Housing Legislation Amendment Bill

I am speaking to proposed Part 6, which mandates that the Minister must, within 6 months of the commencement of this part, prepare a new national policy statement under the Resource Management Act (RMA) on urban growth. This is very important because if there is a root cause of the current housing crisis that bedevils New Zealand, that root cause lies in the highly restrictive planning regime and the way that we finance infrastructure, which has the effect of choking off the supply of new land for development. It drives up urban land costs and triggers a chain reaction of speculation and land banking that has seen our largest city now have some of the most unaffordable housing in the Western World.

This amendment in the name of the Hon David Parker sets out an alternative, smarter approach to managing urban growth, which we believe goes right to the heart of the root causes of the dysfunctional urban land markets that are at the heart of the problem that we have with our housing in New Zealand. What happens is that the planning rules choke off the supply of new land. They create an artificial scarcity of land and they drive up the cost of urban land that is able to be developed. That acts as a magnet for land bankers and speculators, who rush in. They buy land around the urban growth boundary in the knowledge that in time that boundary will shift and the value of that land will go up. By the very nature of having a boundary like that, with urban land on one side and future urban land on the other, you get this massive differential in land values—sometimes up to 10 times. Urban land that is able to be developed can be up to 10 times the cost of rural land on the other side of the boundary. That differential is an irresistible magnet for speculators.

What we have seen in Auckland over the last 20 years is land bankers pocketing windfall gains of thousands of percent. There are thousands of percent of windfall gains for land bankers who have just bought up paddocks in the knowledge that they will surely, eventually, be rezoned for urban development as the city expands. Who pays that cost? It is future homeowners, because the cost of that land banking—the inflation of land values—just simply gets loaded into the price tag of new homes in new developments. It drives up the price of housing, it makes housing less affordable for first-home buyers in particular, but, most importantly, the marginal cost of land on the fringes of the city gets capitalised into property values right across the market. So it has an extraordinary inflationary impact on house prices across the entire market. We could hardly design a system that was worse at protecting affordable housing.

The lesson, I think, from the last 20 years in New Zealand is that we must make room for growth. Auckland is expecting another million people to call that city home in the next 30-odd years. If we do not make room for that growth, if we put in place restrictive rules that stop the city growing up and stop it growing out, only one thing will happen: we will drive prices up and we will deny our children and our grandchildren the opportunity to ever own their own homes in the city. What David Parker’s amendment does is it proposes a whole new alternative and a smarter way to manage growth. If we look at proposed clause 12(2)(a), it proposes a national policy statement on urban growth that must include a prohibition on the use of urban growth boundaries within a district plan where official statistics predict there will be population growth.

But it is not enough just to do away with the boundary; we must do other things. We must, for example—as we say in proposed clause 12(2)(b)—use more intensive spatial planning to set out over space and time what should happen, what developments should be allowed to happen in the identified growth corridors. We must acquire land for transport and other infrastructure corridors and networks. We must, for example, set aside areas of special value—environmental or cultural value—that are not appropriate for development. Most importantly, we must deal with infrastructure and utility costs, which add massive expense to new developments, and we must ensure that those costs are properly internalised in new developments.

What we are proposing here is a rigorous system for ensuring that the costs of that infrastructure are properly internalised so that the taxpayer and the ratepayer are not being asked to subsidise development in places where it might be extremely expensive to lay down that infrastructure—where it is uneconomic. Those are a few of the key principles in this amendment, which we believe is a much more permissive approach that will stop the planning regime choking off new land for development and driving up the cost of urban land. We believe that this policy will be one of the most essential reforms that we can make if we want to produce a more functional and more competitive urban land market.

I want to contrast this approach with the special housing areas and the track record of this Government in the last 8 years. Bill English and Nick Smith have spent a decade talking about this issue—blaming the RMA, blaming councils for restrictive planning rules that have driven up the cost of urban land—but they have done so little about it. You can barely credit the inconsistency, the gap, between the rhetoric and the reality of National on this issue over its last 8 years in Government. It has spent all of its time scapegoating councils and blaming the RMA, when it has done virtually nothing to tackle the root causes of the problem, which are the restrictive planning rules that stop the city growing up and growing out. Finally, what we have seen is Auckland Council, actually, which deserves credit for adopting a unitary plan that significantly up-zones the city and allows more density so that a better mix of housing options, hopefully with some better affordability, can be built in the city—and it has increased the amount of greenfield land available, to take out some of the extreme price pressures caused by the lack of new land for development.

But that is only an incremental step; what we need is a whole new approach, which is embodied in David Parker’s amendment. It would be a smarter approach to protecting the environment and to supporting the development of good urban form. I want to reassure people who are concerned that this might lead to unchecked sprawl that it is not designed to do that. We are advocating the freeing up of density in the city to allow more density to happen. The crucial factor here is that the costs of new development are properly internalised. That will tilt the playing field in favour of intensification in the city. That will take advantage of the sunk infrastructure assets that are already there. We are going to debate, later on, a new mechanism for financing infrastructure: infrastructure bonds that will be paid back over the lifetime of the asset through a targeted rate on the properties in a new development. You put those two factors together and you have got a whole new way of managing urban growth that will cut out the rotten heart of our planning system, which currently drives up urban land prices and acts as a magnet for speculators.

You could not get anything more different than this bold, courageous new approach to managing growth in contrast to the incremental, piecemeal tinkering of Nick Smith’s special housing areas, which have made virtually no difference to the supply of housing and certainly no difference to affordability.

I have a slightly different perspective on the situation than the previous speaker, Phil Twyford. The Green Party will be supporting this amendment on the condition that there are several amendments to it. My slightly different perspective is that there is a story around development in New Zealand, particularly in Auckland, that says that people want to live on a quarter-acre section, they want to be able to drive everywhere, and we need to build motorways to assist that.

The reality is that there is no point building a whole lot of cheaper houses and places for people to live unless people have affordable access to jobs, schools, shops, green spaces, and amenities. People do not need just houses, and that has been the whole failure of this special housing area approach. It is entirely focused on houses, not on neighbourhoods, which is what people need to live good lives.

We will completely undermine the objective of making housing affordable if we do it in a way that makes transport far more expensive. So we can support this amendment on the basis that it is not going to result in urban sprawl because of the many subsections that do not just stop urban growth boundaries but actually require local authorities to take a much more proactive, detailed spatial planning process that sets aside land that is of special value. It might be a value for a community to have land that is used for agricultural purposes close to the city, to have land that is preserved for biodiversity purposes, and to ensure that all of the new development is around infrastructure corridors that provide good transport linkages to other parts of the community.

It is not just any transport corridors, because the other thing that is missing, I think, from this amendment is the recognition that climate change is an urgent, urgent challenge for everyone on this planet, and we have to be thinking and creating communities where people can get around without increasing dangerous climate pollution. It is not affordable and it is also not wise to be planning for car-dependent, sprawling neighbourhoods that cost people a fortune, segregate communities, mean it is harder for them to access jobs, and, on top of it all, we have got this warming climate, we have got a pressing need, and an opportunity to create vibrant, livable communities that are linked up by smart, clean public transport that means people can socialise, work, and relax while getting around the city. They do not have to spend hours stuck in traffic, and they do not have to spend a whole heap of their income on ever more cars just so their kids can access schools and jobs.

So the Green Party can support a smarter approach to planning that is going to achieve not only affordable housing but affordable transport and access to the things that people need to live a good life. That takes a proactive local government approach, and that is what has been lacking under this National Government, because it is so ideological and it is so—as my colleague Marama Davidson says—disconnected. It is thinking about things in a very siloed way. We have got this focus, supposedly, on affordable housing. Well, (1) we are not even going to achieve that with special housing areas, but (2) what good is cheap housing if you have expensive transport, and what good is cheap housing if you cannot access jobs? It is not going to solve the problem.

So the amendments I plan to table will amend the proposed part so that it prohibits the use of planning rules that are currently used, like minimum parking requirements, which are actually pushing development out from the centre. Where people actually want to live is in the existing urban area, because that is where one has access to jobs, access to communities, and access to schools and hospitals—everything that they need. That has not happened, because planning rules actually make it more difficult and more expensive to provide homes in the existing urban area.

If we did not have all those rules, we would not need urban growth boundaries, but the reality is that we have all those rules, and so we also have urban growth boundaries, and so there is pressure from both sides. I would prefer to leave the urban growth boundaries in place until we have sufficient development within the existing area, but I can see that if every part of this proposal in Part 6 was included, including the detailed spatial planning, setting aside areas of special value, ensuring that future infrastructure corridors and networks—[Bell rung] But if we have new communities sprouting up in places like Warkworth or in between Pukekohe and Auckland, they have to be around the rail network and there has to be electrified passenger transport services.

Those communities in greenfields could be within walking distance of electrified rail networks, and they could have schools, parks, and amenities—everything that people need. But if we are going to go down the route of a paddock subdivided into a bunch of McMansions with no schools, no amenities, no shops, and everybody having to get on the motorway and into a queue of cars to get anywhere, that is not going to be the solution that New Zealanders want, is it?

New Zealanders want affordable housing, they want affordable transport, and they want to do their bit. They do not want to be adding climate pollution to the atmosphere, and they need the Government to be proactively investing in the infrastructure—that is, the transport, the water management, and the housing itself. They need the Government to be leading on that infrastructure investment in a way that enables them to live good lives, to reduce our energy use and our pollution use, and to create happier, healthier communities, because that is the opportunity we have.

We have done things pretty poorly for the last 50 years, but we can see in communities overseas that have a much more integrated approach to planning and have a much more proactive investment strategy around public transport—it works well, and people love it. They love living in those places. You can have affordable housing, affordable transport, and respond to climate change, and have vibrant, thriving, green communities. It is fantastic. It is just sad that the current Government does not seize this opportunity to create far more livable neighbourhoods for New Zealanders.

So on the amendments that I want to propose—one is that we prohibit the planning rules that are preventing more homes and neighbourhoods from being built in the existing urban area, as well as prohibiting urban growth boundaries, and we need to have a requirement, as well. In new section 46C(2)(b) we have got this “requirement for local authorities to undertake detailed spatial planning …”, and in that requirement they need to take into account climate change. There is no point doing this planning around long-term projects like affordable housing and affordable communities if we are not taking into account the urgent need to respond to the long-term challenge of climate change. That needs to be at the forefront of our thinking of the way our cities and towns develop in the future. It has to be.

So I will table a proposed amendment shortly that will mean that local authorities, in undertaking their detailed spatial planning, will take into account the need to mitigate and adapt to climate change, which I think is fair enough, and I am sure the Labour Party will be supportive of that. Thank you very much.

I rise to speak in support of the proposed amendment in my name that adds new Part 6 to this bill. Can I make the point that this prolonged debate of all of these other necessary measures that would be important to solve the housing crisis—every one of which National is voting against—is being protracted only because the Government, under urgency, pushed through Part 2 of this bill, which takes away, without select committee consideration, the property rights of people who have a residual interest in a property that was compulsorily acquired by the Crown. The Government, having said that that is already the law, is passing a law to take it away—obviously it is hard to believe that that is already the law if that is what it is doing. If it had not been for that, the Government could be progressing with other business. If it wants to still refer that to select committee and put that through a decent process, its members should come and talk to us.

This part of the bill is a very important part of the Labour Party’s policies to reduce the cost of new housing, which, as my colleague Phil Twyford points out, flows through to the cost of all other housing. As we know, markets clear at the marginal cost of the new. If there is a shortage, if the marginal cost of the new is higher than it would otherwise be, it not only lifts the cost of the new but flows through to all of the alternative purchases, which are the cost of the old. So if you have excessive land costs and excessive capital infrastructure costs up front in a new subdivision, then that flows to the cost of all housing in a place where you have got urban population growth—as we have in Auckland.

Perhaps the thought leader on this in the world, or one of them, is Professor Ed Glaeser from Harvard University. He was brought out by the University of Auckland business school a couple of years ago to address New Zealand on what you need to do to have good cities that service the needs of the population, particularly in growing cities. He is the author of a book called Triumph of the City. I went to his lecture in Auckland, and he made three important points.

Before I turn to that, I would make the point that it is absurd that in a country that has as much land as New Zealand—and as few people—that we have amongst the most expensive land, or land inflation, in the world. It is a truism. We have got a land area that is the size of the United Kingdom, about the size of Italy. We have got less than a tenth of their population, and yet we are the ones that have got problems with house prices and land inflation. It is not because we are short of land; it is because the Government’s settings are wrong, including around the planning of the release of land. You hear defenders of urban growth limits say: “Well, there’s a lot of land planned for release.” In fact, Auckland City, in its own defence, says that it is rezoning an area the size of Hamilton, and, therefore, all of these problems will be cured. The problem is that, actually, it releases that extra land zoned in tiny little increments, so as to drive, from its point of view, the efficient use of infrastructure. In the process, those releases are always captured by land bankers, because land bankers know where they are going next—the 10-year long-term council plan shows where the infrastructure is going in next. So, around the margins of that growth, the price of land is held high because the market is never fully supplied with land in the face of the shortage that we have had for some years.

So Glaeser says two things—well, actually, he says three things that I think are really important in this debate. First of all, he says that urban growth boundaries are inappropriate because they constrain supply in the face of population growth and drive up prices. Secondly, he says that rules that limit the natural intensification that will occur within an existing city are even worse, because they drive up prices and they stop people from doing what they naturally want to do—which is that as populations grow, they actually want to live in reasonably compact cities. Thirdly, he says that you have to be very, very, very careful that you do not transfer the cost of infrastructure inappropriately, either to existing ratepayers, as a future ratepayer to them, or—also, one of the other reasons you do not want to do that is that you distort the price signals across the whole of your country, and you actually ruin the regional development of other places, which should be gaining an advantage. If prices are on the rise in a city like Auckland, you would expect that other cities and other regions would be developed as a substitute for some of that more expensive development in Auckland. You do not get that right if you do not get the pricing of infrastructure right.

What this requires is that a national policy statement be drafted by the Minister for the Environment, under the Resource Management Act (RMA), within 6 months of the proposed new section 46C coming into effect. That national policy statement would then go through the normal processes under the RMA and would, effectively, impose rules upon district and regional councils that stop these practices that, at the moment, are driving up land prices and, therefore, house prices.

The Labour Party has been pointing out that this is necessary for about 3 years. Our response has become increasingly sophisticated in the last couple of years through Phil Twyford’s efforts, and other people’s—and I hope I have made a contribution there. But it actually goes back to when Annette King was our housing spokesperson and David Shearer was our leader, when we first said that we actually needed a national policy statement in respect of affordable housing under the RMA. As my colleague Phil Twyford has pointed out, for years we have had National bleating on that the RMA is the cause of these problems. Actually, in truth, if used properly, the RMA is the solution to these problems, because national policy statements are provided for under the RMA and should be used when there is an issue of national importance—such as a housing shortage—that needs to be overcome through changes to planning rules, which the Government has always had the ability to do through a national policy statement under the RMA.

I want to deal with the point that Julie Anne Genter raised, because it is a very important point. She makes the point that you have got to be careful that you do not drive inappropriate forms of urban form that increase pollution, waste infrastructure, cause people to sit in cars longer, increase the cost of public transport because you have got to extend public transport networks, or increase the operating costs of public transport because they are less efficiently used. That is the purpose of these paragraphs (c), (d), and (e) of proposed new section 46C(2) of the RMA, under this amendment.

It says that central government should list all of the infrastructure costs—that includes libraries and swimming pools, the extensions to public transport, the extensions to local roads, and the inefficient use of central government motorways—all of these things should be properly measured. You will not recover the cost of all of them, but you should be properly measuring the marginal cost of growth, so that you can make a rational decision. Then, you should have some standard rules that work across the country as to how you allocate those costs. That is how you get the right economic signal to drive appropriate urban form without allowing the land bankers to capture the land market and drive land prices to the ridiculous levels that we have in New Zealand, where, despite being a country that is so rich in terms of our land area, we have this incredibly high land inflation.

The Labour Party was on to this before National. We were on to it before the Productivity Commission started to think of it. We are, in many ways, more considered in our use of markets than is the Government. The Government claims that it knows how to work markets. These are rules-based markets. The rules are in district plans. If the market is not working, you need to change the rules. It is that simple. But the National Government does not understand that in order to use and harness the private sector and the public sector to solve this housing crisis that we have in New Zealand, we have to harness those markets through appropriate rules relating to the urban limit. That is what this tabled amendment in my name does. We have artificial land scarcity in New Zealand. We all know that we have got a lot of land; it is just that people are not allowed to build on it. Blaming the RMA has always been wrong; the RMA is where the solution lies.

New Zealand First will support Part 6, as proposed by Labour Party member David Parker. It does pre-empt, in fact, parts of the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill, which is currently going through the process. But our support is worth some caution, I would have to say, because fixed boundaries have worked, in fact, in most parts of New Zealand quite effectively—Christchurch is one of those. But I accept that Christchurch, with its huge areas of land adjacent to it, is rather different from Auckland, which is built on an isthmus and has a much greater rate of growth. So, bearing that in mind, I think it is quite appropriate at this stage that we do accept that some change is necessary in places such as Auckland to make the use of fixed boundaries no longer appropriate, and to look for an alternative.

I think the alternative we have here is certainly one that we can consider supporting. It is a shame that this proposal is not actually going through a full select committee process, because this, like other provisions in the bill itself, really does need proper examination. It is a shame that that is not happening, but we do not have the luxury of that. Here we are in urgency. Here we are, having to look at Part 6.

On balance, New Zealand First will support Part 6 subject to the Greens’ amendments, which I think are satisfactory, and on the basis of the alternative to fixed boundaries that is set out in new section 46C(2)(b) in particular, but also in paragraphs (c), (d), (e), and (f). The crux is paragraph (b), which actually says: “a requirement for local authorities to undertake detailed spatial planning which sets aside areas of special value, and sets out future infrastructure corridors and networks as an alternative to urban boundaries”. The other paragraphs everyone can read for themselves.

The point that I want to make is this: the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill has drawn a large number of submissions in support of spatial planning, and it does seem to me and to many people that that is the way to go in the future, especially for Auckland. It is a much more sophisticated approach to planning, especially in high-growth areas. But, most of all, New Zealand First is very supportive of the parts of this particular section, and that is new section 46C(2)—all paragraphs of that—where it refers to infrastructure corridors and networks as a tool to prevent growth into inappropriate areas, especially those areas where delivery of infrastructure would be far too expensive, impracticable, or too remote from transport opportunities. That is the point of Julie Anne Genter’s amendments, so that is why we particularly support those.

I would have to add this: in my 15 years on the Christchurch City Council, on more than one occasion I actually tried to use the limitation of the expansion of infrastructure as a way to discourage inappropriate growth, but, of course, it was illegal to do so, so my attempts largely failed. I have to say that some of the areas where that growth happened were areas that have now been red zoned—areas that should never have been developed on at all. Megan Woods, nodding her head, is quite right—we all know where those areas were, and we all know that that development should not have happened. If we had had this regime at that time, it would have been possible to avoid it.

Finally, Julie Anne Genter was quite right when she referred to the need for development to take adequate notice of transport issues. In fact, New Zealand First policy is to favour transport-led development. You can see that in many parts of the world, so it is not a wheel that we have to reinvent. There should at least be adequate notice taken of transport issues when developments are approved. That is not happening currently. So with those qualifications, New Zealand First will be happy to support Part 6.

I am happy to take a call on new Part 6. But I would like to point out, as I am taking a call on new Part 6, that this could have all stopped at Part 2 if the Government had agreed to split this bill in two and send it to a select committee, where Part 2 could have had the proper consideration that it required.

In my 5 years in this Parliament, I have not seen a simple piece of legislation drafted as badly as this legislation, or handled so badly that it sees us still here, in about the 14th hour of this debate, debating Part 6 of this legislation. It is in the power of the Government’s hands to change that, and I put that challenge to the Government members. If you want this to be over, split the bill in two and send the provision that undermines private property rights—or that could undermine private property rights—to a select committee and let it have its due consideration.

Under this new Part 6, I do want to talk specifically about the amendment put forward by David Parker in terms of the national policy statement, or the NPS, which is, of course, an instrument under the Resource Management Act that the courts have found to be a particularly powerful instrument in the hierarchy in terms of how it is considered. It has a great deal of regulatory power in terms of setting the agenda, and it is an instrument that could have a great deal of influence over how our cities are planned in the future. Of course, this is something that the Minister for Building and Housing, Nick Smith, has been talking about for quite some time, and when the draft of that NPS was released back in June this year, my colleague Phil Twyford eloquently described it as a damp squib—he had had the opportunity to actually do something with an instrument as powerful as a national policy statement but, in typical style, it did nothing. It did not do the things that we are setting out in this amendment in David Parker’s name.

I want to talk specifically to new clause 12, which inserts a new section 46C into the Resource Management Act, and I want to talk specifically to new section 46C(2)(b). This is the clause that Julie Anne Genter is offering her amendments to. It says: “A requirement for local authorities to undertake detailed spatial planning which sets aside areas of special value and sets out future infrastructure corridors and networks as an alternative to urban boundaries;”. She is proposing that we include climate change in there, and that is certainly something that the Labour Party can support.

One of the key considerations that we have to make when planning the future of our cities is rising sea levels and storm surge. Mr O’Rourke talked in his speech about infrastructural investment and the development of suburbs in Christchurch that have ended up in the residential red zone when we could have predicted the outcome for those communities—well, likewise, when we are facing the issue of sea level rise. We know the areas of New Zealand and the areas of our cities that are under threat, and we have the ability, through a national policy statement, to plan appropriately for those—to put in place the proper infrastructural planning that has to happen. This offers us an opportunity to be progressive, to think ahead, and to plan in a 21st century way—not with our heads literally in the sand and not taking account of the future.

Taking account of climate change in city planning is absolutely critical. One of the largest meetings at the Paris convention on climate—at COP-21—was actually a meeting of mayors of cities, with people discussing issues relating to cities and how they are going to both adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change. Of course, the Compact of Mayors, which now includes 526 cities globally, accounting for 438 million people, or 6 percent of the global population, is an organisation that was set up by Ban Ki-moon, and it now has a special envoy in Michael Bloomberg. This is an organisation that is sketching out what progressive cities are doing in their efforts to both adapt to—

💬 Todd Barclay: Any advice for Gore?

—and mitigate the effects of climate change. I see the current member for Clutha-Southland—

I want to echo the comments of my colleague Megan Woods. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has made it very clear that planning for climate change and for the infrastructure costs and changes that are needed is absolutely critical for large parts of New Zealand’s urban and coastal areas, including the city where I live—Dunedin. South Dunedin is at particular risk of sea level rise and there are particular infrastructure issues that arise from it being an old city with old infrastructure. So there needs to be careful measured planning and the authority to do that planning, the ability to communicate that, and then the ability to change the rules when it is needed in order to be able to prepare for the sea level rise that is expected and that is already, in our case, affecting large parts of South Dunedin. I look forward to the amendments from my colleague Julie Anne Genter, who is including climate change into new Part 6, which is proposed by Labour. The Green Party will be supporting Part 6 and we look forward to support for the amendments that we are making to Part 6.

Beyond the climate change aspects that need to be considered, I did just want to take it back to a kind of human level—a street-level approach, if you like. One of the reasons why I am quite supportive of new Part 6, despite the concerns around the urban growth boundaries, is that the rest of this part sets out a new kind of way of looking at planning, and that is essential not just for those areas that might be affected by climate change but, actually, for the reimagining of our cities and towns as places where people love to live.

All of the things that people need the most—access to decent homes; affordable transport to green space where they can enjoy their communities together; those social community spaces where it is safe because there are lots of people around and lots of different kinds of people around, and where there are great pedestrian and safe cycling opportunities for families to get to work and to school, and to enjoy for recreation—come out of a proper infrastructure system, which is being proposed here in new Part 6, and proper urban design that allows for people to come together and design their cities the way that they want them to be.

So I want to encourage members and members of the public to have a look at the Green Party proposal for reimagining our cities—the Greens’ cities proposal, which we released a month or so ago. That proposal asked for feedback from the public, from New Zealanders, and from people involved in the industry about two things: one is the building code, and we dealt with some of that in the debate on proposed new Part 4; and the other is a national policy statement on urban design. That is what sits on top of the infrastructure and planning tools that are set out in new Part 6.

So we pass Part 6, we get those planning tools right, and then, on top of that, we design and build the cities and the communities that we know that people want to live in. That includes things like the street design to make it comfortable for people to move around easily from place to place—from home to shop, to school, to after-school events, to the theatres, and to work and back. It is designed around women and children, which is a new approach to urban design where the needs of women and children feature at the centre of urban design. This is because, actually, the research shows that women travel more as a result of their daily requirements of activities: getting their kids to school, often doing all of the shopping, and getting to work and managing the after-school care. Women’s travel and city requirements, if you like, are much more complex than men’s, it turns out in the research, so let us have urban design that focuses on the needs of women and children to keep them safe and enable them to use their city in the best way possible.

Let us make sure that urban design promotes child and pedestrian-friendly environments so that we can reduce the risk to children and to pedestrians—but particularly children who are walking to and from school—from the hazards of roadways and driveways where so many accidents occur. There are really good opportunities here for community spaces that help to build collaboration and connection between communities rather than the isolation that many older New Zealanders, especially, are starting to face. As older New Zealanders are facing more and more financial pressure, they are also increasingly isolated from their communities and finding it more and more difficult to connect to the people who—

Markets make excellent servants and terrible masters. I want to say that why I support this amendment so strongly is that it is a way of ensuring that the market works in support of human aspirations, and in terms of creating a livable environment for New Zealanders.

💬 Hon David Parker: An affordable one.

An affordable one, most importantly. That is, I think, also why the Government’s approach can be described as so mistaken in opposing this change. I think the Government is opposed to any kind of planning. That is something that we fundamentally see over and over and over again from this Government—an approach opposing any kind of planning. I think it is on the mistaken understanding that business in New Zealand will not cope with change. When I talk to business people they tell me not that they do not want change but that they want a clear sense of direction of change. They want some certainty around what the future rules will be and what the future environment in which they will operate will look like. I think the same is true of people generally. We do not like change for change’s sake but we do like to think that we would live in the optimal environment and have affordable housing in New Zealand.

We in New Zealand do have some challenges. In Helsinki, which is one of the great livable cities, in my view, the city council owns 65 percent of the land. When you own 65 percent of the land, urban planning is pretty easy. It becomes a very simple thing to do. In New Zealand it is not true that the Auckland Council owns 65 percent of the land, so we have a different proposition that we deal with here. What we do need to do is make sure that when we do have changes in terms of the urban boundary and so on, there is real planning around what happens so that we get the best value for New Zealand citizens.

In this policy, which is represented in the amendment in David Parker’s name that is before the Committee, we are hoping that we will create an environment where there is more planning. The national policy statement on urban growth that is proposed in new section 46C(2) set out in clause 12 of new Part 6, must contain: “(a) A prohibition on the use of urban boundaries within a regional district plan where official statistics predict there will population growth;”, which suggests a way of doing planning that looks to where the growth is going to be, and it makes sensible planning around it so that business and people and everybody can have an environment where we know what change is coming. What it will also do is give councils the opportunity to purchase land for future development at rural prices, rather than having to buy off speculators and land bankers who have seen the changes ahead, who have bought up the land, and who then sell on to councils and other developers at extraordinary prices because they are making use of a system that is broken and that does not serve the citizenry properly but, rather, is tilted in favour of those land bankers and speculators in our housing market.

It is not enough, in my view, for the council to progressively add more zoned land for development here and there on an ad hoc basis. That simply feeds the speculation that is out there already and it is—that speculation—the inevitable result of the existing status quo system for setting the boundaries. We need integrated transport and infrastructure planning and this particular change permits that to happen in a way that is good for the citizenry. It makes sure we have affordable new infrastructure, affordable housing, and livable cities in New Zealand. If New Zealand is going to be the kind of country that prospers in the future, it has to be a place where talent wants to live. It has to be a place where talent can afford to live. So when we are talking about attracting overseas people with talents here, when we have our own skills shortages to meet—we want to train New Zealand people but we also want to attract people—rather than presenting them with the most unaffordable housing market in the world, where people overseas cannot even imagine coming to live in our biggest city, this change that is proposed in this bill is one that I wholeheartedly support.

I congratulate David Parker on putting this amendment forward. It is one that will make a real difference for our biggest city and could, too, I would suggest, make a difference to other cities around New Zealand.

💬 Dr Megan Woods: Like Dunedin.

Well, Dunedin—I would like to talk about Dunedin. I would also like to talk about Queenstown. In Dunedin we have some serious infrastructure challenges born of a city that has been there obviously for some time.

I move, That the question be now put.

Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I really welcome the opportunity to support the proposed new Part 6 and also the amendment that Julie Anne Genter is proposing to this amendment, because what is great about this debate is it is an actual opportunity to talk about great things, not only about how terrible and useless the Government is, which is a bit of a given, but to actually talk about something awesome, which is that we have got ideas for designing things better.

I think the first thing that we are talking about is the need for a plan, and what I like about both these amendments is the idea of a national policy statement on urban growth or, even better, on urban design. Why is that so important? It is so important because we already have an infrastructure mess and growth problems right across not just Auckland, which has had a lot of focus, but also many of the rural communities, the small towns, and my particular passion—which is odd and not shared by everybody—which is sewerage. It is an interesting passion, but it is very relevant to urban growth because if we do not handle that stuff properly and we shove a whole lot more houses into special housing areas where the infrastructure is not designed to take it, we are going to get a bit of a mess.

So the other week I was in the leafy suburb of Herne Bay, being lobbied by some people who were saying that the special housing area was going to put enormous strain on the infrastructure in that area. They were very concerned about urban growth, these people, because they have got raw sewage running down their road every time there is heavy rain. That is a really interesting example of what happens when you propose more housing, badly planned—without a plan, actually—just because it sounds like a good idea to make somewhere a special housing area and shove 70 homes into a small space, when already Cox’s Bay is so contaminated that wading is a joke, let alone swimming. It is a pretty sad situation for a beautiful spot like Cox’s Bay, which is in the middle of the Grey Lynn - Point Chevalier - Herne Bay area, right in the city where people want to have fun and want to play.

So although we welcome this, we really want to see some detailed planning, because there is the issue of sewerage, my particular passion, because if we cannot fix that up—we can put people on the moon, but we still cannot deal with our own waste—that is primitive. Allowing raw sewage to run into the sea is primitive, and allowing our streets in our bigger cities to run with raw sewage during heavy rain is primitive. That is about bad urban planning. That is about exhausting your pipes and resources.

But there is also the issue that Julie Anne Genter brings up, which is climate change. So climate change is not going to happen just to Auckland and Dunedin and Christchurch, where I can see the largest number of people could be displaced, but I live in the town of Thames, where it is estimated that quite a lot of our low land will go under water. What we need out of Government housing strategies and infrastructure planning strategies is leadership to encourage local government and regional government to take this seriously, but if we keep pretending that climate change is not really happening and that we do not have a role in the leadership of good housing planning, good design, and good urban design, we are never going to get there when the crisis hits.

We will all be staggering around like we are now. Housing crisis, the Government does not get it, everyone is dabbling around, people living in cars, shameful nation mentioned in The Guardian, total disaster—add to all that climate change. So it is going to be people living in cars, driving underwater, nowhere to sleep, water is going crazy, urban design is not happening, the Government does not know what to do.

Fortunately, we are going to change the Government. We are going to inherit the mess but we are going to start doing something about it, and that is what Part 6 and the amendments we are proposing are about. It is about doing something about it and thinking ahead, because our cities and our small towns all need urban design.

If Julie Anne Genter was here she would be saying: “And it’s about parking rules.” She is an expert on parking rules, which is an area that I fear to tread in because I think you need to understand parking a lot more than I do, but I really get why she has put up this amendment for spatial design to accompany—if you are going to set up urban limits and boundaries, there has to be an alternative view that creates a spatial planning design strategy that makes sense.

So all of this is about common sense. All of this is about saying the Government has a role, so in many ways this whole debate, including this part, is about the role of the State—about whether the State actually has a role or whether it is a hands-off, chaotic, “Let the sewage run raw in the street. Let the sea-level rise come over the low land. Let’s just everybody build a house.”

I want to emphasise something that I do not think has been well covered in this debate so far. One of the problems that we have around Auckland is that the cost of extending both central government and local government infrastructure runs into many tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars extra every year than it would if we had appropriate planning for growth.

I have already conceded the point, and made clear in this amendment, that we need to be very careful not to inefficiently use existing infrastructure, and to make sure that the pricing decision encourages the most efficient use of existing infrastructure within urban boundaries and the most efficient use of new infrastructure outside what are the existing urban development boundaries, which we say should not exist.

But this other point that I am making is what is the cost of transport corridors, which are, in the main, rail corridors, public transport, bus lanes, local roads, and State highways? All of these things should be purchased well in advance, or designated well in advance—and I think generally, in a city that is growing, they should be purchased well in advance—while they can be purchased for rural land prices. No unfairness to the rural property owner—they get fully compensated. If you are going to form new regional parks, you purchase them for rural land prices, rather than for 10 times that amount once the land bankers get it, and the value is driven up as the date for future subdivision gets ever closer, because there has not been enough planning in advance.

The second point I wanted to emphasise is that in order to stop the inefficient use of infrastructure—oh, sorry. How that flows through to cost, of course, is that if those huge costs are passed on in development levies, which are higher than they would otherwise need to be, that then translates through to the price of all housing—not just the new housing but the existing housing, which is lifted by the rise in price of the marginal cost of the new, which is how markets clear—but it also drives up the cost of central government taxes and future rates because not all of those costs are put to the subdivision.

In order to achieve efficient use, and you do need to internalise those costs of the new development—I did not develop this point when I first spoke, but one of the things that happens when city costs go up too high is it actually becomes more competitive for other cities to compete with them. So, rather than actually throwing more fuel on an overheated property market, if you get these cost signals right you actually get regional development in other parts of the country, and that is what should happen.

We are, as a country, over-dependent on Auckland. You know, we have a greater weighting towards one centre of population—which is Auckland—than virtually any other developed country in the world has, except the small city States like Singapore or Hong Kong, which are virtually only a city. Otherwise, there are only one or two other countries in the world—Ireland, with Dublin, being one of them—that are as weighted towards one centre of population as we are, and it becomes inefficient. It becomes unfair to other parts of the country because you create this vortex that, just by virtue of size rather than efficiency, sucks in other businesses.

So, for example, if you are a potato chip manufacturer based in Dunedin, you eventually relocate to Auckland because of the transport costs because of the relative size of Auckland, rather than because of any natural advantage to the production of potato chips in Auckland.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Just like the member himself.

“Just like the member”—oh, thank you. Well, I sort of have a foot in both camps still. Both are very good places, to which I am attached.

So those economic development things are very important. When you get these things wrong and you get house prices out of control, like they are in Auckland, you actually see the movement of New Zealand - born people. There are very few people in New Zealand, and, indeed, in Auckland, who know we have had net migration, for a long period now, out of Auckland of New Zealand - born Aucklanders. There are more people who were born in New Zealand who are leaving Auckland than are going to it. That is even taking into account the effect of Christchurch, which, of course, led to a lot of people initially moving from Christchurch. Even with those statistics in the latest census, we had net population of New Zealand - born—

I move, That the question be now put.

Yes, this has been well canvassed. I will put the question.