Housing Legislation Amendment Bill

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I went to the Table this morning to pick up the regulatory impact statement and there is no regulatory impact statement for Part 2 of this bill. I am asking, through the Chair, that the Minister table a regulatory impact statement on Part 2 for this Committee. We are being expected, under urgency, to debate a part of the bill in which there is no regulatory impact statement, and that is not good enough for this Parliament. We have not got the guidance of what is to be prepared by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. Mr Chair, I would like you to inquire why we have not got it, when we will get it, and whether we will get it before this debate concludes, because we are debating blind, other than from what we can glean ourselves, on this part of the bill. It is not good enough when we are in urgency to expect a debate without that. The Minister for Building and Housing has just arrived, and maybe the Minister can tell us when Part 2’s regulatory impact statement will arrive in the Chamber.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I just want to invite the member—sorry, unless the Minister heard. Did you hear the point of order, Minister?

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I only heard the last part.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Because it is an important issue, I will ask the member to repeat it.

I have asked why and when the regulatory impact statement will arrive on the Table of the House for the Opposition on Part 2 of this bill, which we are about to debate. It is not acceptable that we are being asked to debate a bill for which the Government has got information that is being withheld from the Opposition, because we rely on regulatory impact statements. Minister, when will it arrive? I wonder whether this debate can be held up until we receive it, because that is what you would do in a proper democratic debate: you would provide the Opposition with all the information that they need. I would ask, Mr Chair, whether it is possible that we wait until it is tabled in this House.

It is a longstanding practice, and that is where provisions—and it occurred under previous Governments as well—are deemed to have no impact on public policy, that they are minor legislative changes—[Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! This is an important point. The very member who was interjecting was the one who asked me to rule on it. There is a precedent here that is quite important and I want to listen to the Minister.

Treasury is responsible for developing regulatory impact statements. Treasury, as is noted in the Cabinet papers that have been publicly released, said that there were no public policy implications of Part 2 of this bill. It was simply clarifying the way in which all public agencies have administered this law in the past, and is consistent with many other provisions of law—and I could give numerous examples—where no regulatory impact statement was required as a consequence. So there is not one, and that is because this simply clarifies what the existing law is.

Speaking to the point of order, if that is the case, why was it not written in a regulatory impact statement saying that it is not required because it has no public policy impact? That would have at least given some indication. But for there to be a blank on this and for us to rely on the Minister saying that that is what he was told—we have not received that advice. We have not got it written anywhere. So Minister—

I think I might have a solution. The Minister for Building and Housing did refer to a Treasury report, which he said has been made public, that indicates that this is the case. He has assured the Committee that there is a Treasury document, which is available, that indicates that it does not have a public policy impact, and I think that the simplest thing would be if the Minister asked his officials to get a copy of that and get it on to the Table of the House as quickly as possible. That would save me having to make what might be a more difficult ruling.

💬 Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Can I just check—if it is publicly available, then I think the Minister can point us to where it is publicly available.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: With any bill that comes through the parliamentary process, Treasury makes an assessment with its regulatory impact team, just on every clause on every bill—you will not find a Treasury report on every provision. What Treasury has advised is that it deemed that there was no regulatory impact of these provisions, and so they were not included in the regulatory impact statement on this bill.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I do want to check with the Minister: was that advice received in writing?

💬 Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Well, no, I am sorry—[Interruption] If the member has it—

💬 Grant Robertson: Yes, I do.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): That is fine.

Why do I not do this—I have actually got a second point of order. Why do I not do this—I seek leave of the Committee to table the Cabinet committee paper Housing Legislation Amendment Bill 2016—I am looking for a date, which it does not seem to have on it. It has been released—it says 6 September, I think, but that cannot really be right—from the office of the Minister for Building and Housing to the Cabinet economic growth and infrastructure committee. It includes, in paragraph 88, that “Regulatory Impact Analysis requirements do not apply to some of the proposals in this paper and a Regulatory Impact Statement has not been prepared for these proposals. These proposals have no, or only minor, impacts on businesses, individuals or not-for-profit entities.”

Is there any objection to that document being tabled? There appears to be none. It can be tabled.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I have an additional point of order that relates to this document, which is the content of the departmental disclosure statement that is on the Table. This is the only document on the Table for us that gives any information about Part 2 from a departmental point of view, and I want to raise through you, Mr Chair, my concern about that document. In “Part Four” of that document, as for all bills, a significant legislative features section is required. In that section, in 4.1, the question is asked: “Does this Bill contain any provisions that could result in the compulsory acquisition of private property?”. It then also goes on to ask whether or not the bill creates or amends a decision-making power to make a determination about a person’s rights, obligations, or interests. Both of those questions are answered as “No” in the departmental disclosure statement.

I would venture to suggest that that is plainly untrue, particularly in the last part that I mentioned about the creating or amending of a decision-making power to make a determination about a person’s rights, obligations, or interests protected or recognised by law. It is quite clear that that is what Part 2 does, and I believe that we have a departmental disclosure statement on the Table of the House that is, in fact, false. In the absence of a regulatory impact statement, I believe we have a major difficulty in proceeding with this bill.

Dealing with the second point of order, it is an area that I am not unfamiliar with, and although I will take responsibility for my ruling, it is one that I have consulted on because of—I think it is fair to say—similar concerns about the departmental disclosure statement. The departmental disclosure statement is not an official document. It has not been formally tabled, and therefore some of the normal responsibilities with regard to privilege and the responsibilities of Ministers do not apply to it. Therefore, the matter that the member raised is a matter for debate—and I expect some intense debate—but it is not a matter of privilege and not the responsibility of the Chair to sort out. We now move to debate on Part 2.

I want to make it very clear at the outset that Part 2 is the reason that Labour is opposing this bill. We believe that Part 1, although its contents are underwhelming—and we have gone into detail about the inadequacies of the housing accords and special housing areas policy—is, nevertheless, better than nothing. That is our view, and we were willing to support it, particularly in the interests of not delaying or creating uncertainty in cost for a handful of developers in Auckland whose special housing areas could be held up without the assistance with the transition that this bill would offer. So, at a pinch, we are willing to support Part 1, and we voted at the end of the debate on Part 1. But we have a whole different view about Part 2, and we are now going to go into considerable detail about what Part 2 does, the implications that it has, and why it is completely unacceptable for Part 2 to be being pushed through under urgency and denied the proper scrutiny that a select committee hearing would give it.

What does Part 2 do? It seeks to, in the words of the Minister, clarify the Government’s power—which the Minister asserts that the Government already has—to use or dispose of Government land for State housing purposes without triggering the offer-back requirements under the Public Works Act. That is what it does, in a nutshell. I am shocked that this National Government, which professes to have some kind of commitment to private property rights, would disenfranchise the rights of citizens under the Public Works Act to be offered back property that is being used for a purpose that is different to what the land was originally acquired for. It does not surprise me that much that this current National Government is doing that, but I would ask members in the Chamber like Paul Goldsmith and David Seymour, who profess some kind of commitment to the basic tenets of classical liberal thinking—of some kind of respect for private property rights. But no, David Seymour and Paul Goldsmith come here, meek as lambs, corralled by Nick Smith to vote for this tawdry, unsavoury confiscation of people’s private property rights.

I want to hear what David Seymour has to say about this bill. He is the self-appointed conscience of the nation’s private property rights, but he is coming to this Chamber to vote for this bill that confiscates people’s private property rights, without even the luxury of going off to a select committee so that this bill can be picked apart by expert opinion and public submission. Paul Goldsmith, I hope you will take a call on this bill and explain how the confiscation of private property rights under this bill actually tallies with your professed commitment to the principles of Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, and God knows who else. I want to hear that explanation.

Nick Smith says that the Government already has the power—that there is no question, the Government already has the power—to dispose of land for State housing purposes; that it is simply a clarification. So why are we here, Minister? Why is this bill being pushed through the House, through all stages under urgency? That is the question that Grant Robertson put to the Minister earlier—I think, in the second reading—and, uncharacteristically, Nick Smith did not have anything to say. Well, we appreciate the fact that the Minister is in the chair now, but I hope he is going to get up and answer some of these questions. This is because I do not think we have heard yet a satisfactory explanation for why these provisions that would deny people who were former owners of property that was acquired under the Public Works Act, subsequently used for a different purpose, and then finally used as part of some housing development would be denied the normal rights under the Public Works Act to be offered back that land. We are not un-nuanced in this issue. We believe—and the Minister will know, when he publicly raised the need for an urban development authority to have rights of acquisition of land to deny land bankers the opportunity to hold out, to game the system, and make massive windfall gains at the expense of significant urban development—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am going to interrupt the member now and invite him to address Part 2 of this bill, and not matters that are outside of it.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. The point I was trying to make is that on this side of the Chamber, we are not un-nuanced on this issue. A case can be made that public agencies should be able to acquire land, to accumulate land, in the interests of housing developments. But if you are going to do that, then why not take it to select committee? Why not allow the best expert opinion in the land? Why not allow public submitters to come to the table, have that debate, weigh up the issues, consider what the safeguards might be, and do it transparently so that that debate can be properly had—so that the House can have confidence that this is not just another Nick Smith housing fiasco in the making.

The provenance of this part in this bill is the fiasco around Ngāti Whātua and the Auckland Tāmaki Collective when the very same approach that is embodied in Part 2 was used to try to sideline the rights that Auckland iwi have under their collective redress agreements to have the right of first refusal when Government land is being repurposed for a housing development. The Minister in the chair, Nick Smith, his failure to properly consult those people and respect their legal rights—the rights of first refusal—cost the taxpayer who knows how much: tens of thousands of dollars, probably more than a hundred thousand dollars. It delayed a housing development scheme; desperately needed houses were delayed by months and months and months because of that Minister’s attempt to use the very same device to ignore the rights of first refusal of Auckland iwi.

In Part 2 it states very clearly that nothing in this bill will impinge on the rights that iwi have under agreements for collective redress. But the same privilege is not being accorded to former owners of land that is now held by the Government and is being repurposed for housing development. So there is an apparent double standard there and I ask the Minister to explain why it is OK to protect the rights of iwi—their rights of first refusal under Treaty settlement agreements or collective redress—but somehow it is not worth protecting the rights of private citizens under the Public Works Act who have, under sections 40 and 41 of the Public Works Act, the right to have that public land offered back to them. That is an apparent double standard and I ask the Minister to get up and explain why that is.

It is not good enough that there is apparently incorrect and conflicting information in the departmental disclosure statement. It is not good enough that there is not a regulatory impact statement that deals with the confiscation of private property rights in this bill that is being pushed through the House under urgency. I want to hear from the National Party members, including the Minister, why it is OK, when they come to this House frequently and talk a big game about private property rights, to take away those rights from private citizens in a bill that is being pushed through the House under all stages in urgency.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I just seek your guidance. I understand that under the Standing Orders, in these Committee debates each member is entitled to four calls. Phil Twyford has just taken his fifth. Are you going to be lenient in this debate?

No. [Interruption] Order! The member might need some education but the whole Committee does not need to give it to him. It is on each question, so it is four calls on each part, except for the Minister in the chair, who has unrestricted calls. Normally, at the beginning of a debate we run a couple at a time. If members are clearly irrelevant in their first call, then we drop down. Generally we do drop down, so there should not be too much on reflection.

I am pleased to make a contribution and to put to Parliament why Part 2 of this bill is needed if this House is serious about growing the supply of housing in a city like Auckland, and I think there is broad acceptance that it is needed. I think it is, firstly, important to explain how minor these amendments are in the context of the Housing Act. I want to take members through what the Housing Act currently says. If we refer to the current Housing Act it says in section 2(1) that “State housing purposes means the erection, acquisition, or holding of dwellings and ancillary commercial buildings by the Crown under this Act for disposal by way of sale, lease, or tenancy;”. In other words, the current Housing Act, in setting up housing development schemes, makes it absolutely plain that those housing developments are for the purpose of sale.

I then want to draw members’ attention to the current Housing Act. Section 15 says that “any State housing land and any buildings or chattels held for State housing purposes may be disposed of by way of sale, lease, or tenancy”, and it then sets out the process for housing developments on such Crown land.

Since 1955, when this Act was passed, Governments of both National and Labour persuasions have done housing developments in all sorts of corners of New Zealand. Governments of both persuasions have done housing developments and then, for a later purpose, have sold those houses. For instance, even under the previous Government—despite some of the protestations—you had schemes that involved tenants being able to buy those homes that were built under those provisions of the Government. That is, if a house was built on some State land in your own constituency in Rimutaka, your previous Government allowed the tenant to be able to buy that house. Everybody has been going on since 1955 on that basis. These issues have come into extra focus because our Government has a policy that says it makes no sense for Government agencies to have large blocks of public land sitting around vacant when there is such a high housing need.

If you take a site like Hobsonville, we are going great guns. We have built over a thousand houses. We have got a scheme to build 3,000 homes in Auckland, and that is providing for those houses to be onsold.

💬 Hon Annette King: How many affordable?

Twenty percent. If you take an example such as Weymouth, I think every member of this Committee will be hugely proud of that very first special housing area—an area of former public land owned by Child, Youth and Family, a block of land that had stayed vacant for 20 years while house prices had doubled. We are getting on and have built 150 houses there—close to resolution.

The question, as we have ramped up that Crown land programme, is whether there is consistency between the Housing Act, where Parliament very specifically said those houses could be sold, and the generic provision in the Public Works Act that provides for offer back to the former owner. The question is whether the last Government, when it sold houses to its tenants, should not have been able to sell those houses to tenants but should have actually had to offer them to whoever may have been the previous landowner. When the Government built those houses in Hobsonville, should the Government have not been able to sell those houses on the open market but offer them to the previous owner?

I will tell you what the significance is. The significance of this programme is this: if I take a typical block of land such as we have got under the Crown land programme, where you have got a $10 million block of land, the Government is partnering with a private sector player and entering into contracts as we speak for those private sector players to invest as much as three or four times that amount of money to convert that $10 million worth of land into $40 million worth of sections. We are then requiring them to spend another $115 million to build houses on those properties. In that way we are going to be able to bring hundreds of houses to market, and the difficulty is this: will people invest hundreds of millions of dollars in bringing that Crown land programme into practical houses for Kiwi families if there is any legal uncertainty? The answer is that of course they will not.

So for members opposite to demand last week that there be a state of emergency on housing, and then the next week to come along to Parliament and say “We oppose urgency. We just want this thing delayed for months and months.”—the delay would mean that thousands of homes—

💬 Phil Twyford: So take it to select committee.

—Mr Twyford—would not be built.

There are two other points that I want to respond to. The first is that this bill specifically provides in amended section 15, set out in clause 10(3), that “Subsection (2) does not affect any right of first refusal that a person or group of persons has in relation to the land under any Treaty of Waitangi claims settlement or collective redress Act or deed.” For the avoidance of doubt can I make absolutely plain that there is no intention to affect any other redress that a person or group of persons has in relation to any land under any Treaty claim settlement or any collective redress Act or deed.

Can I say we have had an active discussion with the ACT Party about the Public Works Act. I think it would be fair to describe the ACT Party as having some concerns about this old Public Works Act—it has been around since 1981—and it has said, actually, the way in which private property rights are dealt with in that Act requires a wider review. The Government’s position is, yes, we think the ACT Party does have a fair perspective. It is an old Act. It is an Act that significantly impacts on private property rights. But, equally, I will tell you where the ACT Party is different. The ACT Party does have a consistent philosophical position about the importance of property rights, but what Mr Seymour actually understands is that you cannot create uncertainty around programmes that are under way right now. I tell you one thing that Mr Seymour understands very clearly. He understands that uncertainty is bad for business and bad for Government. So, for that reason, the Government has agreed to an amendment put forward that provides for 10 years—through to 15 September 2026—in which it is possible to have those changes to the Public Works Act.

The last point I want to make to members of the Opposition, who—

💬 Hon Annette King: Why don’t you answer the questions, Minister?

Well, Ms King—

💬 Hon Annette King: Just answer some questions.

I have answered the questions. What I simply get from members of the Opposition is that one moment they demand a state of emergency—do you know something about Phil Twyford? Phil Twyford always overstretches. He overstretches by blaming people with Chinese-sounding names. He overstretches in respect of demanding a state of emergency. And, again, he is embarrassing the Opposition today by overstretching, because I actually think Opposition members know, in their heart of hearts, that this is a bill that will get houses built, and, rather than being a Wailing Wall of grief about people not being able to have houses, people on this side of the House are prepared to support legislation that will get roofs over people’s heads.

I am grateful to “Groucho Marx”, who has just resumed his seat, because, you know, if you do not—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will withdraw.

I withdraw. I am grateful to the Minister Nick Smith, who echoed Groucho Marx when he resumed his seat—“If you don’t like these principles, I’ve got another set.” That is what we heard from the Minister for Building and Housing just now. You know, it is all very well to say that National is the party of private property and of liberal interests in this, but, you know, when it comes to this piece of legislation, it says: “We’ll shelve that.” As for David Seymour on that, he was bought off by a 10-year review. That is the price—jeez! You could have bid it up a little bit higher, and maybe we will see an explosion of charter schools or something like that as a result of this deal that has been done between the National Government and the ACT Party.

The Minister’s response to those questions was wholly inadequate. Let us start with a couple of important points. Every piece of legislation currently on the books that relates to the Public Works Act comes under the Public Works Act. It is not the Minister’s right to stand up and say: “Well, the Housing Act meant this, and so that Public Works Act goes out the window.” I know this very well. I brought a bill to this House on behalf of the Wellington City Council this year where we tried to do exactly what the Minister is doing today, and, actually, the Government denied us the right to do that. So the Housing Act has the Public Works Act, which, effectively, overrides it. That is the point of the Public Works Act. So just coming to the Committee of the whole House and saying “Oh well, we’ve got this bit of a conflict, so we’re going to get rid of the Public Works Act.” is not a good enough response from the Minister.

The second point that is completely ridiculous in what the Minister just told us is that he took the example of the last Government allowing houses that were State houses in the Rimutaka electorate to be onsold. The question there is not whether or not a Government can do that; it is what then happens under the Public Works Act, which is, under section 40, that the land has to be offered back to the original owners. The Minister did not answer who the original owners of that land were, because it is the Government—it is the State. That is the point. That is the very point of it.

The question the Minister actually has to answer, and failed to answer, is why this is being done under urgency. There may well be good reason why this issue has drawn itself to the attention of the Government, but the problem is that Parliament is not being treated with respect on this matter. The paper that I tabled in the Committee earlier—the Cabinet paper that describes this bill—in the section covering the matters dealt with under Part 2, has one, two, three paragraphs redacted. Those paragraphs are being withheld, and I venture to suggest that what those paragraphs tell us is that there is some form of legal challenge coming to the Government’s programme of land sales. I would further venture to suggest that that might have something to do with the Hobsonville development, because if we actually look into the purpose for which Hobsonville land was originally taken, that is where the Government gets itself into trouble.

Section 40 of the Public Works Act says: “(1) Where any land held under this or any other Act or in any other manner for any public work—(a) is no longer required for that public work;”—it is not an “or” that comes next; it is an “and”—“and (b) is not required for any other public work; and—(c) is not required for any exchange under” various other matters. So the Government, when it is disposing of land, has to establish whether or not it is required for that public work. We will do some research—and I am sure my colleagues may have already done this—around exactly why Hobsonville and the other land that the Government is working on in terms of its housing programme was taken, but I would venture to suggest there may well be a challenge.

But we are doing this under urgency and we are not being told—Parliament is not being told. So I want a Minister in the chair to stand up and be up front and honest with this Parliament about what is driving this process being done under urgency, because the public of New Zealand deserve the right to know. There is nothing urgent about passing Part 2, on the surface. According to the Minister, this is how it has always been done. He said: “This is the way in which it has always been done. There’s nothing to see here.” Apparently, we are not trampling on anyone’s rights to have it offered back. The departmental disclosure statement tells us that, apparently, no one’s rights are being changed by this law. How can that possibly be true, because, quite clearly, under section 40 of the Public Works Act, there is an offer-back right to those who were the original owners of the land. That is quite clearly true. So, clearly—

💬 Hon Member: And that’s a property right.

That is a property right. Quite clearly, someone’s property right is being compromised by this law, so we have a major problem in the way the Government is bringing this bill to the House. It is not being honest with New Zealanders about the consequences of this piece of legislation.

Ministers—and the Minister in the chair now, Paul Goldsmith—must have been in the Cabinet discussion, and I am also going to make another suggestion to the Committee. I do not think Cabinet is fully in agreement on this. I think we will find that Cabinet has had a vigorous debate about this and many members of Cabinet are uncomfortable about this change because they know it is a significant thing to change and take away the Public Works Act from operating—as it does on any other piece of legislation—as a check on the Government when it goes to sell off land.

I am going to make several other points, and I am going to run out of time in this call so I will seek others. When one looks at what is in clause 10 of the bill, we have to be absolutely clear that there is no guarantee in here that what happens to this land will be to support housing. That is not guaranteed in clause 10. I asked the Ministers to stand up and confirm that to us, particularly when it is all dressed up in the idea—as Dr Smith finished his contribution on—on making sure people have roofs over their heads. This could go off in all sorts of directions such as commercial buildings or other services that are required. The definition is broad enough in clause 10, to my mind, to create the possibility that this land will not end up being used for housing at all.

This is exactly what we could explore in a proper select committee process to ensure that we do achieve the goal, which I think is shared across the Parliament, that we use public land in the best interests of the people of New Zealand, and in providing affordable housing for New Zealanders to buy and for that housing to be developed—that is shared across the Committee. I do not know that Part 2 achieves that. It looks to me as if what Part 2 is doing is trying to deal with a problem that has come up in front of Cabinet with a specific parcel of land and a possible legal challenge. That is what it looks like, but we are not being told that. We are being kept in the dark and the people of New Zealand are being kept in the dark by this Government.

I have tabled that Cabinet paper today. It is on the public record. There are paragraphs missing. We need a Minister to stand up and tell us what is really going on here because in the absence of that it looks like the Government is trying to slip through a change that fundamentally affects the property rights of New Zealanders, under urgency without any public scrutiny. Just think about that for a minute. That is the National Government deciding to take away the property rights of New Zealanders, retrospectively under urgency, without explaining to New Zealanders why. That is a disgrace. That is an absolute disgrace from a Government.

Jono Naylor is up the back laughing. He would not have a clue. The National caucus will not have been told a single thing about what this is about, but it is right here in the Cabinet papers. I want the Minister in the chair, Paul Goldsmith, who pretends to be somebody who believes in these principles—he has written all sorts of books about the importance of liberalism. He parades around Epsom trying to out right-wing David Seymour, but he is not prepared to stand up today and say to New Zealanders what is going on here. Clause 10 of this bill does not give me confidence that what we are doing in this Committee today is ensuring the Minister’s stated objective of making sure that there is more affordable housing available for New Zealanders. I want a Minister to stand up and guarantee to us in this Committee that that is the only outcome of this.

Secondly, a Minister needs to answer why we are doing this under urgency today. This should be the subject of proper public scrutiny. The fact that it is not shows the National Government has something to hide on this matter.

I just want to briefly describe the provision in this part of the bill for those members of the public who may be listening, because we talk in a language here that is not always entirely understandable outside. This is a provision that removes the obligation of the Government to offer back to a person the land that they previously gifted or sold—gifted, generally—to the Government, or land that was taken from them. The offer back is for land that was taken from or gifted by an owner under the Public Works Act. When the Crown does not need that land any more, it has a legal obligation to offer it back to the previous owner or their descendants at a market price or below the market price. That is the property right that is being talked about here and that will be taken away by this provision in this bill. If the previous owners or the descendants of the previous owners do not want the property, then the Government is entitled to be able to sell that land on the open market. The offer back is a right that the previous owners and their descendants will have when their land has been gifted or taken from them by the State for a particular purpose.

There are lots of concerns about the Māori issues that are related to that, and we will get to those shortly, but, just on the general legal point, the provision in Part 2 of this bill is designed to enable the Government to be able to sell the land it has been gifted or that it took and provide it to developers to build houses on, for those developers to be able to on-sell that land with those houses on it to anyone they choose. So the offer back is prevented at both the beginning and at the end of the process, under this provision.

This provision is very broad. This provision does not apply only to special housing areas (SHAs); it is actually much, much broader than that. This provision applies to any development of land for a number of purposes: land that could have housing sites on it, land that does have housing on it, land for motorways, land for roads, land for access ways, and land for flood and river protection. The criteria in this legislation mean that the Government will be able to stop its obligation to offer back land that it was given for a wide variety of purposes, so this is not just a provision about housing. It is not just a provision about special housing areas. It will affect hundreds, if not thousands, of New Zealanders who have an offer-back right.

It is much, much broader than the narrow provisions that the rest of this bill was designed for and, we are being told, is supposed to be about. The rest of this bill is supposed to be about just the special housing areas, whether you like them or not—the protection of the existing developments on special housing areas, and the extension of special housing areas. But Part 2 is much, much broader than that, and it is being sneaked through under urgency. It will give the Government the right to take from hundreds, if not thousands, of New Zealanders their property right to have that land offered back to them. That is a very serious incursion by the Government on the legal rights of New Zealanders—New Zealanders who do not know that the right is being taken from them because we are dealing with this bill under urgency. So most, if not all, of those who have this offer-back right for land that was gifted by them to the Crown or taken from them do not know that this right is being taken from them.

When we talked with the Minister and the officials, there was no evidence given to us that the people who have this offer-back right have been told about this legislation, that they know that this provision is in this bill, or that they have been advised of the potential risk of their property rights being taken. Not only that, but it is pretty clear that the Government has actually got no idea about the extent to which this bill might affect New Zealanders. When we asked Nick Smith about this, he said he did not think that there were any issues with it. He did not know whether there were Māori interests, for example, in the offer-back provision. He did not know the extent to which this provision would affect New Zealanders’ rights. He has got no idea of the names of those people. They have done no work to make sure that the people whose rights they are taking away by law have been informed about this.

I have Supplementary Order Paper 211 on the Table to delete this provision from the bill. It needs to go. Either the provision goes to a select committee, so that we can at least show those New Zealanders who have gifted land to the Crown—I mean, many of these people would have gifted land to the Crown for public works. We need to at least send this provision back to a select committee, so that we can tell and talk to those New Zealanders about the gift that they made and about the potential of taking their offer-back rights from them, or we need to get rid of it completely, because there is no justification for this provision in this bill.

If my colleague Grant Robertson is correct that this is a broad provision designed to hide a specific legal threat to the Government because Nick Smith has allowed developers to spend hundreds of millions of dollars building homes on land that he could not guarantee the legal authority over—right, then we need to know that. Because if that is the case, then Nick Smith has been grossly irresponsible as housing Minister in allowing the SHAs to continue—in allowing developers, including community organisations, to invest huge amounts of money in the building of homes while still not having legal certainty over their right to on-sell those homes. That is a massive failing by a housing Minister responsible for the special housing areas. He has allowed—

💬 David Seymour: So he failed to violate property rights?

Well, this is the problem, Mr Seymour. It is that Nick Smith has allowed this legal uncertainty to continue and allowed those developers to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into homes without having legal certainty. Is it now right that many thousands of New Zealanders should have their property rights taken from them because Nick Smith failed to get the legal settings for the use of this land right at the first instance?

💬 Denis O’Rourke: With the ACT Party vote.

That is right, with the ACT Party vote. Is that what our job is now—to clean up the mess that Nick Smith has made in creating a potentially serious legal problem and serious financial risk for at least one, and possibly a handful of, developers? He is trying to sneak through a provision to clean up his mess, relying on this Parliament to do it, doing it in urgency, and doing it without telling New Zealanders what the real consequences of this bill will be—that they will lose their property rights because Nick Smith has a potential legal challenge chasing him right now. Is that what is going on? Is that what is going on?

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Of course it is.

Well, of course we do not know what is going on, because Nick Smith will not give us the full information about the potential risk that this provision is supposed to cover.

💬 Tracey Martin: More than a probability he stuffed up.

So Nick Smith has stuffed up. He has allowed all this development to continue and all this money to be spent. Those who have spent the money have no legal certainty about their ability to sell the land that they have built on, and now Nick Smith wants us to cover it up for him. He wants us to cover it up by taking away the property rights of thousands of other New Zealanders, who have got no idea that this is happening.

💬 David Seymour: How does the member know it is thousands?

Well, it could be hundreds, Mr Seymour. Do hundreds of people have to lose their property rights in order to cover up a mistake made by Nick Smith?

💬 David Seymour: Oh, I just wonder whether the member knows what she is talking about.

Mr Seymour, if you want to support the cover-up of Nick Smith’s financial and legal mistakes, you are entitled to do that. The Green Party will not put its name to the mix-up, to the muck-up, of Nick Smith in potentially leaving developers and community organisations at genuine financial risk because he did not clarify the legal status of that land from the beginning. This is why we have this Supplementary Order Paper on the Table—to delete the provision, to make sure that we will protect New Zealanders’ rights to their offer-back provision. Thank you, Mr Chair.

I have been waiting patiently for an opportunity to respond to the many interesting points that have been raised in this debate. I will address my comments, as tightly as I can, to clauses 9 and 10, which are currently on the Table, but it is worth considering various provisions in both the Housing Act 1955 and the Public Works Act 1981 because here, in the real world, those pieces of legislation all interact. They influence the property of New Zealanders, not only their land that may have become Crown land acquired under the Public Works Act or some other Act in the past but also the homes that people have recently bought that have been built on that land.

I look across at the Labour Party today, which is an embarrassment to the giant who built it. It is a party that wants to build 100,000 homes through the Government, but it will not seriously consider, engage with, or understand the legislative underpinnings that would be required to do so. The fact of the matter is that under sections 40 to 42 of the Public Works Act, as it stands, the first right of refusal is exempt in a number of circumstances, including where the land has been developed. Under the 1955 Housing Act it is possible for the Government to use Crown land to develop and build housing. Those are the facts, and that is what Governments of both stripes have been doing for a very long time. It is, no doubt, what the Greens would have done had they ever made it into Government. So when we inherit this history, we have to think very carefully about the different stakeholders involved and how the law will influence their interests going forward.

There is an inherent conflict between the Public Works Act and the Housing Act. There is a conflict in saying that the Government has a role in developing and building housing on Crown land, and yet the Government also has a requirement to give a first right of refusal to people who may have had their land taken compulsorily under the Public Works Act in the past. That conflict does not sit easily with me because, unlike the Labour Party, I do not believe that the Government should be in the housing development business. There is no public policy justification for the Government to be building houses.

There are many reasons why the Government might compulsorily acquire land. One might imagine a Government attempting to build a road from Auckland to Wellington, with one or two people opportunistically holding out and preventing their property from being sold for any price, hoping to gain a rent off the New Zealand public in the construction of the road. For those reasons, we can understand why there might be a Public Works Act and why the Government might compulsorily acquire private citizens’ land, but there is no good reason for the Government to acquire land simply so it can do housing development. That is something that Parliament needs to address in the future, but none the less it is not something that could be addressed in the current time frame.

Let me explain a little bit about why that time frame is so tight, and why I cannot support the Supplementary Order Papers that have been put on the Table by Metiria Turei to delete clauses 9 and 10, and the amendment by Phil Twyford, I think it is, to have Part 2 of this bill sent off to a select committee. As I have said, there is an inherent conflict between the Public Works Act and the Housing Act, and what that inherent conflict opens up is the possibility of an opportunistic legal challenge where land that has been taken at some past time and subsequently developed by the Government—which the Government should never do, even though Labour thinks it should—is then sold to people who are now homeowners. Often, working-class homeowners—whom the Labour Party should stand up for—who are trying to pay their mortgage may find themselves subject to an opportunistic legal challenge, where they could actually have their property rights and their livelihood under threat. The thing about property rights is that they tend to conflict with each other. This is just the real world, which is affected by the legislation that we are making today in this House.

But then other members have asked why we cannot at least take more time. Well, what if we were to send this away to a select committee for, say, 6 months? Within a year we might have actually managed to pass legislation somehow clarifying this problem, but the reality is that leaves a year of uncertainty and a year of potential legal challenge to people’s livelihoods, and I think that would be an absolute disgrace. It would be imperilling the rights of New Zealanders, and that is not the sort of thing that this Parliament should be doing. None the less, I agree with the new-found belief in due process in private property rights that Metiria Turei has recently exhibited. I agree with what Annette King has been barracking from the other side of the House, which is that due process in private property rights is important. I hope she will remind Labour’s caucus of that next time it has a KiwiBuild discussion.

It is wrong for the Government to take land for anything other than a tightly circumscribed set of public policy purposes where there is a genuine market failure and the taxpayer is, frankly, at risk of extortion. Housing development is one of those, and this area of the law needs to be tightened up over a longer time frame than is currently available because right now, having put this bill on the Table in public, in the House, we have invited opportunistic legal challenges to people who have already bought homes on what was formerly Crown land. So what I have done is negotiated with the Minister to support this bill on the basis that we will improve public policy in the long run.

People opposite have scoffed at the fact—

💬 Grant Robertson: You know it’s retrospective, don’t you?

Yes, and the current scenario would also be retrospective, Mr Robertson. You are so petulant and puerile, you trip yourself up and fail to engage with the real issues. Mr Robertson would look a lot more dignified in his mistakes—

💬 Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I take offence at being described in the way that the member just described me, and I ask him to withdraw and apologise.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Well, this is a pretty robust debate—[Interruption]—and I am on my feet. The member has taken offence. I ask the member to withdraw the comment.

I withdraw the comment. Thank you, Mr Chair. Is it not interesting how thin-skinned and sensitive those members are when it really gets going? Mr Robertson’s various errors and mistakes could be made with so much more dignity if he only carried himself in a more dignified manner normally.

Members opposite have been saying that it is a poor deal to have a 10-year review. Well, let me just explain to members opposite why a 10-year review is a much shorter time than they might otherwise imagine. People from the Labour Party are not normally accustomed to being in business, but let me explain to them that when you do a development—particularly a property development—the cycle is roughly 10 years. What this means is that any future developments that are going to be contemplated by folks out there are going to run into the very uncertainty that this bill looks to clarify, and they are going to run into it very soon if they are going to begin a development in the near future. What is being achieved by the amendment that puts a 10-year sunset clause on clauses 9 and 10 is that it will force this House to revisit, not so long from now, the fundamental questions of when—

💬 Chris Hipkins: A decade.

Honestly, it is actually really quite difficult to get anything across to their education spokesperson. He really has not managed to hear the very simple things I have been saying for the last 30 seconds. Yes, it is a decade, Mr Hipkins, but if your lead time for development is a decade, then you need to start thinking about it now—

💬 Grant Robertson: It’s retrospective.

—and the House will come under pressure to resolve this issue very soon. If I could just reply to what Grant Robertson is saying—

There is much more to clause 10 of this bill than meets the eye. The justification given for it in the general policy statement is utterly vacuous. I want to read part of the general policy statement, because it shows what I mean. It says at the beginning: “The Housing Act 1955 explicitly provides that State housing purposes include the building and development of houses for sale, lease, or tenancy, and includes acquisition by the Crown of land for houses and ancillary commercial buildings, schemes of development and subdivision, and the necessary roads, reserves, and infrastructure.” Then, at the very end of that general policy statement, it goes on to say: “the relationship between the sale of State housing land for development as part of the Crown’s housing objectives … and the consequential exclusion of offer-back obligations is not explicit. The Bill confirms that the offer-back obligations do not apply to the sale of land as part of the Crown’s housing objectives.” I do not understand, because there is not any consistency between those two statements that I read out.

That whole paragraph, that whole policy statement, is nonsense as a justification for clause 10 of the bill. So that is my starting point. The inconsistency shows the confusion behind the Government’s approach to all this. Clause 10 actually inserts a substantial new addition to section 15 of the Housing Act, ensuring that sections 40 to 42 of that Act will not apply—not just in the future, but retrospectively, in the past. This is new law, and it is retrospective, because of the words that I just mentioned. The words were “have never applied”—have never applied. A lawyer, if they so wish, will use those words to claim in any court action that the intention of those words is that that section will be retrospective; otherwise, why would they be there? Why would they be there?

The claim is that this is just a provision that clarifies the existing law. The truth is that it is a completely new and substantial addition to section 15. That is the truth. I would like to hear from the Minister why he would deny that, and how he could deny that in the circumstances. After all, if you did not need the change, why is it being made? If it is just clarification, why is it being made in the substantial way it is set out in clause 10? The main point is that it is the intent of what is being done that really matters here, and the intent is to fast track the sale of State housing land. That is the real intent, and it should not be done at the expense of the property rights of people. This is new law, and without it there would be a good possibility of a claim to offer-back rights. In fact, the good possibility is so high that it is bordering on a certainty.

Other speakers have alluded to the fact that there is a lot here that we do not know—except many of us have heard whispers and many of us have heard suggestions that some people may well be contemplating a legal challenge as far as these particular provisions, and their right to an offer back, are concerned. So it seems very likely to me that what is actually happening is that, all of a sudden, under urgency, the Government feels that it is necessary to cover its backside, because somebody is about to come along and give it a good, hard, sharp kick. That is the reality. That is why this is being done, and the Government is simply not being honest about its motives for this particular provision, which, after all, does have a significant impact on the property rights of individual people.

I will say this: I suspect that what it has got to do with is the Hobsonville land, and I suspect that what it has got to do with is the rights of Limited Service Volunteers, who had—and have—rights in relation to that land. Those are the people who, I suspect, may be contemplating—again, for another time, because they have faced this in the past—their rights, and their rights to an offer back as far as that land is concerned. But that is only one possibility. It is only one possibility; there are, no doubt, others. Some of my colleagues may take a part in this debate and talk about, for example, what the Government’s intentions may be concerning land that is currently education land but, under recent legislation, could be designated as housing land. These provisions could then be used to fast track it for sale without offer-back provisions that would otherwise apply—and that is the exact issue as far as the Hobsonville land was concerned.

It is what we are not being told that really matters in this debate. I deplore a situation where a Government is putting through under urgency a provision of this kind, which is not allowed to go to a select committee, where a lot of this stuff may well have come out. That is being avoided by this situation, and I think it is absolutely deliberate by this Government. I would like the Minister to stand up and deny these things. I would like him to deny that the real reason for clause 10 is that he is afraid of legal action by people who do claim private property rights in respect of the offer-back provisions under the Public Works Act. I want him to come to this Chamber and deny that, and then I will take notice. But until that happens we have every right to believe there is more to this bill than meets the eye. It is often said that where there is smoke there is fire. Well, there is a hell of a lot of smoke as far as this bill is concerned.

For many years now there have been State houses that have been sold. Tenants have been able to buy the houses that they have been living in for some time. Of course those properties may well initially have been taken under the Public Works Act or purchased under the Public Works Act. In fact, right through many of our communities, tenants have been able to purchase the State house in which they have been living, and yet at the same time I have not heard any of these people on the other side of the Chamber up in arms, saying: “This is infringing on the property rights of the people who initially owned that land and should have rights under the Public Works Act to come back and purchase that land back.” This is not a significant change.

Actually, quite often within bills that come through this House—in the 2 years that I have been here, on a number of occasions there are tidy-up bits in those bills that ensure that the language is right and clarify how things have been in the past, and are, going forward. There are, as I said, no specific changes here. We have just heard from Mr O’Rourke—his take on clause 10. But what it actually says is: “To avoid doubt, sections 40 to 42 of the Public Works Act 1981 do not apply (and have never applied) …”.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: What about the rest of the clause?

Then it goes on to list those things that are not included and have not been applied in the past. It is important that we clarify this. It is not the substantial part of this bill.

The substantial part of this bill is in Part 1, which I will not discuss as it has already been done. It has been passed, and we are moving on. But Part 2 has got some tidy-up language in it to ensure that, going forward, there is no ambiguity and that there is clear understanding about which types of land, which types of purchases that have been made under the Public Works Act, do not apply and have not applied before. The clarity will be there.

We hear from the other side of the Chamber, and I have heard it through all parts of this debate as we have been going through so far, that “We’ve got a different plan. We’ve got a plan called KiwiBuild.” I understand that if those houses were ever to be built—and I doubt that they will, under that scheme—if that was ever to happen, those properties ultimately would need to be sold. But, of course, they would not be able to sell them if people were trying to stop these provisions from being put in place. I have not heard a rational reason yet for pulling this clause out and debating it separately, it needing to go through the select committee process.

All I have seen so far this morning is what appears to me to be a deliberate attempt to take this urgency debate beyond 1 o’clock this afternoon, so that then the Opposition can collapse the House. We will see what time we finish today, but I can tell you that if this debate actually finishes after that time today, what I believe—[Interruption] Suddenly they start reacting, when the truth comes out, and yet what I have heard over time is accusations against this side of the House saying that our members’ bills are wasting Parliament’s time. I would like to see, going forward today, that we will not waste Parliament’s time. We will do this in a timely manner. Thank you.

I seek leave for the House to begin its Wednesday sitting session at the conclusion of the urgency.

Leave is sought for that purpose.

💬 Tim Macindoe: Can I seek clarification from him. The Wednesday session—the entire programme, as per the Order Paper?

💬 Chris Hipkins: Yes.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): There is no Order Paper for Wednesday. We are in urgency. An Order Paper is only published once urgency finishes, and then it becomes the new order of the day. With regard to the leave that you are seeking, can you just clarify that, because there is no order of the day other than the urgency that we are in at the moment.

The Order Paper, of course, is normally published at the conclusion of the urgency. You are quite right. If the urgency continues beyond 2 o’clock, the National members have indicated their concern that the House would not be able to sit for the remainder of a regular programmed Wednesday session. I am seeking leave for that to be able to happen.

I am just seeking some advice. I thank the member for the points he raised when seeking leave. I have not struck this before, so I am going to seek some guidance. Once I have some guidance as to how it could be facilitated—I hear what you are saying—at that stage I would be happy, once I have some guidance as to whether that can be facilitated, that then, possibly, you could seek leave again. At this stage I am unsure. I want to know in my own mind. I understand how it currently works, but I know how you are trying to facilitate something, and I am happy to get advice on that.

It is obvious to the Committee that what is more important to the National Government is stopping at 1 o’clock so its members can go and have lunch rather than deal with the issue at hand, which is the homelessness situation in New Zealand. It is also a bit rich for David “Thin-skinned” Seymour to stand up and start casting aspersions on the members of the Labour Party, saying that they are petulant, and accusing Grant Robertson of things, when that member is No. 1 in the House for mocking and ridiculing other members. And yet, when something happens to him or is said about him, he is what we say in Māori, a tangiweto—a tangiweto. He is a cry-baby.

I want to address this directly, and I have tabled an amendment to clause 10. It is a very important amendment. At the moment section 15(3), in clause 10, states: “Subsection (2) does not affect any right of first refusal that a person or group of persons has in relation to the land under any Treaty of Waitangi claims settlement or collective redress Act or deed.” The wording here implies that this applies only to those Treaty settlements that have already been finished. I was at the Māori Affairs Committee today and we were talking about a number of iwi that have yet to have their claims settled, such as Te Atiawa, Tauranga Moana, and Ngāti Pūkenga. Those are the ones that are before the select committee—not to mention that other noble iwi of my own, that peace-loving, passive, humble iwi of Ngāpuhi, who are yet to even have an agreement in principle or a deed of settlement signed. We are concerned that, as it is written, this provision in the legislation will not apply to those tribes that are yet to settle, because we are talking about “under any Treaty of Waitangi claims settlement.”

So what I am proposing in my amendment, after the word “any” and before “Treaty of Waitangi claims”, is that we include the words “current or future Treaty of Waitangi claims.” It is very small. It is not going to really require any major discussion. I just think that the Government needs to accept that it has missed out a little bit there, and that we need to make sure this clause applies not only to settlements that have been completed but also to future settlements.

Incidentally, just coming from the Māori Affairs Committee, we are going to be briefed on rights of first refusal (RFR) in the next few weeks. The officials told us today that no two RFRs are actually the same, and there could be any number of differences. In fact, they said there are about six or eight differences around rights of first refusal, and it depends on the different settlement. For example, what happens is that we are under the impression that iwi get the first right of refusal. That is not the case. There is a bit of a process that the Government goes through. The first process is it looks to other Government departments or agencies. For example, a bit of land might actually be offered to the Ministry of Education if it wanted to build a school or a kura kaupapa or something like that. The second level is that it could be offered to a charitable organisation. For example, Gloriavale is a charitable organisation. Land could be offered, first of all, to Gloriavale to help its charitable functions.

And then iwi are the last cab off the rank. We are sick and tired, as Māori, of being the last cab off the rank all the time. Iwi should be at the top of the list. Iwi should be the first to get the right of first refusal, not the last cab off the rank. Also, I have to just make comment about David “Thin-skinned” Seymour and the way he is propping up the current system—

💬 David Seymour: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I would hate to give more credence to the accusation, but I think it is important to uphold the standards of the House. It is not actually within the Standing Orders to call people by a nickname or moniker, as the member has been throughout his speech, and he should withdraw that.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Yes, well—[Interruption] Order! I hear what the member is saying, and there has been some latitude in calling people by various names. I just ask members to concentrate on the bill.

Mr Chairperson, I will withdraw and apologise for being so hurtful. That is beside the fact that Mr Seymour is propping up the very system that is leading to homelessness. He is happy, he said, for a motorway to be built from Auckland to Wellington, and that we compulsorily acquire land under the Public Works Act for any property owners who are holding up the works. However, he will do that for cars and trucks and everyone else, but he will not do anything for homeless people and helping people get into affordable houses. That just goes to show the priorities that the ACT Party has in terms of making life better for New Zealanders. David Seymour is happy for trucks and cars to get a fast access way from Auckland to Wellington, Wellington to Auckland, but he is not going to back New Zealanders to get into cheap, affordable, comfortable, warm, dry houses en masse. Thank you.

So I am—what do you know—still opposing this Housing Legislation Amendment Bill. What we are talking about in this Committee stage is Part 2. I have just been talking to my colleague Maureen Pugh, to confirm that she and I are the newest members in this House at this moment, and for some of the longer-serving members it might be less than obvious that, as my colleague pointed out, the way we talk about the processes in here is not always accessible to all of the public. I think it is really important, as sexy as Parliament TV is, that we ensure that the processes are clear. We are still coming to grips—sorry, I will not speak for my colleague. I am still coming to grips with this process.

So this bill and Part 2, which we are talking about right now, is being rushed through under urgency in the House. It is being rushed to be passed. What this means is that from 3pm yesterday we have been here, rushing through the House all of the stages of passing legislation that will apply to our New Zealanders. This is not ordinary. So we are rushing it through.

This means that there is no longer the time between the readings to ascertain what is in this legislation, to hear from officials and experts in the area, to deliberate across the parties about this bill, and to go into what we call a select committee to sit down and pull this legislation apart, deliberate on it, and hear from the public—hear the public submissions on this bill. That is necessary in a democratic society so that we can make the best legislation, hear all the things, and make sure that we are protecting New Zealanders’ rights.

This bill is being rushed through under urgency, to wipe out all of that process. It absolutely denies us the opportunity to really suss out how this legislation is going to impact on people, on all the different groups of society. Further to that, there is ordinarily another report that is done by Government departments. They sit down and they really go through it and have a look, and prepare a report for all of us members of the House.

For Part 2, the very part that we are discussing right now, this was not completed. That is how rushed this legislation process is for this particular bill. So we are really sort of not upholding the best democratic process with this particular piece of legislation. There are times when legislation does need to be rushed through the House, but this process is important for this Part 2. It is of deep concern to the Green Party that this part of the bill is being rushed through the Committee, because it pertains especially to and is about the offer-back provision, which I will explain.

This bill wipes out—destroys—the offer-back responsibility that the Crown has to the public when they are landowners or descendants of land that was owned in their whakapapa, in their whānau. So just very quickly, the offer-back provision is when the land was taken from or gifted by any owner under the Public Works Act. When the Crown no longer needs that land any more it has to, ordinarily, offer that land back to the previous owner or their descendants. Oh, and by the way, the land has to be offered back at the market price, or below. If they do not want it, then—and only then—it can be sold on the open market.

So Part 2 of this very bill that we are discussing destroys that obligation of the Government, and that is why the very fact that we are rushing this bill through under urgency and the very fact that there was no departmental report on the impacts of this part of the legislation—this is the thing. This is a big thing.

I want to quickly acknowledge what my colleague Kelvin Davis was referring to, which was the right of first refusal under Tiriti o Waitangi settlements. Part 2 also contains a so-called protection of the right of first refusal, which is when iwi must be offered first, before anyone else, the whenua. However, what my colleague Catherine Delahunty raised at the Māori Affairs Committee today is that it is not a true right of first refusal; it is a right of second refusal, in practical terms, in some of the Treaty bills that are being put through the House. So again, Part 2 of this legislation also does not uphold the absolute right of absolute first refusal. So I wanted to acknowledge that as well. Part 2 of this bill has huge consequences.

I want to pick up on where a number of colleagues—Grant Robertson, my colleague Metiria Turei, and Denis O’Rourke have asked the question: why? Why this Part 2 and the destruction of the offer-back provision? Why has that happened under urgency? Such an important and huge consequence to landowners and to the public—why are we rushing this through under urgency?

I want to refer to the Green Party officially, on 28 June this year, asking the Minister concerned, Nick Smith, because we knew that the State housing law was about to wrap up. We officially asked the Minister what his plans were—this was on 28 June—after the expiry of this legislation that establishes special housing areas. “What are your plans, Minister, after this expires?”. His official reply—so this is 28 June—was that he had not received any official advice or correspondence. OK—28 June. Then, just over a month later, on 10 August, he took this bill to Cabinet. So either he and his officials rushed this bill up in less than a month or the Minister did not tell us the full story.

We have a right to ask what the full story is, and what is actually going on. If, in fact, you rushed up a bill of this consequence in a month, there are no skills there. That is not good governance—that is not good governance.

💬 Metiria Turei: Mistakes will be made.

Absolutely—mistakes will be made, as my colleague has just said. Mistakes will be made—that is not good governance. There is a reason why we have good governance processes, particularly when the consequences are huge.

So I have just outlined that the Green Party officially asked the Minister what his plans were going to be. He said “Nothing, nothing”, and a month later: “Oh, we have this huge bill.” Hey—skills? No skills.

There are some very serious questions that we should be asking here, and I am thankful for taking this call, because this is the thing: it goes to both how we want to uphold our responsibilities as representatives and for good governance, and the actual content and how it will impact in the future on landowners and on the New Zealand public.

So there are a couple of things going on there, and the Minister surely can tell us what the full story is. We are asking what happened. Why the rush—or were we not given the full story when we officially asked for advice from the Minister and his officials? Thank you.

I am just going to comment on Chris Hipkins’ application for leave—and I have sought advice. The Committee cannot give leave for what is proposed, and I want you to explain to me in a minute what your intention is. Only the House can do that. So the process would be that at 12.55 the Minister and I would call to report progress, we would go back into the House, leave could then be sought, and it would be up to members to decide whether they would accept the leave. That is the process. So my questions are: by leave, are you seeking that there would be question time and then we would resume urgency for the remaining stages in Committee, followed by the third reading, and then we would resume Government orders of the day as per the Order Paper, which would be published at that time? Is that what your intention is?

Yes. When I put the leave, my expectation was that we would simply continue all the way through the urgency and then begin the regular sitting session, whenever that may be. However, I understand that there are issues around ministerial availability, for example, for question time at 2 o’clock. Therefore, if the course of action that you have suggested is acceptable to the Government, it is certainly one that we would support, which is that we would have question time at 2 o’clock, then move back to complete urgency for however long that is required, and then we would move on to Government orders of the day as listed on the Order Paper. We would be very comfortable with that course of action.

So, to the Government, I am not asking for an answer, but does that explain what the rationale is?

💬 Tim Macindoe: Yes, it’s clear to me.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Do other parties understand what is being mooted here?

💬 Hon Members: Yes.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Is the New Zealand First Party happy?

💬 Fletcher Tabuteau: We understand, yes.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): You understand, yes. So, knowing now what Labour is intending to do, if the Government wishes to proceed with that, at 5 minutes to 1 we will need to report progress and then you would then seek leave and the House would then decide whether to proceed with what you have suggested. Are we all clear on that? OK.

I think it is important, even at this point in the debate, to correctly characterise exactly what it is that the Committee is being called upon to do. We have, in Part 2 of this bill, a provision that would cut right across the property interests and property rights of an unspecified number of people who have had land compulsorily acquired under the Public Works Act, and who retain an interest or right in that land to the extent that if it is not used for the purpose for which it was acquired and is not intended to be used for any other legitimate purpose, it must be offered back to the original owner.

That is a matter of property right and property interest, and this House is being asked by the Minister for Building and Housing and this Government, under urgency, to traduce that right without any of the appropriate scrutiny that would otherwise happen in the select committee process, which would allow public submissions and a proper public debate over a reasonable period of time. That is all being expunged for the purpose of taking away that right under this bill. That, in my view, is a constitutional outrage, and it is not something that this Committee should disregard, pass over, or be dismissive of for the sake of legislative expediency on the part of the Government.

What stuns me about this is that when you have a look at the paper that has accompanied the bill—one of the tabled papers—it says, in terms of the Minister’s justification to his Cabinet colleagues for this exercise, that although some consequential amendments were made to the Housing Act when the Public Works Act was enacted in 1981—this is in 1981—the interaction between the Housing Act disposals and the offer-back obligations under section 40 of the Public Works Act was never clarified. So the Minister’s case for urgency in the House and for avoiding select committee scrutiny and proper public debate is that 35 years after legislation was passed that apparently left some confusion in the minds—at least of the Minister—we now, under urgency, have to clarify the confusion. That does not gel. That circle does not square.

I am sorry, but 35 years on from a piece of legislation that probably predates David Seymour, by the looks of it, we are now being asked under urgency for some sort of clarification, knowing that doing so cuts across property rights to an unspecified number of people. That is not a proper use of this Parliament. That is not a proper exercise by a single Minister nor an entire Cabinet, of their authority and their mandate. You do not traduce New Zealand citizens’ property rights in that way. If we are to cut across the rights that some New Zealand citizens will have in land that they once owned and was compulsorily acquired under the Public Works Act, let us have a proper, open, transparent, and public debate.

We are so dependent in this country on constitutional convention, on these unwritten rules, these unwritten understandings that we have between us irrespective of the side of the House that we are on. This exercise, on this day, under this bill, is cutting right across that. It horrifies me, and I think that if more New Zealanders knew about it, it would horrify them as well. We cannot support this part of this bill. National can put as many things as it likes up on social media accusing us of all sorts of heinous crimes in the interests of trying to get a few more houses built, because that is what Part 1 of the bill would do, but nothing can justify the constitutional egregious outrage that is caused by Part 2 of this bill. It must stop.

New Zealanders must be treated with respect and courtesy, and if the small flank represented by the ACT Party, in terms of this Government, cannot stand up for the rights of New Zealand citizens, then, of course, we have to. But we do make this case about it, and we make a song and dance about it. It is important that this part not be passed, in the interests of constitutional correctness.

The House has been denied the opportunity and benefit of having this legislation scrutinised by a select committee. We have been denied the opportunity of receiving the advice from the committee. The public has also been denied the opportunity of making submissions on this bill, and we have been denied the privilege and benefit of the wisdom of Local Government New Zealand and the general population, who have not had the opportunity to scrutinise this bill at all.

We have been given three pieces of paper to try to make sense of this legislation. Earlier my colleague the Hon Annette King said that there is no regulatory impact statement for Part 2 of this bill. That is further denial of us really making good sense of what this bill is about. But it has been, I believe, characterised well by Andrew Little, the leader of the Labour Party.

I also want to say that we have been expected to take on board the word of the Minister for Building and Housing that, because there is no regulatory impact statement on Part 2—he has asked us to believe him—there is nothing untoward in this bill. But there is a range of rumours floating around in this place, and one cannot help but feel concerned and uneasy about what this legislation really is about. The image that comes to mind, when the Minister says that we have got to take his word for it, is the image of President Richard Nixon with his two peace signs, saying that he is not a crook. I say that because when you look at clause 9 in Part 2, it refers to the Housing Act of 1955. The Housing Act of 1955 gives powers to the Minister of Building and Housing and it gives powers to the local authorities to be able to take land for State housing development. If you look at clause 10, it makes reference to the Public Works Act of 1981. What it does is it removes any powers that were laid in sections 40, 41, and 42 of the Public Works Act. What it means is—the Public Works Act suggests that if land was taken for the purpose of building State housing, and if that purpose no longer exists, then the land ought then to be made available back to the original owners. Clause 10 says that right is now expunged. That right has now been destroyed. That right no longer exists. [Interruption] If that young man there would just shut up a minute, I will continue.

The point I want to make here is that there seems to be some conflicting aims. We are told that the purpose of this bill is to increase the supply and make housing more affordable. How is that going to be achieved under this particular clause? How is the removal of rights of people—if the land is no longer going to be used for the purpose of creating and building State housing, how is the purpose of building more affordable housing going to be achieved? I ask that question because this Government is attempting to tell us that the purpose of this bill is to build more affordable housing. I cannot see that happening. I cannot see that happening when, for the last 8 years, this Government has been aware of the growing national housing crisis. We have a crisis of not enough houses, not enough State houses. We have a crisis of people living in cars—

💬 David Seymour: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I seek your assistance in respect of Standing Order 176(5), which states that debates in the Committee stage should be limited to the objects actually instructed by the House that the Committee should debate, not the overarching principles or purposes, which is what the majority of this member’s rather erratic speech has been about.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): When Mr Speaker yesterday accepted the urgency motion, he made it clear, in accepting the urgency motion and the points of order that came prior to that regarding the content of this omnibus bill, that it would be a wide-ranging debate. In Part 1, that has been so. In Part 2, I am very mindful of what is being said, and I am listening very carefully. From my point of view, if it stretches outside the realms, even though there is some licence to extend it, then I would deal with it at the time. The member is correct, in a sense, that we should, in Committee stage, deal with the Part before us, but the precedent was set when the urgency motion yesterday was put. I am complying with that ruling by Mr Speaker yesterday.

The point I am making refers to clause 10. If land was taken specifically for the building of State housing, and that purpose no longer exists, what I see is that this clause conflicts with the purpose of the bill. I am asking, because we have been asked to take the Minister’s word for it, whether the Minister, or any Minister for that fact—

I would like to direct my comments towards some arguments that have been made from the other side of the Chamber about how this particular clause, clause 10, is retrospective. We all know in this Committee that retrospective law is bad law. We all know that the Government should seek to make laws that people can actually anticipate and plan their activities around, rather than be second-guessed by. If, indeed, the matter before us in clause 10 was retrospective, then we would have to very seriously consider opposing it on those grounds.

The great difficulty is that although the effects of clause 10 are retrospective, it is clarifying a particular situation, which is the Public Works Act and the Housing Act as they stand, which are also retrospective. So if we were to ask the question “Is clause 10 introducing retrospectivity into the statutes bill?”, the honest answer would have to be no, because there is already retrospectivity in section 15 of the Housing Act and sections 40 to 42 of the Public Works Act. That is the confusion in the law that clause 10 seeks to resolve.

It might help members to actually read what it says. It says “To avoid doubt,”. The issue is that there is already a doubtful situation where it may not be clear who is able to claim against housing that has been developed, turned into housing, and bought by people who are now new homeowners and attempting to pay their mortgages—often precisely the sorts of people the Labour Party was set up to stand for but has, sadly, forgotten.

I will take your advice on it being a wide-ranging debate, because is it not sad to look across at the Labour Party? I had two people come up to me in the adjournment who said that they had recently spent time with Andrew Little, and they were effusive about his boringness. The fact of the matter is that we now have a Labour Party that is completely rudderless—a Labour Party that says that it wants to build 100,000 houses through its so-called KiwiBuild, but a Labour Party that believes in supporting legislation that is going to mean that any “KiwiBuilt” homes, to modify the phrase, that are built on land that was Crown land that was at any point in the past ever owned in any kind of private ownership, will be subject to opportunistic legal challenge.

If the Labour Party members had any coherence in their desire to make housing affordable to more people through a programme of Government construction of housing, they would be very concerned to support this initiative, because it actually clears the way for precisely the type of public policy that the Labour Party normally stands for. But, “Mr Boring”, unfortunately the Labour Party does not have a coherent programme. Those members are opposing this today because they think they can stand on principle, but it is not a principle that they have ever stood for before.

The Labour Party will be back in Government one day, perhaps, if it is very lucky, and those members will have to reverse everything they have said today in order to achieve their underlying principles. The ACT Party, by contrast, has played a constructive role in this debate. We have introduced an amendment that will ensure that the inherent conflict between the Housing Act 1955 and the Public Works Act 1981 must be resolved by this House very soon. It is not right that people who own private property should have their property rights impaired for a public purpose that is not proper, and the Government becoming a property developer is not a proper public purpose.

I proudly stand for ACT as a party of principle that plays a constructive role in public policy debates, which is far more than could ever be said for the Labour Party, which has twisted itself in contortions like a tightly wound pretzel in this debate—one minute standing up for property rights, one minute saying that there is a crisis in housing, and the next minute saying that it wants to build 100,000 houses on Crown land when it is voting for legislation that will make that all the more insecure and all the more difficult. It has been hilarious to listen to the Labour Party. Thank you.

Malo e lelei, Mr Chair—it is Tongan Language Week—and I also want to take the opportunity to just say kia kaha to our colleague Nikki Kaye at this time. I am going to just outline the process of me trying to understand what Part 2 of this bill is trying to achieve. We are here debating the Housing Legislation Amendment Bill, which seeks to amend the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Act of 2013. Part 2 is about amending the Housing Act, and refers specifically to sections 40 to 42 of the Public Works Act, and I just want to look at those sections of the Public Works Act. Section 40 is about “Disposal to former owner of land not required for public work”, section 41 is “Disposal of former Maori land when no longer required”, and section 42 is “Disposal in other cases of land not required for public work”. I think the emphasis on public work in all those sections actually means that we should look at the definition of what public work is, under the Public Works Act of 1981.

The definition of public work in that Act is: “(a) every Government work or local work that the Crown or any local authority is authorised to construct, undertake, establish, manage, operate, or maintain, and every use of land for any Government work or local work which the Crown or any local authority is authorised to construct, undertake, establish, manage, operate, or maintain by or under this or any other Act; and include anything required directly or indirectly for any such Government work or local work or use”. So the definition of public work is actually really clear: it has to be undertaken by the Government or it has to be undertaken by a local authority.

We take land that is owned by New Zealanders—citizens—but we take that land for the greater good. The Government does do this and has done this many times in the development of our communities, of our society. The interesting question that I have for the Minister in the chair is: of the 154 special housing areas (SHAs) in Auckland, how many involve State housing land? That cuts to the heart of this specific part of the legislation, because, in essence, those SHAs do not actually fit when you look at the definition of public work.

I want to highlight two developments that have been highlighted through the passage of this bill. The first one is the Clarks Beach tranche 10 development. That development is actually being undertaken by Knight Investments. They are the people who applied to Auckland Council for a resource consent to undertake that build. The Government is not building the 110 houses in Clarks Beach, Auckland Council is not building the 110 houses in Clarks Beach, but Knight Investments is, so, by definition—under what constitutes public work—that is not public work. If we have used State land for this development then there is an issue, and we should have looked at whom that land was acquired from, and we should have provided an opportunity for that owner, whose land was taken for the public good, to have a right, at least, to say whether or not they wanted to buy that land back. That is what our opposition to this part of the bill is all about.

We could have had some of these questions answered. I could have known—if we had had a select committee process, the officials could have answered—how many of the 154 special housing areas in Auckland involved State housing land. We know that in Tāmaki it does, so what has been the relationship between that development and the local iwi, for example? Have they been offered the right of first refusal? The other development that I managed to find the developer for was the Redhills (Fred Taylor Drive) Whenuapai tranche for development by Hugh Green Ltd, the Westgate Joint Venture, and Nuich Trust. In fact, we are here because—

I am happy to take a call on this bill and perhaps pick up where my colleague Louisa Wall just left off, and that is on the difference between a public housing development and a private housing development—which is something that seems to have escaped most of the members opposite. Using compulsorily acquired land for a public purpose, which can include a public State housing development, is quite different to using compulsorily acquired land for a private development—including a private housing development. That is the distinction that seems to be lost on the members opposite, yet that is the exact distinction that this bill is seeking to address.

If land that was compulsorily acquired for one public purpose such as a school—or, in many cases around the country, for the Defence Force, because a lot of surplus Defence Force land, such as Hobsonville, is being used for housing developments—is being used for Government-led housing developments, i.e., State housing developments, there is no legal issue now because the law already allows for that. But where the ambiguity arises is where the Government wants to dispose of that land for the purposes of housing development, but not housing development that the Government is going to do. That is the important distinction that many members opposite do not seem willing to even acknowledge, and, certainly, that the Minister does not seem willing to address or explain.

If it is about State housing development, then that is already allowed for. If it is about State housing development that is then subsequently sold, as has happened all over the country—you take my electorate, the Hutt Valley; big chunks of most of that area were State housing developments that have, over time, been progressively sold off, bit by bit, here and there, pepper potting the private sales around—that has been absolutely fine; nothing in the law stops that from happening now. But where the ambiguity arises is if the Government has a block of land that they have compulsorily acquired that they do not want any more, which they would otherwise be obliged to offer back to the original owners under the Public Works Act, and it decides that it wants to ensure it goes for a housing development rather than some other purpose that the original owner may have. Rather than dealing with that issue, what they are trying to now do is allow the Public Works Act provisions to continue to apply when they then sell that land to a private developer. That is a massive infringement of private property rights. I never ever thought I would see the day when the Green Party is united with the Labour Party in defending private property rights—

💬 Hon Member: And New Zealand First.

—and New Zealand First, as well—and the ACT Party is the party arguing against it. I never thought I would see the day in the House, but, apparently, according to David Seymour, trading away your principles like that is called “being constructive”. And trading away one’s principles is actually OK—providing there is a 10-year sunset clause; it does not matter. Principles are allowed to be breached retrospectively as well—and that is a whole new thing. That is a whole new distinction that I think the House is very excited about, because I certainly did not understand that principles were available to be traded off retrospectively in the way that David Seymour has suggested they are. But I want to highlight—

💬 Denis O’Rourke: His caucus told him.

That is right; he is at a caucus meeting right now. As the Minister mentioned in his contribution when he tried to address this issue at the very beginning, he talked about “building by the Crown”. Those were the words that he used when he was talking about the provisions in the Housing Act. Those were the exact words: “building by the Crown”. Nothing in the existing law stops that happening now and nothing stops the building that has been done by the Crown subsequently being sold. Where there is ambiguity is where it is a private developer.

Take Pōmare, for example. I do not know the basis upon which the Pōmare land was acquired, but up until recently it was all State housing. So had it been acquired under the Public Works Act and it was all State housing it would have been fine. What the Government has done is that it has demolished all of the State housing that was in that area so it became vacant land. It then sold that vacant land to a developer, so it is no longer a Government-led housing development—in the words of Nick Smith “building by the Crown”. That is not building by the Crown. The original houses were “building by the Crown” but they were all demolished—so when the Crown disposed of that land it was empty land, it was vacant land, and it was sold to a developer for private property development. So, therefore, should that have been offered back? If it had been compulsorily acquired should it have been offered back? I have not heard an answer from the Government about that and I want to hear an answer from the Government about that because that is what this whole issue turns on, and in the absence of any proper legal explanation for the need to do this by the Government why are we supporting it?

It is a pleasure to take a call on this to ask some questions of the Minister in the chair, because there are many outstanding questions that my colleagues have raised and some that I will raise that just have to be answered.

This is a piece of legislation that is going through without a select committee phase. This is the Committee of the whole House and this is the time for the Government to front up and answer those questions that we have put to it about this legislation. We had the contribution from David Seymour. Well, I would describe that contribution as dancing on the head of a pin in a manner that would make John Locke turn in his grave. What we had was a confused and addled speech from David Seymour—the man who thinks there is a sunset clause on his principles and that you only have to defend private property rights unless you have sold them off, but there is a sunset. What we want to know is when the sun is going to rise for Mr Seymour. He says this is about resolving the ambiguity between the 1955 Housing Act and the 1981 Public Works Act. I would like the Minister in the chair to tell me why it is that we are resolving ambiguity between pieces of legislation that have been operating since 1955 and 1981 respectively, and it is now in 2016 that we are having to come and resolve those issues.

What is the problem we are trying to resolve here, Minister? Is there impending legal action that needs to be resolved? Jono Naylor—the great white knight who came to the defence of the Government’s actions in this legislation—told us that what was happening here was not significant and that it was just tidying up some language. Well, why, Minister? Why are we here tidying up this language? Please answer that question.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: We care about the people—that’s why.

It is something we on this side of the Chamber are still wondering about. Why is it being done and why is there the special Treaty provision? What is it that is being tidied up?

Given that the Minister supporting Greater Christchurch Regeneration is in the Chamber not to take a call but to bellow across the Chamber, there are some other questions about how this cuts straight to the heart of the problem that people had with the compulsory acquisition within the centre of Christchurch for anchor projects. The suspicion was that if land that was acquired was not going to be used for the stated strategic purpose then it would be onsold and would not be offered back to the people it was acquired from. So where does that leave it? We are certainly not seeing anchor projects springing up in the central city. This was an issue where members of the ACT Party took to the streets and marched with Labour and the Greens back in 2012. So this is an issue that a range of people have had concerns about—and New Zealand First also. Sorry, Mr O’Rourke, I think you were probably at those as well. This is an issue that has been bubbling away within the Christchurch rebuild and that people rightly have concerns about.

I would also like to address some further questions to the Minister. We know that the regulatory impact statement, as my colleague Annette King rightly raised, relates only to Part 1. The regulatory impact statement said that there had not been time for consultation in a formal sense but, none the less, some conversations had happened. So what I would like to know from the Minister in the chair is what conversations of an informal nature have happened in regard to Part 2. Who has been spoken to? What was the outcome of those conversations, and what is the information that the Minister could give the Committee to inform this debate? Given that this is a debate under urgency, there is no regulatory impact statement, but we do need to know who has been spoken to and what was discussed.

I would also like to draw attention to the points that my colleague Grant Robertson raised in a point of order. He was instructed by the person in the chair at the time that the departmental disclosure statement says that the bill does not contain any provisions that would result in the compulsory acquisition of private property. I would like to hear from the Minister in the chair how that is the case when we are dealing with clause 10 in Part 2 of this legislation, which is all about the compulsory acquisition of private property.

I want to pick up a point that David Seymour had started to make and then abandoned in favour of some more insubstantial comments when he took his call recently—that is, his claim that this provision is not retrospective—but also in the context of the earlier comments I made about the constitutional significance of what we are doing, and I do not think that can be overstated. This House should never be called upon to pass, under urgency, legislation that cuts across the rights of citizens, except in the most extreme and rare circumstances. It is not about saying we should never have legislation that denies the ability to compulsorily acquire land or exercise some other sort of coercive or intrusive power. But no power like that should ever be legislated without proper, full scrutiny over the proper length of time that we would expect legislation carrying such powers to be properly debated. The justification for this legislation is that there may be—and it is unspecified because key parts of the Cabinet paper discussing it have been redacted—some legal risk. It is interesting what the paper goes on to say. It says that the reason for the legislation is to remove the uncertainty and to mitigate the risk of legal challenge.

For Mr Seymour’s benefit, I say that the risk of legal challenge can arise only out of transactions that have happened in the past. It is unusual that people litigate over things that have not happened yet, but I do not know what goes on in the caucus meetings of the ACT Party and anything could happen. To mitigate the risk of legal challenge is about dealing with actions of the past. And the Minister in his paper to Cabinet specifically states that he is proposing the amendment in relation to the offer back obligations to former owners for what he describes as “to avoid doubt that they have never applied”. The fact that there is doubt at all suggests that there are issues arising from past transactions, and whether there are genuine legal threats and, therefore, legal risk to the Crown, or whether it is just in the mind of the Minister, and who can answer that question, the reality is we are being asked in this legislation to pass—

💬 Kris Faafoi: It’s a riddle.

—ha, ha—a provision that cuts across citizens’ property rights.

The most disappointing thing about some of the contributions to this debate, or, in fact, all of them, really, from Mr Seymour and the ACT Party is that when I look at the founders of that party—because, let us face it, the driving forces came out of the Labour Party, because we in the Labour Party have been incubators of political talent for some years now, and some of those people went off to establish the ACT Party. But whether those people were coming out of the Labour Party, or were even those coming out of the National Party in the form of Derek Quigley and some of those others, and Don Brash, when he decided which party he actually came out of or was aligned to, they are people who, faced with this situation, were people of deep principle who would never tolerate being part of a Parliament that allowed legislation like this, knowing what it does—traducing citizens’ rights—to pass through urgency, and to pass without the scrutiny that ordinarily would apply to legislation such as this.

For Mr Seymour’s sake, I say that this is legislation that does have retrospective effect. There will be people who will have rights and interests in land that is being compulsorily acquired under the Public Works Act that will likely be the subject of offer-back provisions, and this bill, if it is passed in its current form, will deny them the opportunity or the right to have that offer back made. So we simply should not allow this provision to pass in this form, and I simply ask the Minister in the chair, Michael Woodhouse: what exactly is the precise need for the urgency on this basis? Why cannot this part of the bill go through the proper parliamentary process, with the full scrutiny that the select committee allows it, and allow members of the public, and especially those whose rights and interests will be affected by it, to have their say and inform members of this House exactly how it will have an impact on them? The members of this House deserve nothing less, but, most importantly, the citizens affected deserve nothing less.

I move, That the question be now put.

It is a pleasure to take a call on Part 2. I want to concentrate on two key phrases—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: It’s the only part you can take a call on.

Nice of you to arrive, actually, Gerry. I would like to look at clause 10 and two key phrases, and the Leader of the Opposition has just pointed one of them out to me. The first one is “To avoid doubt,” and the second, which is in brackets, is “(and have never applied)”. Because those two phrases exist in clause 10, I believe there is some serious justification for this piece of legislation to be squared away and separated out into its own legislation, but also it deserves the scrutiny of a select committee, because to have the phrase “To avoid doubt,” in clause 10 suggests that there was some doubt, and then we have to make the assumption that this Government has, in clause 10, which inserts new subsections (2) and (3) into section 15 of the Housing Act, actually taken care of that doubt.

We do not believe that it has taken care of all of the doubt, and because of the phrase “(and have never applied)”, I believe that there might be some New Zealanders out there who may have been affected by this piece of legislation and might have something to say about that. That is why I question, along with the Leader of the Opposition, why this piece of legislation is being rammed through under urgency. I do want to quote, and respond to, something that Jono Naylor said. He has, I think, been the only National MP who has been brave enough to get on his feet and try to defend this piece of legislation under Part 2. He said: “This is not a significant change.” We should always be worried when a National MP stands up in this Chamber and claims that “This is not a significant change.”, because something else must be going on when only one of National’s MPs can stand up in this Chamber and put his head above the trench and try to defend the changes that it is making here.

Can I also point to some of the discussion that was had, before this started, around points of order and the lack of a regulatory impact statement. I think that is important, because people at home and those in the gallery listening may have thought that was just a bit of procedural nonsense that no one cared about, but the fact that this Government has not bothered to get its officials to look at this piece of legislation and say what impact this has on the average New Zealander speaks volumes about its lack of any plan around its housing strategy and the arrogance it shows in that it has not even bothered to ask the officials to look at it.

I think the fact that we have not got that regulatory impact statement shows that the Government is trying to rush this through because there is something else afoot, which would probably lend to the fact that we are not seeing this being put under a select committee process, and I think it also feeds into the well-embedded narrative that Nick Smith and this Government have absolutely no clue when it comes to solving the housing crisis. What have we had as the plan? Either it is some half-arsed—[Interruption] Oh, hold on, I take that back. I am sorry; I apologise—some quarter-arsed plan that a Minister might announce—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Lift your game.

—before Budget day that does not work and that, when its effectiveness is looked at, 15 people were helped by, and that plan was to move people out of Auckland and say “Here’s $3,000. Go to another part of the country.” I believe it was around a dozen people who were helped. So I am sorry, Mr Chair, if the Government took offence at my statement that it was half-arsed, because that was overstating the effectiveness—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): You do not keep doing it. Just try to lift your game.

—of that measure. It was overstating the effectiveness of that measure. [Interruption] Ha, ha! This piece of legislation should have gone through a select committee process, and I do look back to clause 10 and the first three words “To avoid doubt,”. There was some doubt. This piece of legislation does not clarify that doubt. Also, the other phrase, “(and have never applied)”, suggests that there is some retrospective action happening here that New Zealanders should have been allowed to have a say on.

I move, That the question be now put.

I want to put to you two further arguments as to why this part of the bill should be sent to a select committee. Just before I do that, I have to express my disappointment that we have been unable to get any answers to questions, and this is the only time there will be questions asked on this part of the bill in the entire time. The public will not get to ask; only the Opposition will get to ask, and we have failed to get our passing parade of Ministers who have sat in the chair to answer questions that have been put. I think that that shows a certain arrogance by the Government, which has put up one backbench speaker to defend it and has given no answers. That is not good enough.

There are two reasons why Part 2 should go to the select committee. We were told by the Minister there ought to be a review of the Public Works Act. The Minister Nick Smith has said that. Why is this part not included in the review of the Public Works Act? Would you not think that that was the first step of any changes? Rather than having an added-on urgency motion, trying to pass it through all stages in a sticking-plaster way, why would the Government not do a review of the Public Works Act, which the Minister said needed to be done?

The second issue is one that Kelvin Davis raised. Kelvin Davis said that the Māori Affairs Committee members are about to start looking at first refusal rights and they are going to consider it at the Māori Affairs Committee. First refusal rights—that is a piece of work they are doing. So why, in looking at this, would we not ensure that we join this up? You see, there is no joined-up thinking here by the Government. It is all over the place. So we have got the Māori Affairs Committee looking at first refusal rights, as they affect Māori, I presume; we have the Minister saying we need to review the Public Works Act; and we have the hapless Minister for Building and Housing, who comes in and puts in, under urgency, a quick little change—not very important, at all.

There is a way to go about this. We send it to the select committee. In the meantime the Government has work done on the review, the Māori Affairs Committee does its work, and we come back with a sensible proposal to this Parliament. We then ask the public of New Zealand—in fact, maybe they would like to get the Law Commission to look at this, but then we come back to the Parliament and back to the people of New Zealand and ask them what they think, because this is not a good process, and I am going to tell you why.

I do not know whether other members have picked this up, but at the very beginning of the day when we went to the Table to get the documents we rely on to debate this we were told that the departmental disclosure statement was not a tabled document—not a tabled document. What is that Table? I cannot understand it. If this is lying on the Table amongst all our bills, all our Supplementary Order Papers, and we are told that the departmental disclosure statement is not official, and it is not tabled—it is a nonsense. So we are relying on, to debate today, a not-official, not-tabled departmental disclosure statement. I want the Minister to tell us why we have to rely on a not-official, not-tabled document to argue on Part 2 of this bill, because that is what we are being asked to do.

When you look through it you have to say that it is very, very shonky what they have provided in this non-official, non-tabled document. For example, it says: “Were any regulatory impact statements provided to inform … on this bill?”. Yes, they said. Well, no. There is no regulatory impact statement on Part 2 of this bill. Here is another one. It says: “If so, did that RIA team in the Treasury provide independent opinion on the quality of these regulatory impact statements?”. Well, no. It did not. We got a Treasury paper and then they set about redacting anything that would have helped us understand it. You see what I am saying? This is just not good enough. This is not the way a Parliament should work. It then goes to say: “Has further impact analysis become available for any aspects of the policy to be given effect by this Bill?”. No. This is what the non-official—

I move, That the question be now put.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Thank you very much for this opportunity. I want to touch on a couple of points that the Hon Annette King made with reference to my colleague Mr Davis and his contribution. New subsection (3) of section 15, inserted by clause 10, says: “Subsection (2) does not affect any right of first refusal that a person or group of persons has in relation to the land under Treaty of Waitangi claims settlement or collective redress Act or deed.” The amendment tabled by my colleague Mr Davis wants to include in there, after “any”, the words “current or future”. I think that is an important thing. He spoke of a noble tribe from the Far North, a tribe called Ngāpuhi, and, actually, if you hear the claims being put in front of the Waitangi Tribunal, the extension of their land goes all the way into Auckland, all the way down past Mahurangi, and falls within the Auckland Unitary Plan, and that is an important fact that is being missed here.

That is really important, and I want to raise a particular case within Tāmaki-makau-rau that actually points to the ambiguity and some of the issues that will fall out from this type of proposed legislation. I want us to all think of Ngā Whare Waatea Marae in Tāmaki-makau-rau—Ngā Whare Waatea Marae. A bit of a history lesson—that land was confiscated by the troops who raided the Waikato. It was subsequently sold on to another family member after the confiscation. It was then taken by the Public Works Act. It was taken by the Public Works Act in the hope that Child, Youth and Family could use it to build hostels for troubled teens. That was the purpose of that land. It was not used. It sat vacant there for a long, long, long time. A visionary in South Auckland, the mother of Mr Willie Jackson, a former member of this House, decided—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: What’d you call him? Did you call him a visionary?

Ha, ha! Well, he is part Ngāti Porou and so am I, so he can be a visionary for the purposes of this discussion. They decided to use it to build a marae to service the people of South Auckland. They built the marae to service urban-based Māori. Those who did not have any particular strong connection to their tribes—those who were disconnected—attached themselves to Ngā Whare Waatea Marae. Ngā Whare Waatea Marae goes to apply for a permit to make sure that they can expand on their buildings so that they can cater for the influx of numbers. This is where the whole situation falls apart, because that land is currently still owned, as a result of the Public Works Act, by Child, Youth and Family. That is a really big issue because it is not using that home, yet it is stopping the use of that land by a community organisation. No right of first refusal has gone back to any of the owners, whether they were the ones subsequent to the confiscation. Ngāti Paoa has a claim on that land, which has been heard by the Waitangi Tribunal. All of these parties are involved in that one piece of land.

How is this Government proposing to fix that? How is this Government proposing to offer a right of first refusal to one particular group while forgetting the others? It is doing it by subterfuge. It is pushing this proposed part, tacking it on to Part 1, and just brushing it off as a minor amendment. It is definitely not that. Say that to the people at Ngā Whare Waatea Marae. Say that to those who attach themselves to that marae and the services it provides. I wonder what is going to happen with that particular land, given the size of it. There are large vacant lots on there, and I suspect that this Government is going to move very shortly to call it a social housing project and deny the rights of Ngā Whare Waatea Marae, which has occupied that area for a long time. This is the ambiguity that comes out of a rushed process where people are not heard—where the democratic process is not engaged. People outside of these walls do not have an opportunity to contribute.

I move, That the question be now put.

The question now is that Metiria Turei’s amendment deleting clause 10, set out on Supplementary Order Paper 211, is out of order—sorry. This is a statement, not a question. Metiria Turei’s amendment deleting clause 10, set out in Supplementary Order Paper 211, is out of order as inconsistent with the previous decisions of the Committee.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Phil Twyford to clause 10 be agreed to:

in chapeau of section 15(2), replace “if” with “as part of or immediately following the development of State housing land or erection of dwellings and”.