this plan would help homeowners seeking their first home. How would it help low-income earners approach the problem of buying a new home or finding a section? How would it help them to provide the deposit that is necessary, and how would it then help them, even if they could find a deposit, to finance a new home in this day and age? The answer is that there is actually nothing in this bill, or in the Budget or in the Government’s proposals, that anything like adequately addresses those issues.

The Government’s approach is really a half-baked one. It addresses only availability, and only in a limited way. It does not address affordability, really, at all. It is silent on affordability. Supply alone will not result in solving the affordability issue. That is a separate issue, which needs special consideration.

Another point is how we fix the problem of migrants arriving in this country under the first tier of the parent category, with their half a million dollars, buying up land and homes in Auckland. Nothing has been said about that. People in Auckland know that that is a major problem. The Government is also silent about that issue. New Zealand First would put a stop to that, and that is what we want to see this Government do, too.

We do not have only criticisms. New Zealand First also has comprehensive plans for housing, and our first objective is to simply see that homes are within the reach of all in New Zealand. We believe that there should be a land bank—land actually purchased by the Government to make it available for housing in appropriate areas in New Zealand. We want to see long-term agreements for sale and purchase made available to people so that they can buy a section without having to come up with the full capital cost upfront. They can then pay it off over time, and they can still borrow, in that case, to build a home on the section.

We also think there needs to be a comprehensive New Zealand housing strategy that addresses not only availability and affordability. We want to see things like compulsory insurance, quality housing provisions such as earthquake-proofing, leak-proofing, insulation, and a whole range of other issues to be incorporated in such a strategy.

In the end, New Zealand First will support the bill, but only to refer it to the select committee. We think that there is much to be fixed in the bill. If we can see that that is looked at seriously by the Government and we can fix many of the problems in it, then New Zealand First will certainly consider supporting the bill further. But, as it stands, it would not be supportable, so New Zealand First will support it only to the select committee stage at this point.

I proudly stand and support the Hon Nick Smith on the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill, because he has brought to us a comprehensive solution to housing here in this legislation. He is not a man of silver bullets, like the Labour Party—that is what it comes up with. It always comes up with these silver bullets.

We in the National Government have understood that there is a range of things that need to be done to address the housing pressures that we have. No. 1 is to upgrade the houses that we have already got. I do not know why the Labour Party in the 9 years it was in Government did not insulate all State houses. It was pointing around to private landlords saying: “You should upgrade all your houses. You rent poor-quality houses out to people.”, and yet the Government’s own 70,000 State houses under Labour were not even insulated. This Minister of Housing, Nick Smith, will finish insulating every State house across this country that can be insulated by the end of the year. We are upgrading all the State houses.

The Resource Management Act changes and the Building Act changes are covered under No. 2. Cutting red tape—very important.

Our third strategy is having consistently low interest rates. I remember the days of Labour during the 2000s, when interest rates reached 7 percent, 8 percent, 9 percent, and 10 percent. With interest rates at 10 percent, if you had a mortgage of $300,000, that was $30,000 a year in interest. Under National, interest rates are at 5 percent and 6 percent. Every 1 percent in interest rates on a $300,000 mortgage is $3,000 a year you keep in your back pocket. The Labour Party does not understand that mortgage rates matter. It would manage an economy that would see 8 percent, 9 percent, or 10 percent mortgage rates, and that is a disgrace.

Our No. 4 strategy is take-home pay. The Labour Party would tax you. You would have less take-home pay. You would not be able to sustain a mortgage. The Labour Party does not understand.

And now, the Hon Nick Smith is going to address the issue of land supply through housing accords and the preference to partner with councils to improve housing affordability. Why partner with councils? Because councils matter and local community opinion matters. But we say this: if necessary, the Government will intervene in local authority areas to make sure that land supply is freed, if no one does anything. If everyone twiddles their thumbs in the way that the Labour Government did for 9 years, we will step in.

The Auckland Council will be the first council that we do a deal with. We have already discussed that with the council. Fortunately, the Labour Opposition has been contacted by the Auckland Council, which said: “Vote for this”, and it has subdued itself.

💬 Hon Member: Len Brown.

Len Brown has made the call—

💬 Hon Member: Deputy leader—I think he’s deputy leader of them.

—Len Brown, the “deputy leader of the Labour Party”, has made the call—and we are absolutely delighted that we are going to be in an accord with the Auckland Council to free up more land for housing.

Can I say this: the Labour Party is against freeing up land for more housing. It is all about density. Then we have the extreme people on the right, who are all about opening up farmland and all the rest. The National Government is saying: “We need a balance. We need to intensify land that is already in housing, and we also need new land for housing.” It is a balanced approach. Greenfields and brownfields—that is our approach.

Lastly, can I compare that with the Labour Party housing policy. This is Labour’s policy: “Michael Joseph Savage built a bunch of State houses 50 years ago, so we’ve got credibility.” Well, I say to the Labour Party that it would be a sad day if my son, Bryn, was to go for his first job and, when he was asked: “Why should we employ you?”, he said: “Because my great-great-grandfather was a good guy.”, and the employer said: “But what have you done?”, and he answered—like the Labour members would—“Nothing, but Michael Joseph Savage 40 or 50 years ago built a bunch of State houses.” Michael Joseph Savage would be turning in his grave to know that they did not even insulate those State houses during the 9 years they were in Government. What a disgrace.

Listening to that last speaker, Phil Heatley, who has just resumed his seat, makes me want to spit. Quite frankly, Mr Heatley had 4 years to start to care about housing affordability, and he did not. This Government has now presented its fifth Budget in a row, and this is the first time—the first time in five Budgets—it has thought to talk about housing affordability. And why? Because it has been spooked by our policy. It has been spooked by the offer of supply. That Minister who has just left the Chamber—that Minister—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! [Interruption] Order! The member knows that we cannot refer to the absence of members.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It took them a long time to respond to that, did it not? But the Minister of Housing, as he is now, is so out of touch with housing needs that he does not even know about a woman with five children living in a garage in his own electorate—in his own electorate. So the reason that woman now has a Housing New Zealand house is that I made a fuss of it and made it a front-page news item. Within a day she had a State house. That is not about the provision of social housing; that is about a Minister being embarrassed that he does not even know the state of homelessness in his own electorate.

We have Chris Tremain, the real estate agent from Napier, sitting over there saying: “People don’t buy houses at the average of the market.” The point is, when they are first-home buyers and they live in Auckland, they cannot afford even the bottom of the market. They cannot afford the bottom of the Auckland housing market. If your average is sitting at $735,000, the bottom of the market is not going to be affordable, either.

First of all, the thing that the Minister and his predecessor have failed for the last 5 years to do is acknowledge that there is a housing affordability crisis. There was a housing affordability crisis in 2007, when I became the Minister of Housing. Housing affordability was a huge problem because of the inflated expectations and borrowing that people had on the back of the wide boys who support the National Party. We know that that housing bubble collapsed—that housing bubble collapsed. We know what the history of that was, and we know of the increase in mortgagee sales we have seen since then.

We brought in a piece of legislation that was much more meaningful than the wishy-washy accord with local bodies that the Government is proposing in this legislation, the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill. I brought in a piece of legislation that gave local authorities the legal tool in their tool kit to apply pressure on developers to make 10 percent of any residential development affordable housing in exchange for certain trade-offs, such as waiving development levies. That was a voluntary piece of legislation. It should, according to some arguments, have been compulsory, but in the end it was a voluntary piece of legislation. But it was much better than this piece of nonsense, which says that qualifying developments “may” be required to include—“may” be required; I can hear them crying—affordable housing or may “give consideration” to the provision of affordable housing. These people, who do not know the reality of most people’s lives, do not know it. [Interruption] And do not tell me, Mr Tremain, that you do—Mr Tremain, who owns 20 properties. I do not believe that he understands that there is a housing shortage and a housing problem.

This piece of legislation has come about simply because the National Government has been spooked by what has turned out to be a very popular policy.

💬 Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: Spooked?

💬 Phil Twyford: OK—panicked, then.

All right, “panicked” will do. There are two things that are important in addressing housing affordability, amongst the things that the members opposite talk about; that is quite right, all of those things are important. But why, then, did this Government, on coming into power in 2008, repeal the legislation that allowed local bodies to get into conversations with developers and provide affordable housing? Why did it axe that legislation? Why did it axe the shared equity scheme that would have allowed people to buy their first home, by freeing up State-owned, Crown-owned, land? By freeing up Crown-owned land, we were offering people the property, which stayed in the ownership of the State, and they could buy the house. Over time, as the circumstances of that family improved, they could buy the Crown out—they could buy the Crown out. The programme was axed by this Government.

But I have to say, in addition to axing good legislation and good programmes—including the Welcome Home Loan programme, which saw thousands and thousands of people get into their first home once the KiwiSaver limit had been reached. They were able to maximise their contributions and have that matched by the Government, and then they were able to get into their first home. No, that programme was cut, as well. So not only was the Government cutting programmes and repealing good, constructive legislation but also it then chose to axe its own programme, the Gateway Housing Assistance programme, which was meant to assist people—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. Honourable members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the evening meal.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Before the dinner break, I was railing against this Government’s Budget, being its fifth Budget but only its first Budget to consider affordable housing. The reason for that is that the Government has taken fright, even 18 months out from the next election, because the Labour Party has announced a constructive solution to housing affordability that people have responded to very warmly. Because of that, the Government has been spooked into action.

In fact, I would be grateful if the Government had been spooked into action, but all it has got here in this bill is an accord that it can run with local authorities, or the Auckland Council, that says that qualifying developments, building developments, may be required to include affordable housing, or may give consideration to affordable housing. If this Government cared about housing affordability, why did it axe the previously existing legislation, which was stronger than this and also addressed the issue of local authorities and their ability to provide affordable housing? Why, if it cares suddenly about affordable housing, did it axe Labour’s shared equity scheme? Why, if it cares about affordable housing, did it scale back the Welcome Home Loan programme? Why, if it cares about affordable housing, has it axed its own Gateway Housing Assistance programme?

Why, if it cares about affordable housing, did it axe the Hobsonville project? The Hobsonville project was to deliver 3,000 houses, of which only 500 would have been social housing, 500 of which would have been modest, affordable houses for first-home buyers, and the other 2,000—how many do they want—would have been for private purchase. There could have been a range of houses of different kinds of affordability built there. But, no, the Prime Minister said: “No State houses in my backyard.” He called it “economic vandalism”.

This Government has come very late to the stage of providing affordable housing. It says that we need to expand the metropolitan urban limits and that we also need to have more dense housing. Well, that has been known for the last 5 years. That has been on the programme for the last 5 years. Why has the Government just awoken to it now?

We will support this bill in its first reading, only because we care about affordable housing, not because we think this bill provides any answers. The other reason I want it to go to a select committee is that it has Resource Management Act implications, and I do not trust this Government where the Resource Management Act is concerned. It deserves close scrutiny. Thank you.

Kia orana. I stand and rise and am proud to take a call on the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill in its first reading. The intent of this bill is very clear. It is about Government, it is about councils, and it is about streamlining a consenting process for new housing developments. That is the intent of this bill. That is the sense. This is legislation that will apply for 3 years. The first accord has been signed by Auckland. That should make Mr Twyford happy, but it does not. It does not make him happy. Why? Because it was signed by Mr Brown himself, who is a member of the Labour Party. What is really quite clear is that what this does for Auckland is ensure that it sets a target of 39,000 homes consented over 3 years—far better than the current arrangement, which is 3,600 homes each year.

We have heard a lot of rhetoric. We have heard a lot of calls asking where the plan is. We know that in order for housing development to happen, we need to focus on five key areas. The first area is around land supply—land supply.

💬 Hon Maryan Street: I know.

So we know about that. But what you do not know—what you do not know, Mrs Street—is this—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! I do know.

In your place of Nelson—we are talking about the place of Auckland. Let us take the area of Mr Twyford, OK? Let us talk about land supply. The talk is that it is unaffordable. Well, let us take this: on here, right over here now, you can go on to TradeMe, into the property section, and you can purchase a place in Vitex Lane, which is in Waitakere, behind the Waitematā rugby club, with three bedrooms, one bathroom, and it costs $265,000.

Here is the rhetoric. They take the average in Auckland, which is what? Does anybody know on the other side? Let me just tell you that $675,000 is the average. That is correct. But the thing is that as first-home buyers you do not buy at the average price. You buy a home at the entry point. Many of us who have worked hard have done that. Our first home that we bought was not $675,000; it was probably what it really is right here: $265,000, three bedrooms, and in Waitakere. Yes, Mr Twyford, you would know about that. Here, this is really clear. By providing for the issue around land supply, you enter in at $400,000. What that means is that others can then go on and maybe buy a $600,000 home. What does that do? It provides other opportunities for others to enter into the market. That is what it does.

Here is the other thing that is really important: material costs. I have another question for the other side: what is the average cost of building per square metre in New Zealand at the moment? Do we know? Do we know? No, we do not. Why? I will tell you what, if I were to cross to the Greens, to the 49 percent members, they would be able to tell us. I know Jan Logie would be able to tell us. She knows because the Greens have got a housing policy that everyone is listening to at the moment. The average cost per square metre is $1,700. We know that is unaffordable. We know that is unaffordable, hence the reason that the second part of the plan is to work on the cost of building. The third part of the plan is around infrastructure. The fourth part of the plan is productivity and construction in the sector. Compliance cost is the big issue. We know that is the big issue, hence the reason why this accord is working.

But those out there who are listening should not be afraid. This is not about the big Government coming along to take over. What it is saying is that where the council cannot come to an agreement, where the accord is not possible, the Government will then come in to ensure that the affordability, the accessibility to homes, is there as well. [Interruption] It is not the scaremongering of the other side. It is, No. 1, whether it is accessible to buy and affordable. Yes, at $265,000 you can buy your first home. I know families and I know people who have done that. Secondly, we are reducing material costs. Why? Because at $1,700 per square metre, it is just not affordable.

This bill is addressing the key issues around affordability. It is a plan. But we excuse the other side. You have only just received the bill, so you have not actually read it. Instead, you just keep talking about one issue. This is a great bill. We look forward to the select committee stage, to having the debate, and to sitting down with people who actually know about building and planning and about making a difference for our communities. I commend this bill to the House.

Before I call the next speaker I just inform members that this is a split call. The member speaking will get a 1-minute bell.

Alfred Ngaro, the member who has just resumed his seat, found one affordable house in Auckland, so now there is no housing crisis in Auckland. Apparently there is no housing crisis because he went on TradeMe and found one house that he thought poorer families could afford. So we do not need to do anything—problem solved. That probably explains why we do not see more action from this Government on affordable housing. Government members do not believe that there is a housing crisis, because their voters can afford to buy houses in Auckland and around the country, so they really do not care about the rest of New Zealand, who are struggling to get into their first homes.

We had an extraordinary performance from the former Minister of Housing, Phil Heatley, before the dinner break. We all love the court jester routine, we really do, but I am afraid I need to correct some of the things that Mr Heatley said. We spent 9 years undoing the damage of the 1990s National Government. We rebuilt 9,000 State houses when that lot sold 14,000. They did no maintenance the entire time they were in Government. We started that maintenance programme up again. We managed to go a long way to repairing the damage of the 1990s National Government.

So what did the National Government do when it came in? When it came into Government we had the global financial crisis. A sensible thing would have been to have housing as a major part of an economic stimulus package. That is what Australia did. It had $5 billion for housing. It kept people in work. It kept income tax flowing. It kept GST flowing, and it built a resource that it was desperately short of, just like New Zealand was.

What did National do? Nothing. It repealed Labour’s affordable housing bill. That was one of the first things it did. It got rid of Labour’s shared equity scheme, because of low uptake, when the housing Minister Phil Heatley instructed Housing New Zealand not to advertise it. He said: “Don’t tell anyone about the shared equity programme.”, and then National was surprised when there was low uptake. We tend to take it for granted that schemes are more successful when people know they exist, but apparently that is not obvious to National.

As my colleague said, there should be 500 affordable homes and 500 State houses going into Hobsonville, out of 3,000. There is no social housing because the Prime Minister of this country, who trades on his State house upbringing every chance he gets, shamefully said there should not be State housing in Hobsonville because it is economic vandalism to have poor families living on sections that have sea views—because, God forbid, poor children get to look at the ocean as well. That is our Prime Minister. How many affordable houses have there been? A handful, because the National—

💬 Hon Maryan Street: 17.

Seventeen—seventeen when we promised 500.

💬 Hon Maryan Street: And they’re not affordable.

They are not affordable because they were done through the Government’s Gateway Housing Assistance scheme. The wonderful thing about the Gateway Housing Assistance scheme is that the only people who could afford to access it were people who could afford a market home on the day that they entered into the scheme. So it was an affordable housing scheme for people who could already buy a house in Auckland. I know a young woman who is one of those 17 people. The only reason she got into that Gateway Housing Assistance scheme in the Hobsonville development was that her parents put their house up as collateral against the loan. That is not an affordable housing scheme, it is an embarrassment for the Government.

We had the Kāinga Whenua scheme for Māori housing where the former Minister of Housing Phil Heatley got up and said he had fixed the Māori housing problem—he had fixed it—and the scheme was going great guns. The problem was that the scheme had not actually started yet. When it did start, no one qualified for it because the way it was set up did not recognise that the individual families who were applying could not qualify for a Kiwibank loan. And Kiwibank was mightily annoyed that it was being required to turn people away from the scheme because they just simply did not meet the lending criteria while National members were out there talking it up.

Then we had charitable status being revoked for the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust. If this Government really cared about community housing organisations it would have moved to relegislate to make it clear that the provision of affordable housing does qualify under the Charities Act. What did Minister Phil Heatley do at that time? He did absolutely nothing. Now every community housing organisation in this country is potentially under threat because of that precedent to have their charitable status removed, which means that money that should be going to build affordable and social housing would be going into paying tax that they were not paying before.

We need to build affordable homes. As Duncan Garner said tonight: “There is nothing in this Budget for affordable housing.” If you look for it—

💬 Maggie Barry: Is he a member of your party too?

No, he is not a member of the party, Maggie Barry. And you might want to listen to this, because it is true. The fact is that we need to build more homes, and they need to be affordable homes. The community housing sector, which is now being required to be Housing New Zealand on behalf of the Government, is where the expertise lies. They are the people who have the expertise and experience in building affordable homes, and instead they are going to take over being the social landlord for this Government. Use that sector wisely because it knows what it is doing. It has the ability to make a real difference. It is not there to do the Government’s job for it, but, as we see in the next piece of legislation, that is exactly what the Government is going to have it do.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to take a short call on the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill, and explain why the Green Party opposes this bill, following on from my colleague Holly Walker. We oppose the bill because it fails to provide for affordable housing, and because it removes community consultation and local decision-making on new subdivision development. It is another example that this Government does not trust local government. It is not about a partnership with local government. It is about centralised decision-making.

This is the same Government that in Opposition made such a fuss talking about nanny State when the former Labour Government sought to introduce energy-efficiency standards for lightbulbs. Nannies care about the people whom they are responsible for. This Government is the dictator State. It does not trust local councils and local communities to think for themselves and to do the land-use planning that they want to meet their needs. This bill is breathtaking in the powers that it gives to housing Minister Nick Smith to override plans, to get rid of prohibited activity status, and to override consent processes.

Now that the Minister is no longer the Minister of Local Government or the Minister for the Environment where he could meddle directly with local authorities and the Resource Management Act, he is doing it by the back door. This bill gives him major scope to meddle both with sensible and strategic decision-making by local councils on where the urban limits should be, and to trample all over that concept so that it can benefit National’s property developer mates and give them a very easy ride through the resource consent processes for their property development and their new subdivisions on the fringes of our cities.

This bill is not a solution to the housing affordability crisis. It is about trapping families in ghettos, on the fringes of Auckland and potentially in other cities. Simply extending the urban limits to provide cheap housing will provide windfall profits for those people who have land banked on the edge of the cities, but it potentially traps families in those urban fringes. That is because those areas on the outskirts of the cities often do not have public transport because this Government has refused to invest in public transport. They rely on cars. When petrol prices increase it means transport is unaffordable. There are often no job opportunities in those fringe areas, so they cannot work locally. They do not have the amenities, either. People are forced to commute long distances, and it is not affordable. The types of houses that are built there are often large because land is cheaper, rather than being compact, energy efficient, and affordable.

Investing in this policy is about investing in ghettos—marginalising people. It is not about providing more affordable housing. We want compact and livable cities where people can connect with good public transport. That means more brownfield development and more medium density small dwellings centred around existing community amenities. It means good public transport close to where people work. That is a much better model for helping the first-home buyer to get a foot on the property ladder, rather than this bill.

This is another attack on the Resource Management Act. It is because the Government wants a much more permissive approach to planning. The bill provides for the Minister to be able to override prohibited activities. It provides for these special housing area applications not to be notified unless there is an affected neighbouring landowner. What we will see is the community not being involved in new subdivisions. When that happens there is poor planning. We have suburbs in Christchurch, new subdivisions, where the streets are not large enough to allow buses to go through. That is because the developer prevailed. They did not think about the wider community needs. In the same way, the Minister goes in to push through new subdivisions without these being properly planned, and without them being in the context of the urban limits where we are trying to reduce sprawl, and councils are trying to do that. Instead, it is about freeing up land to create ghettos for people on the margins of the cities, who do not have good access to transport or good job opportunities. It is not about providing affordable housing.

We have just heard a very, very good example of why the Green Party is probably never going to be more than a 10 percenter. Of course, they are a 49 percenter in the mixed-ownership model across there, but never more, really, than a 10 percenter in the view of the New Zealand public.

I just want to, firstly, commend the Minister of Housing for this circuit-breaker. This is a very, very complex area. It goes to the heart of the New Zealand psyche in so many ways, because the purchase of a house is not only probably the biggest investment that Kiwis will make but also something that Kiwis are very passionate about as well. So we have found ourselves in this most difficult position over years, and probably under successive Governments, where land prices have become unaffordable.

What staggers me is the sort of criticism that we hear from the Labour Party—although it is indicating that it will be supporting this bill, the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill—and the negative and, you know, “beatings will continue until morale improves” sort of approach that it has become so expert at, which really can be summed up in the whole flavour of the Budget debate. Today there has been no greater contrast, I think, in the two leaders in this political theatre than what we saw from John Key and what we saw from David Shearer. What we saw from David Shearer was a plethora of negativities, which we have become used to, but scattered in amongst it was only the slightest shred of an alternative way forward for the country. That alternative way forward, of course, is about a capital gains tax and about “North Korea-ising” the New Zealand power supply. Well, I am not sure that that is going to move the hearts and minds of New Zealanders.

This first housing accord is about setting a target of 39,000 consents within 3 years. It allows for greenfield developments in 6 months, not 3 years, and brownfield developments in 3 months, not 1 year. When we talk about the barriers and the roadblocks, if I can use that phrase, this is about councils and the Government doing what Kiwis—in particular, Aucklanders—need of them. I once again just want to say that this is a Minister who identifies a problem, gets on, and applies a solution to it. This is something that should be supported across the House. I commend this bill.

A party vote was called for on the question that the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill be now read a first time.

Can I just remind members that when a vote is being taken, it is to be taken in silence. Interjections can be seen as intimidation on someone else, and can actually lead to a breach of privilege. I just caution members about that.

I move, That the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill be reported to the House by 26 July 2013 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 188 and 191(1)(b) and (c). The fact that this bill has secured the support of 104 of the 120 members of this House is really a broad spectrum acceptance that New Zealand has a real challenge around housing affordability and that the provisions that the Government has provided in this Budget provide for a real way forward. I think we acknowledge that the Labour Party had nowhere to go.

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Well, it did not. Look, if you look at its 9 years—

💬 Grant Robertson: Well, we don’t want to spend any time with you.

I challenge the members opposite. If you look at the history of every single Government since this Parliament was formed, the truth is that the previous Labour Government had the worst record on housing affordability by any of the measures. So it is important that we get on and address these issues with some urgency.

This motion will provide for this bill to have 10 weeks before the select committee. The importance of the timing is this: everybody is aware that the issues of housing affordability are most acute in Auckland. It is also true that Auckland Council is at the moment in the process of working on its draft unitary plan. The council has set down a plan of notifying that plan in September. This bill is closely connected with that. We want to align those processes so that this bill can be passed by August and so that we can get on and make progress on the supply of housing the moment that plan is notified. That is the reason why the report-back date of 26 July is so important.

I make one further point. This bill is an interim measure. The Government has substantive resource management reforms being worked on by my very capable colleague Amy Adams. She will be bringing through a bill to deal with the long-term issues that will flow through into the plan changes that give us the capacity to set the right foundation for housing affordability in the long term. If this truly is to be a mechanism that is going to make a difference in the short to medium term, Parliament needs to get on and do the work. The select committee is well capable of dealing with this timetable, and that is why I ask the House to support this measure to get on and make sure that houses are more affordable for New Zealand as quickly as possible.

It was interesting to hear Nick Smith talk about the record on housing affordability of the previous Labour Government when housing prices have gone up 36 percent since his Government came into office.

💬 Hon David Parker: In a recession.

As David Parker says, in a recession housing prices have gone up 36 percent in Auckland under this Government. So Nick Smith wants to lecture the House about housing affordability. The fact is that in this bill, which has been referred for a truncated select committee process, there is very little that ensures housing affordability at all. The Government has to take it into consideration—yet again another part of this Budget where things are being considered rather than being done. The housing plans may include affordable housing. This bill, if it were to do what was needed in affordable housing, may need to be rushed through this House. If there were something in this that we could all see was addressing the range of issues that are required to get affordable housing in New Zealand, maybe there would be a justification for pushing it through. But this deals with only one aspect of that.

It is disturbing to be standing here again, only a few days after I last spoke in a referral motion debate where the National Government, once again, decided that the select committee process on a bill should be truncated in the way that it is. We are down now to a 2-month consideration of this bill. I simply do not believe that that length of time will be sufficient to allow the scrutiny that this bill needs. Dr Smith obviously missed a lot of the speeches from Labour members, because he clearly did not understand that our agreement to send this bill to a select committee had reservations attached to it. Those reservations are what need to be explored in a proper select committee process.

The regulatory impact statement on this bill indicates why there are issues with such a truncated process. It talks about the fact that the development of the option the Government has put forward under Budget secrecy rules has meant that options have not been consulted on with stakeholders and affected parties outside of Parliament. That is what the regulatory impact statement is telling us—it is saying to this House that, because of the way the Government has gone about developing this proposal, it has not talked to anybody about it. It has not talked to local government, which is critically involved in whether or not this can work and whether or not it is actually possible for there to be specified housing areas. We heard from Nick Smith that he thought it would be a partnership between central and local government. Well, local government has not even been consulted up to this point, and now it is going to be faced with a truncated select committee process where its ability to actually influence the bill, where its ability to raise some of the issues that we are concerned about—about whether or not these housing areas will actually work—will be limited by this referral motion.

Once again, the National Government has brought a bill to this House, having mucked around on this issue for months and months, and having ignored the pleas of the Labour Party, of Auckland Council, and of others to actually get on with helping Auckland to address its housing crisis. For 5 years it has sat on its hands on the issue of housing, and it comes to the House today and says: “You’ve only got 2 months. It’s got to go straight through.” Well, that is, once again, this National Government treating this House with disrespect, with contempt for the processes of democracy, and with contempt for the select committee process.

New Zealanders all around the world who are interested in politics and who write about politics talk about the importance of our select committee process. It is quite unique in the world, and it is vitally important to this House’s processes. We do not have a second Chamber. We have only one Chamber.

💬 Hon David Parker: This is it.

This is it. We have to have a robust select committee process in order to give legitimacy and credibility to the work we do here. Law commissioner John Burrows said in 1990 that select committees are “a crucial bastion of democracy in our legislative process.” Every time National brings a truncated motion to this House without good justification, although John Burrows says select committees are a crucial bastion of our democracy, National says: “We don’t care about that.”

💬 Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: What would Len Brown say?

Sam Lotu-Iiga interjects as he wanders around the House, saying “What would Len Brown say?”. I will tell you what Len Brown would say, Mr Lotu-Iiga. He would say: “Where was National for the last 5 years when there was a housing crisis in Auckland? What was National doing then? Sitting on its hands, doing nothing to resolve the housing affordability crisis, having the Prime Minister deny that there even was a housing affordability crisis.” That is what Len Brown would be saying, and he would be saying: “I want to see a process where people can have their say.”, because that is what we should have in this process.

Whenever there is a truncated select committee process, I am concerned about the way in which the public will be able to make submissions. This is a bill on which people will have strong views. It does make significant change to the Resource Management Act. It places significant obligations on local councils to work with central government on whether or not there will be special housing areas, and it does give significant power to the Minister of Housing where there cannot be agreement on those areas. Those are significantly increased powers, and there will be a range of submitters who will want to submit on that—not only local government. The New Zealand Law Society, which will often make submissions on these bills when they are making such significant changes to law, will be forced into a rushed process as well.

💬 Hon David Parker: EDS.

There are also environmental NGOs, as my colleague David Parker says, such as the Environmental Defence Society and others who have provided—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Oh, those luminaries.

Maurice Williamson is not a fan of the Environmental Defence Society. He had better talk to Nick Smith. Nick Smith does like the Environmental Defence Society. We know that, and it should be given a chance to have its submission on this bill. Maurice Williamson should be given his chance to have a submission on this bill. The putative Mayor of Auckland, Maurice Williamson, would want to have a submission on this bill, to make sure that he can have a say about what is happening with housing affordability in Auckland. But Maurice Williamson’s opportunity to actually have a say on this bill will be severely limited by this truncated select committee process.

I just want to return to the regulatory impact statement, in terms of the reasons why a longer process is needed. I have mentioned already the fact that it is noted there that there has been no external consultation whatsoever. It also says that there is insufficient information on land supply restrictions across local authorities in New Zealand. So the select committee is going to need to research that. It is going to need to say what the extent of the problem is elsewhere in New Zealand, and whether the things that are in this bill stack up. Are they required? We know quite a lot about what is happening in Auckland around the impact of land supply, but we do not have that information about the rest of New Zealand. Although this bill is driven by the fact that the Auckland Council has finally managed to convince the Government to act and support it in its Auckland Unitary Plan, it actually applies to the whole of New Zealand. That means that we do need more time at the select committee to be able to get information about what the impact of land restrictions is on other local authority jurisdictions.

The regulatory impact statement also says that at the moment there is insufficient detail on the specific operations of how this option will work. We do not actually know what the impact of this will be on the behaviours of landowners or on the commercial decisions of property developers. We need the time at the select committee to be able to analyse whether or not this is the right option, and whether or not this is the way this should go. One of the interesting points that the regulatory impact statement makes is that there is insufficient information on the provision of the infrastructure that will actually be required to support the kinds of developments that are being proposed in this bill. That is because the National Government has only just caught up with the idea that it needs to do something about housing affordability. It has put up a bill in front of this House that goes only to some small extent of addressing that. It ignores all the other measures that it would be possible for the Government to put in place, and puts up a bill that maybe might consider doing something about housing affordability. It does that in a truncated select committee process that simply will not give New Zealanders the opportunity to have a say. It will not give this legislation legitimacy.

Legitimacy in our parliamentary system in New Zealand comes from a proper select committee process. We are not going to see that proper select committee process under the motion that the Minister of Housing has just moved. A report-back date of 26 July is simply not enough time. In the system in this House, 6 months is what it should be, 4 months is what it often is, and 2 months is simply not enough. This Government needs to understand that the people of New Zealand deserve to have a say. Labour had supported this bill to the select committee, but we do not support this referral motion. This referral motion is wrong. It is a continuation of this Government’s anti-democratic approach when it comes to lawmaking, and, particularly, when it comes to the role of local government. I urge members in the House to vote against this referral motion, so that New Zealanders can have a proper say on this and so that we can actually explore real options for housing affordability, rather than this weak, limp response from National.

The Green Party shares many of the process concerns raised by the previous speaker, Grant Robertson, with this truncated process referral motion. Firstly, we note that it does seem that the Government is making a habit of referring bills to select committees with shortened select committee processes. As has been pointed out by the previous speaker, we do have a unique select committee system of scrutiny in New Zealand, which we should be very careful not to undermine with routine shortening of the process.

Secondly, as has also been pointed out, the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill is a vital bill. Well, perhaps the bill itself is not vital, but the issue it addresses is one of the most significant social and economic challenges facing the country—i.e., the housing crisis and the crisis of affordability. There is a high degree of public interest in the outcome of this legislation and measures to improve housing affordability, and, therefore, there will be a high degree of public interest in the submissions process on the bill. There are also a large number of affected stakeholders, aside from the general public, potential homeowners, and existing homeowners. There are a large number of institutional stakeholders who deserve the right and the chance to have a decent say on the bill, not least of which are the local councils.

As has been pointed out, the regulatory impact statement makes clear that there has not yet been consultation with local authorities around the country. This is a really important point because although the Auckland Housing Accord has been negotiated, and the Auckland Council is certainly on board with the provisions for that accord, this bill actually extends the possibility of similar accords and of special housing areas around the country, and yet there has been no conversation and no consultation with other councils that are potentially affected. And given that there is a provision for these special housing areas to be rolled out to other regions and the fact that the Government is potentially able to dictate the terms for those special housing areas if an accord cannot be reached with those councils, it seems particularly important that those local government stakeholders do have the opportunity to fully engage with the select committee process on this bill.

Similarly, with insufficient information on land supply problems across New Zealand, we need to be clear that the Social Services Committee has the right information and enough time to digest and process that information before we roll out a bill that extends a model across the whole country when we have not yet even analysed whether and how it needs to apply in other parts of the country. So for these reasons we certainly oppose the truncated process of the select committee. We think New Zealanders have the right to have their say at the select committee, and that it is a complex and technical piece of legislation addressing a very important social and economic challenge, and therefore parliamentarians need to have sufficient time to engage with the material as well.

I call the honourable member Chris Hipkins.

Well, that is very fortunate, Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. That is what my parents call me as well. If there is one message that comes out of this particular motion, it is that born-to-rule Tory arrogance is back in vogue on the other side of the House. Those members do not really give a stuff about the democratic process or about ensuring that New Zealanders get a chance to have a say on the legislation that goes through this House. The National Party knows best. The National Party knows best. It is going to push through the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill, and not give a stuff about what New Zealanders have to say, whether they want to have a say on this process, or whether they even want to make a submission. It does not actually care about whether members of Parliament have an opportunity to engage with this and actually do the job of parliamentarians properly.

Let us consider what the referral motion actually does. The referral motion more than halves the time for this bill to be reported back to the Parliament.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: They don’t like hard work.

No, we do not like it. That is absolutely true. We do not like it over here. This side of the House actually believes that we have a select committee process and time frames around the select committee process for a good reason: so that New Zealanders get a chance to have a say on the legislation that affects them, and particularly when we have got legislation here that gives the Government the power to vary it, because by Order in Council the Government can vary the provisions in this legislation. That is something that New Zealanders should be interested in, because it hands over more and more power to the born-to-rule Tories over there, who seem to think that they know best and that they do not have to have a democratic mandate for the things that they are pushing through this House and for the changes that they are making.

What are they going to do? They are halving the report-back time frame in this House, and they are allowing the select committee to meet even when Parliament is sitting, so members of Parliament who might be participating in other debates cannot do their jobs properly. They are getting very lively over there on the other side of the House, because they do not like it. They do not like being hauled up for the fact they are so arrogant. [Interruption] I am sorry. I am not a waiter, so please do not shout at me. I am not a waiter, so just hold your horses. You will get your chance to have a say in a moment.

They do not like it. They do not like being hauled up on the fact that they are riding roughshod over the democratic process. But people up and down the country know that that is all they can expect from this Government. This is a Government that cancels elections when it is not comfortable with what the outcome of those elections is going to be. It just decides: “Oh, sorry. People might elect a council that we don’t like and isn’t going to do things that we agree with, so we will just cancel the election altogether.” That is the approach of members on that side of the House. They do not really mind about that. They will just cancel the elections altogether and when they think that the public might have something to say about a bill that they do not want to hear, they will just truncate the process, they will shorten it down, and they will prevent people from having a say on the legislation. This legislation may well be good legislation, but it is bad, bad process. [Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Order! Mr Hipkins is making a hard-hitting speech.

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! I am on my feet. Some interjection can be expected, but not so much that it drowns out the speaker. The Speaker will not allow that.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I was just getting warmed up. Nick Smith in his speech earlier on mentioned the fact that 104 MPs in the House had voted in favour of this legislation, and he used that as the justification for preventing New Zealanders from having a say in it. We are supporting the legislation because we do believe that there is a housing affordability crisis in New Zealand and—

💬 Hon Member: Oh! Oh!

“Oh! Oh!”, they say over there. Well, they are just waking up to it now. They are just waking up to it now. They have been in Government for 5 years and finally, after 5 long years, they have suddenly realised that there is a housing affordability crisis in New Zealand and maybe it would be a good idea to do something about it.

💬 Louise Upston: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I draw your attention to Standing Order 286(3), which is very clear about the scope of this debate.

Speaking to the point of order, this is a fairly robust debate being held under urgency and I am responding directly to comments that the Minister who moved the motion made.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Well, can I just say this to members. This is a debate on an instruction to a committee that it report by an early date, and giving certain powers for the committee to meet. The debate is not an opportunity to debate the substance or merits of the bill.

I will refrain from doing what the Minister in charge of the bill did, when he commented extensively on the substance of the bill in debating this referral motion. I will confine my comments to what an outrageous abuse of the parliamentary process this referral motion is in preventing New Zealanders from having a say on this particular piece of legislation.

Reporting this bill back to the House within 2 months of its going to a select committee does not allow the select committee sufficient time to advertise widely, to travel if it needs to, to hear submissions, and to give people the chance to have their say on it. This does not apply just to Auckland. I refer to the very beginning of the explanatory note, which states that by Order in Council this can be extended to further regions and districts by the Government with no referral back to the people to have a say on it, and there are many provisions in here that allow the Government to extend the powers of it by Order in Council. Therefore, many New Zealanders will have an interest in it and will want to have a say on it. But the Government does not want to hear from them. The Government does not want to hear from them. It is quite happy to ride roughshod over the democratic process after 5 years of doing nothing about housing affordability. This referral motion is about the National Government being seen to do something and being seen to do it with urgency, without there actually being any legitimate urgency behind it. Actually, it is impossible—

💬 Maggie Barry: People need housing, “Chippy”.

“People need housing.”, Maggie Barry says. Oh, my goodness! Maggie Barry has pronounced. “Let them eat cake!”, Maggie Barry pronounces to the House—let them eat cake. “People need housing.”—one of the most profound statements that we have heard in the House today. Maggie Barry says: “People need housing.” My goodness me! My goodness me! She has woken up over there and decided that the people are allowed to live in houses. Goodness me! What an admission from the born-to-rule Tory Government over there.

People also have a right to have a say in the laws that affect them and the laws that govern this country. But on this referral motion, despite the fact that we support the bill at the current point and we want people to have a chance to have a say in it, we absolutely object to shortening the process down so that people do not have a chance to adequately consider the bill. Six weeks, roughly, is what the committee will get. Actually, it is slightly longer than 6 weeks. It will be a bit longer than that. It has flip-flopped around from what we were told earlier on when I wrote “6 weeks” down on my piece of paper here. But that time frame does not allow people a chance to have an adequate say.

I do want to respond to something else that Nick Smith said during his speech when he talked about the Labour Party’s track record on affordable housing. Well, I say to Nick Smith that Labour managed something that this Government has not managed in 5 years: a booming economy and 9 years of surpluses—something that this Government has not managed to achieve. So to hear Nick Smith lecturing Parliament on housing affordability in that context is a little bit rich.

I want to come back to whether or not the parliamentary process will be sufficient if the committee has only until 26 July to consider this piece of legislation. How many parliamentary adjournment weeks are there in that time? Adjournment weeks are when select committees do a lot of their work on a bill like this. How many adjournment weeks are there? Select committees should be meeting during adjournment weeks. They are not time off; they are a time for the select committees to actually do their work. How many adjournment weeks are there doing that period of time?

💬 Hon Member: You don’t want no adjournment week.

What was that? Nothing. He has gone very silent. Suddenly he has been caught out making inane interjections. That is not unusual for that member over there. Suddenly, when he is challenged on them, he has not got anything to say. So there will be a question of whether the select committee actually has adequate time to consider the legislation.

Of course, the Government in the referral motion here has allowed the select committee the power to meet while the House is sitting. This is only about the second or the third time in the term of this current Parliament, since the last election, that a referral motion of that nature has been put before the House. The Government has not needed to do that before, because, actually, with cooperation, particularly with legislation that both sides of the House support, there is normally an opportunity for relevant time frames to be met. But this born-to-rule Tory Government does not seem to think, providing it can get a wafer-thin majority, that it should actually bother to extend the courtesy of allowing members from all sides of the House to participate adequately in the process.

Those members know what is best. They are just going to push through everything. They are going to do it under urgency. They are going to abuse the parliamentary process under urgency for bills that do not actually have legitimate urgency. There is nothing in this legislation that suggests it should not be done over a 4-month time frame rather than the 2-month time frame that the Government has promoted.

💬 Maggie Barry: People need homes. Let’s get on with it.

Oh, Maggie Barry says: “Let’s just get on with it.” “Let’s just get on with it.”, Maggie Barry says. Let us forget about what anybody says, forget about New Zealanders who actually in a democracy might have a view and might want to have a say. “Let’s just get on with it.” Maggie Barry has pronounced that this is the right thing to do, therefore we should just forget about letting anybody else have a say. I am looking forward to her contribution in this debate on why she thinks that only 2 months is a sufficient period of time to consider this legislation and to allow the public to have a say.

It is an abuse of the parliamentary process. There is no justification for ramming this bill through under urgency, and pushing it through the select committee process under the select committee equivalent of urgency. It is a bad referral motion, and even though we support the bill, we will not support the Government preventing New Zealanders from having a say on legislation that affects them.

I rise to oppose the Minister of Housing’s motion in respect of the referral of the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill to the Social Services Committee. Once again this Government is trying to bypass the democratic process. During the democratic process we hear from submitters, and a bill is stretched in every direction. That is how democracy works. At the end of the process, hopefully, we get a bill that works. Today, just over there, the Prime Minister stood up and said that within 3 years there would be 39,000 houses built. Did anybody do the mathematics there?

💬 Mike Sabin: Consented.

That is what he should have said. He should have said that 39,000 would be consented. But that is going to be very difficult too. Who is going to process the applications? Is the council supposed to pay for people to be employed to process those applications? There are many applications. There are many resources. We have got resource consents. We have got building consents. Who is going to build these buildings? Where are the developers? Where have they gone? Well, many of them are bankrupt from the recession.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: That sounds like a song. “Where have all the developers gone?”.

That is a song. “Where have all the developers gone?”. Who is going to build all these ghost houses? We expect that, with the proper—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Can I just remind the member that this is actually a debate on an instruction to a committee.

Yes, Mr Speaker. So we expect to see developers submitting. We expect to see plumbers submitting. Who is going to build these houses? Where are all the plumbers? Where are all the tradespeople? Did you do the maths? It will be $20 billion worth of building projects in 3 years.

💬 Tim Macindoe: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My point of order is twofold. The first is that the member should realise that he needs to sit down when you are on your feet ruling on a point of order, but, more important, I draw his attention again to the point that you are making to him—that we are debating the question specifically about a truncated select committee process. Nothing that that member has said so far has been relevant, and I ask you to ensure that he sticks to the question.

It is quite relevant to the bill when I am speaking about submitters and the select committee process.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just remind the member that there is an instruction before the House about this bill going to a select committee and about the committee reporting by an earlier date. Also, the instruction gives certain powers for the committee to meet. That is what he needs to bring his debate around—that the committee reports by an early date, and that certain powers are given to the committee.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will get back to what I was saying. We need the correct amount of time for the select committee process and for the submitters. I cannot see how it is going to work, and on this side of the House, we believe in doing something well and doing it once. [Interruption] Let us have a look at Simon Bridges’ bill that was rushed through under urgency. That is going to come up again very, very shortly to fix up the mess. Aucklanders cannot afford to have this Government make a complete mess of Auckland. So, please, let us have the proper select committee process. Let us follow the rules of democracy that New Zealand has always been proud of. Thank you.

I will go for seniority.

Age before beauty—age before beauty. If the Government wanted to reinvent the wheel, why does it not choose to reinvent the wheel properly? What it has done in this, the first time it has mentioned housing affordability in five Budgets, is choose to send it to a truncated select committee process. Why is it doing that, when that is one of the things that offends people the most—not having access to due process around submissions, and being able to be heard. We have heard from Government members tonight that this is a complex issue. Then why truncate the process? Why make sure that as few people as possible can get to submit on this? If the Government is going to reinvent the wheel, because it has scrapped and repealed every constructive piece of effort made by the previous Labour Government to address housing affordability because we knew it was a problem in 2007, and now it is 36 percent worse—36 percent worse—under the National Government’s watch, then why is it not allowing a decent run at submissions for submitters on this bill, the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill?

All I can conclude is that the Minister in whose name this bill is, the Hon Dr Nick Smith, likes urgency. He likes to look as if there is a lot of activity happening. We have seen him almost destroy ACC in that process, and now it has to correct that—now it has to correct that. But time is needed because this legislation is half-baked.

I will quote John Armstrong in the New Zealand Herald when he was talking about National’s housing affordability package: “Package? What package? No wonder National avoided over-selling the contents of their plan to make housing more affordable. The plan looks more like a rough first draft.” A rough first draft. So if the Government is going to take this rough first draft to the Social Services Committee, the very least it could do is allow a decent period of time for the select committee to polish it, to turn it into something halfway useful, instead of this limp-wristed, lily-livered piece of nonsense that allows the Government to talk with local authorities—Auckland in particular—and other territorial authorities as they choose, by Order in Council. It has not worked out what it means. It has not worked out whether or not Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Nelson, and Queenstown are still the most expensive places in the country to buy a house, which is why the shared equity programme was put into Nelson and Queenstown and those three major centres, under my watch, but which was axed by the incoming Government. It cannot conceive of housing affordability, despite Maggie Barry’s protestations about it being a critical issue in more places around the country than just Auckland. It is a critical issue. The Minister of Housing, who does not know that there was a woman with five children living in a garage in his own electorate, wants to rush this bill through the select committee. Surely he could pay people the courtesy of making sure that they have the opportunity to submit properly.

I come back to the point I made before in the earlier debate, and that is around the Resource Management Act provisions. It is around consenting and it is around the processes that councils have to engage in, in order to ensure that affordable houses that are built are fit for purpose, are sound, are of good quality, and will work on the sections that they are intended to be built upon. So in order to make those things happen, there may be some room to speed up processes, but let us have a proper look at it. Let us have people come to the select committee and represent the concerns that they might have under closer scrutiny. It is typical of this Minister, I have to say, that things under his watch do not get close scrutiny. When he had the local government portfolio, he blew up the figures in that portfolio, as well, so he had to be shifted out of that. I already mentioned ACC to my colleagues. I already mentioned that every portfolio he touches he seems to cause some kind of explosion in it that requires him to be relieved of it. This one is of the same ilk. If the Minister does not even know what is going on in terms of homelessness in his own electorate, how can he be trusted to set down legislation—set down legislation—that is to provide affordable housing, hopefully in more places than just Auckland? I ask why not Wellington, Christchurch, Nelson, and Queenstown—and Tauranga, which has now been added to the list of the most expensive places in the country to buy a house.

People who are renting properties in Nelson are renting at exorbitant rates because the property prices are so high. The rental market is linked in with that. If the Minister is going to address housing affordability, let him do it comprehensively, and not with this limp-wristed piece of nonsense, which is not only—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Why did you vote for it?

If the Minister had been in the House earlier, he would have heard that we are voting for it because we actually care about housing affordability. We would like to take a sow’s ear and turn it into a silk purse, so if we can improve on the legislation, it would be good to be able to do that. In the 2-month period that this legislation is going to a select committee, it is, as John Armstrong said, so much “a rough first draft” that most of the drafting of the legislation is going to have to happen in the select committee. It is going to have to happen in the select committee and, therefore, it requires more time. We will get a bodgie job of housing affordability, made by a Minister who has this ripping-and-busting approach to everything he touches, and that is not appropriate—not appropriate—when we are looking at one of the most critical crises in our country.

Mike Sabin was right earlier: buying one’s own home is part of the Kiwi dream. It is part of the Kiwi dream. He was absolutely right about that. We all agree with that. We all know, except perhaps for some, that there is a housing crisis. Two months is insufficient time to do justice to this critical issue. Thank you.

There is a very simple reason why this bill, the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill, should be going to a select committee for longer than 2 months. It is that this issue is too important to get it wrong, this issue is too important to risk making mistakes, and this issue is so complex that 2 months simply is not long enough to actually give the legislation the proper consideration that it deserves.

This is something that we have seen from this National Government time and time again—these truncated select committee processes. The Minister of Housing knows all too well what a dog’s breakfast that causes, because he sat on the very truncated Emissions Trading Scheme Committee for legislation that got 7 weeks at a select committee—a similar period of time. It was a complete waste of time. It was a waste of the officials’ time. It was a rubber-stamping exercise. That was clear from the outset. We were deliberating when we had not even received final advice from the officials on key issues, and that is not to criticise the officials, because they did everything that they could, given the absolutely impossible hand that they were dealt by this National-led Government. So that is what happens when you have truncated select committee processes.

I find it extraordinary that we are getting these truncated processes on pieces of legislation concerning issues that are so complex and so critically important, like housing affordability or New Zealand’s emissions trading scheme. Arguably, these are issues that require far more thought and far more information and far more consideration than some of the much simpler pieces of legislation that go to select committees for months on end. So I do not know why the National Government is insistent on ramming this through, unless it does not want the scrutiny that a proper select committee process would deliver.

The Hon Nick Smith said earlier that the Opposition did not like doing this, because we are scared of hard work. It is actually the opposite, Dr Smith. No work goes into these bills when they go to a select committee for 7 or 8 weeks. You know that as well as I do, because Dr Smith was a member on a committee that had that process. So—

💬 Hon Anne Tolley: Of course it does—we work hard. What a lazy member of Parliament!

Anne Tolley says that it is about being lazy. We actually want to do proper work on this bill. We want to have a process that really allows proper scrutiny and consideration. We want to work hard on this piece of legislation; it is the Government that is preventing that from happening by having a process that by its very nature is going to make it far more difficult for people to submit; far more difficult for key stakeholders to submit; far more difficult for the officials to provide an in-depth departmental report; far more difficult for the members on that select committee, the Social Services Committee, to then challenge aspects of that support, to then ask for further information, and to then deal with issues that may arise during that process; far more difficult for officials to get the drafting done properly—and the drafting, as we all know, is key—and far more difficult for members on that select committee to be able to scrutinise that drafting and to make sure that what was being agreed to in terms of what is being put in place is actually what ends up in the drafting. That is the very important work that select committees do, and if National members do not value that work, then they should just come out and say so. If they do value it, then there is absolutely no reason why there should be a 2-month deadline for the select committee.

Across the country—and outside Auckland, in particular—key stakeholders have not been talked to about this. They have not had time to consider what it means for them, and that is critical because, although Auckland has its unitary plan and has been talking to the Government, this legislation is going to apply across the board. The issues for different councils are going to vary greatly. We need to make sure that we have taken the time to talk to Local Government New Zealand and to talk to the various councils, which are now going to have to hurriedly rush and push something together to get it to the select committee. I mean, the bill is just the bare bones. We do not really know what it is going to mean for those other councils. We could have the opportunity to actually do that work if we had the bill at the select committee for longer than 8 weeks.

The reality is that the Government does not want that work done. It is doing this because, after 5 years, it is desperate to look as though it is actually doing something about housing. The only reason we are actually passing this legislation is that it was spooked by Labour’s housing announcement last year, because, finally, the public saw that there was a choice between having a Government that would do something about housing and housing affordability and that would take it seriously, and the current Government, which, in 5 years, has done absolutely nothing except repeal every single piece of legislation we had put in place.

What a good select committee process would give us the opportunity to do would be to consider what are going to be the likely implications for the various councils, because housing affordability is not just as simple as looking at the cost of a house. You actually have to look at the relative income of the places where people are purchasing their houses, as well. So something that might seem affordable to people on an income in Auckland—on the North Shore, perhaps, where Maggie Barry comes from. She has been very vocal in this debate with—

💬 Maggie Barry: What’s wrong with the North Shore? You’re knocking the North Shore, are you?

No, I was not. I was just mentioning that you were from the North Shore, Ms Barry. That was all—that was all. Slightly sensitive—just calm down, take a few deep breaths. I did not realise that telling people you were from the North Shore was such an insult and that you were so ashamed of it. Now that I know, I will never mention it again—never mention it again. You are not from the North Shore. She is not from the North Shore. I withdraw and apologise—I withdraw and apologise.

But the issue that I was trying to raise before Ms Barry did what she does was that the average income on the North Shore and the average price of housing is going to be very different from what it is in Gisborne, and a house that looks affordable to someone who, as you said, is looking at the Auckland housing market might not be—

💬 Tim Macindoe: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I raise the same point of order again. The member is now straying well away from the point of this particular question, and I ask you to bring her back to the question or to resume her seat.

No, I was not. I was saying why we needed the process.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Well, can I just say to members that the debate really is on the point that the committee report by an early date and that the House is giving certain powers for the committee to meet. That is the narrow focus of the debate.

💬 Hon Phil Heatley: That’s right.

That is the most sensible thing Phil Heatley has said all night. The point that I was making was, of course, that 2 months is simply not long enough to consider—

💬 Tim Macindoe: You were talking about the North Shore and who lived there.

I was responding to Ms Barry’s interjections, just as I am responding to yours now. So if you want me to get back to the substance of the thing, I suggest you just zip the lips and then I will do that.

So the point that I was making was 2 months on an issue this complicated is simply not long enough. It is simply not long enough on an issue that is this complicated. So I ask the Government what it is afraid of. What is it afraid might come up at the select committee that it needs to truncate the process and not have the adequate time to consider these things? I remember when we were in Government and we had similar issues come up, we often had longer time periods. We had inquiries into these kinds of issues. We allowed select committees to do the work that they do. Select committees should be allowed to do the work that they do, and when they are given such ridiculously short time frames, they simply are not able to do it.

My concern is that the truncated time line could actually result not just in legislation that actually does not do anything, which is a risk with this piece of legislation, but we could end up with legislation that actually does damage because it is not carefully thought through. Rushed law is bad law. Rushed lawmaking is bad lawmaking. If the Government really wants to take this issue seriously—

💬 Hon Phil Heatley: Why do you hate North Shore people?

I know it is all a joke to Phil Heatley—all a big laugh, you know. He is all right, he has done OK, so why should we make sure that the rest of people in New Zealand can have access to affordable housing—[Interruption] What? You have got four houses? Yeah, I do not know why you told me that, but, anyway—that was really random.

Anyway, the point is that there is a danger that we actually make bad mistakes when we rush lawmaking and that we actually end up with unintended consequences, which would not occur if we simply allowed—we are not asking for more time than a select committee normally gets—for the proper course of a select committee consideration to take place. There is a reason why there is a generally understood time frame for select committees. It is because that is what practice and experience have told us is the time it takes for officials to do the work that they need to do; for submitters to be able to find out about the legislation, put that work together, and send it to a select committee; and for members to actually be able to read the submissions that come in—National Party members might not read the submissions that come to select committees, but members on this side of the House do—and then for the officials to go away and do that work; and for the committee to deliberate. That is what they do, and over a period of years we have come to an understanding in this House about how long that process generally is.

Sometimes we have been happy to support the Government where we have seen that there is a real reason and a cause for a short time frame for the select committee, and sometimes there are very real and legitimate reasons why that needs to happen. Where there are legitimate reasons, we are always happy to assist the Government in that matter. There is no legitimate reason for such a truncated time frame with this piece of legislation. If we are going to do it, let us do it right and let us make sure it is done right. The reality is the Government does not care about doing it right; it just cares about looking like it is doing something.

This is a—[Interruption] We can laugh and carry on as much as we like on a motion like this—it might be procedural—but these motions are very important. They raise a very important issue. When matters come before this House, whether they are part of the Budget or the appropriations, or whether it is through a more considered process, putting a matter before this House, putting a piece of legislation before this House, and calling on this House and the members of it, and those who sit on the select committees to give it consideration is a task that should not be taken lightly, should not be treated with contempt, should not be treated with conceit, but should be given due time and accorded due process. That is fundamental—

💬 Shane Ardern: I knew it wouldn’t be a problem for this member to talk for 10 minutes about nothing.

—and whether you are from Taranaki - King Country, or whether you actually care about issues in the area that you come from, particularly social housing and the shortage of affordable housing, which is an issue across the nation and everywhere, from the dark hills of Ūruti to the lowlands of Christchurch and Dunedin, availability of affordable housing is a big issue for New Zealand.

That is why New Zealanders in their droves have come in behind supporting Labour’s policy of a new programme of affordable housing. It is because, now through this Budget, this Government is calling on this House to consider this issue in this admittedly scant piece of legislation, that nevertheless the proper time and resources should be given to consider it. That means time for the officials to prepare their information and their evidence, but, most important, time for members to gather their information, to give due consideration to the advice they are receiving, and, indeed, to look at the legislation.

It is just possible, on any given piece of legislation that comes from the Government, that with proper consideration and proper time given for that consideration, members on the Government side might be persuaded that change is appropriate, that improvement is possible, and that a change might be made to the legislation that is better for the citizens on whose behalf we undertake this very important action. So we do not take this lightly. This is an important motion and we are opposed to it. We are opposed to this Government, repeatedly now, coming to this House with motions calling on shorter and shorter time frames to consider important legislation. It did it just earlier this week on the Government communications security legislation. It wanted a shorter time frame to consider that.

These issues are important. We know how sensitive they are to the voting public, because the public are in touch with our respective offices, the electorate MPs and list MPs alike. They are writing letters to the paper. They are ringing up the talkback hosts on the various radio stations, and they are saying that it is not right in a democracy in our country that we should have the institutions of Parliament treated in such a cavalier way. We are opposed to this because members in this House are entitled to demand that any legislation that comes before it is given proper consideration, proper time, and due process.

It comes down to this, and I said this earlier this week too. It comes down to the principle of the rule of law. We are a nation that ranks very highly in international comparisons and considerations of the rule of law. That is to say that we are regarded as a nation that respects the laws that we make, the rules that we abide by, the role of the courts, but, most important, the way laws are made in Parliament, which means—in this country—in this House. What happens in this House leads our reputation on that very important institution called the rule of law. And when we treat it with contempt, when we treat it in such a cavalier sort of way, then our international reputation goes down. Our international reputation suffers. It is not enough for some members to be invited on to international television shows to establish our reputation. That is not what we establish our reputation on. Our reputation is established, for anything that counts, on the way that we conduct ourselves, the way we conduct our business as a nation but, most important, in this House—the highest court in the land in a Western democracy, the ultimate source of law in a Westminster democracy.

So we treat with considerable alarm and we look askance at resolutions like this that call upon us to act with a haste that is, frankly, rude and should not be tolerated, if we are to do our job properly and discharge our responsibilities. This Government has demonstrated that it is a Government that has no hesitation in cutting corners when it comes to matters of due process. Its appointments to statutory boards are just one example of that, but its treatment of this House is increasingly another example. We are getting these motions, and we have yet another one tonight on an important piece of legislation, on an important bill dealing with an issue that is of great importance to all New Zealanders. Now we are being told: “Rush through it. Don’t give it your best. Don’t give it your best attention. Don’t care that we’ve got an adjournment week”—2 adjournment weeks, 3 weeks, in fact, it may even be 4 during the course of this bill. It is 4 adjournment weeks while this bill is meant to be being considered. “Rush through it and don’t care what the people want. Don’t care what citizens might think. Don’t bother giving them adequate time. Don’t even care about the NGOs that have a relevant stake in this matter”—the Darryl Evanses of this country and the Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity; all those who might have something interesting to say about this; the territorial local authorities, which will have something worthwhile to say about this; and Local Government New Zealand. “Don’t give them the time of day. Treat them with contempt.”, as it treats the members of the Opposition. That is the attitude of this Government and it is wrong, and it is high time that it was called to book. That is the least we can do in debating this motion—make it very clear and emphasise our objection, underscore our opposition, and say that it is simply not acceptable anymore.

We understand that at the time of the Budget there are invariably pieces of legislation that need to be considered in a hurry and that need to be considered under genuine urgency. This is not one of them. This is the opposite. This is an exception. This should not be given a rushed consideration. It should be given proper consideration as should be any important piece of social legislation. It may well be important for this Government to boast that it is giving the appearance of doing something, but this is a bill that touches on an issue that affects not only the real lives and the material lives of a growing number of people who cannot get into their first home but, actually, it affects ultimately every New Zealander.

If we do not have a housing market that makes housing accessible and available to people from all walks of life, all backgrounds, all levels of income, then that is a market failure that does deserve the attention of this House. But if it deserves the attention of this House, then it should be given the proper attention of this House. That means consideration by the select committee under the proper Standing Orders of this House, which means proper consideration and proper time being given. It is totally objectionable, it is utterly unconscionable, that an issue like this—even at the time of the Budget, even at the time of the appropriations—should be rammed down the throats of members of this side of the House; that it should drag in, or cause undue and unnecessary inconvenience to, those who do have the resources and the means to be consulted and to make a submission on it. That is unreasonable.

It is not a good day for democracy in this country. It is not a good day for the conduct of this House. It is time to put a line under it and say we demand better management of this House and of important legislation by this Government. We will remain opposed to this motion.

A “proper job” is an old Cornish saying, and I fear that this House is not doing a proper job of giving the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill the scrutiny that it needs when the Government has asked for the time frame for the consideration of this bill by the Social Services Committee to be truncated from 4 months to around 2 months. This House and we as members of Parliament have a duty to make sure that for a piece of legislation that the Government thinks is significant to bring into the House under urgency—it is one of the major pieces of legislation in this year’s Budget—we give the public and those stakeholders around New Zealand a fair chance and a good period of time to let their feelings be known.

My colleague Andrew Little made a very good point in his contribution that the select committee process—and I am sure all members of Parliament right around this House would agree—gives the opportunity for people to come in and make submissions and to improve a bill. Reducing the amount of time that this bill is going to be considered in the select committee to 71 days really does rob the opportunity for many, many people to come to Parliament or to visit the select committee to make their views heard.

This is a significant piece of legislation, as the Minister of Housing said. Before we got to this truncation debate, 104 members of this Parliament voted for it. We do realise that housing affordability is a major issue for New Zealanders. It is a bit of a pity that the National Government is about 4 years too late with that. But it has come to a piece of legislation within this bill that needs a good hearing and needs very close security, and, as I said, the Government needs to give the opportunity for people out in New Zealand to have their say and possibly improve this bill. To reduce it to a 10-week hearing of submissions as opposed to the usual 16 really is not giving people out there enough of a chance to have their voices and their views heard on this bill.

We do have concern that this is the second time in 1 week that the Government has come to this House and asked for the select committee consideration of a bill to be truncated under urgency. Another piece of legislation debated last week around the security of telecommunications was brought before this House and we had to do something very similar to what we are doing now. We ask what the rationale is of a significant piece of legislation being brought into this House and ask why, if it is so important, we are limiting the opportunity for people who think this is a very, very important issue, to come and have their say in Parliament. We do believe that the select committee consideration is very important in order for the public to have scrutiny around pieces of legislation, especially significant pieces of legislation such as this.

This is a complex issue. That is why, I think, the Government has decided to take some action after a very long time of inaction, and to take some action in this Budget announcement and to bring this bill to Parliament. Because it is a complex issue, we do believe that the public should get that other 6 weeks that they are being robbed of in terms of being able to make submissions to the select committee, as has already been stated. It also gives a bit more time for members of Parliament to consider some of the submissions that are made at the select committee, to offer up amendments at the select committee consideration, and to talk through some of the complexities that are certainly going to be brought up around the complex issue of housing supply and housing affordability.

In the explanatory note on the bill, the Government says this bill “provides a mechanism for central government to work together with territorial authorities to address housing supply and affordability issues”. By taking time away from a number of local councils and district councils, which, I am sure, will be very interested in this piece of legislation, and by taking away 6 weeks from that select committee process, I think it robs them of many, many opportunities to make submissions and to scrutinise this bill.

As I said, this is the second time in a week this has happened. This time it is at the behest of the housing Minister, Nick Smith—

💬 Darien Fenton: Bad habits.

—who does have a bit of a bad habit around due process. To truncate this select committee process from roughly 16 weeks down to 10 weeks suggests that he does have a bit of form. I am suggesting around the sacking of the Environment Canterbury council—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

Apologies, Mr Assistant Speaker. So we need to make sure that we are not creating a pattern of behaviour in terms of due process in this House, because it is very, very important that this Parliament have credibility, that we make sure that in the eyes of the public we are doing things properly, and that we do follow due process. We have got major concerns when, as I say, we have got two pieces of legislation in 1 week that Ministers have asked to have the time frame for the submissions to the select committee truncated. The Minister has asked for this to be reported back on 26 July, which gives 71 days for the public to have their chance to have a say on this rather significant—

💬 Andrew Little: That’s shorter than Aaron Gilmore’s term in Parliament.

It is just a little bit short of Mr Aaron Gilmore’s term in Parliament. But there are 71 days for individuals, for companies, for organisations, and for, importantly, those local bodies that will have a huge interest in trying to make sure that people within their communities have a better supply of housing, and have much more affordable housing. I am not sure whether 71 days is enough to be able to give these issues that are going to be traversed within this bill enough air time and enough opportunity for every one of those stakeholders who think they can make a good contribution to the process to be able to make their voices heard.

This is a serious issue of due process. We are here as parliamentarians. The select committee process is a very important part of the process in terms of making sure the public can have scrutiny and have their say.

But truncating this period to just 71 days does not give them the significant opportunity to be able to make a contribution to that. Housing affordability is an issue that is on the radar now because the Labour Party put it on the radar. Credit where credit is due, the Government has done something, but that is not to say that when you do something, you run roughshod over the parliamentary process and truncate the time period in which New Zealanders right around the country will be able to make a contribution to the select committee process. So we would ask that the House not support this motion to shorten the time period for the select committee process. We would ask that this Parliament give that opportunity to the people of New Zealand—all those around New Zealand who have opinions, who have views about housing affordability and housing supply. It is a very important issue for Kiwis at the moment. It is going to be a defining issue at the election campaign next year. Those people around the country, because this issue is such a big issue, need to be given the opportunity to speak their minds, to give their opinions, to look through some of the details and the data around housing affordability. To be able to do that, they are going to need more than 71 days—more than the 10 weeks that the Government is asking for.

The views of New Zealanders need to be listened to. The views of New Zealanders need to be listened to. The Government does not necessarily like that—as I say, two pieces of legislation in just the 1 week—but the views of New Zealanders should be listened to. They should get their full opportunity to make their views heard on housing affordability. This is a Government that does not like due process. We have seen two examples of it in the last week—

💬 Tim Macindoe: You’ve said that five times.

Pardon?

💬 Tim Macindoe: You’ve said that five times.

Well, what do you want? Do you want me to speak about something else, and then you raise a point of order? This is a very important issue. The views of New Zealanders around the country need to be listened to, and this Government wants to shut the debate down.