Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister for the Environment: I move, That the Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 2 December 2021 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to this motion. This motion means that instead of the usual six months that a select committee would have to consider the details of a bill and actually listen to members of the public and hear what they think about the laws being made in their land—instead of all that happening over six months, it’s going to be compacted down to five weeks. Of course, the committee actually has to take some time to think about what people have said. Let’s say that’s two weeks. That means that there is three weeks available for people to prepare submissions on what is actually quite a complex and impactful matter. It affects a lot of people.

There’s so many reasons—and I hope I can get through all of them in 10 minutes—why on this particular piece of legislation it’s even more important that people have the opportunity to have their say and properly be consulted. I’ll just start with one that’s pertinent right now. It’s something that I’m hearing extensively from people. It’s about the political environment. It’s people who are saying “Our trust in Government and Parliament is being damaged by rushed processes. We feel like they’re rushing things through in the middle of a crisis.” Some of those things are actually quite untrue and outlandish. For example, people have told me that the abortion legislation was rushed through under COVID. That’s not true: the law was passed before there were any lockdowns. But it is true that people have been passing laws in this Parliament under urgency an awful lot under the COVID period.

The COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2)—that is being rushed through, and it involves allowing the Government to, effectively, confiscate the laboratory capacity of saliva testers. So that’s something that is damaging people’s confidence. It also allows all sorts of orders that some people find divisive. The COVID19 management measures legislation—that allows the Government to, effectively, retrospectively change people’s commercial lease contracts. All of these things in the current political environment are leading to a distrust of this institution and a distrust of politics in New Zealand, and that is extremely damaging to the future and health of our democracy. So I would argue that in the current political environment, in people’s current attitude and trust towards Government, this is a very bad time to be rushing through more legislation.

The unusual bipartisan nature of the deal, as one member described it earlier—that’s another reason, because usually people can say “OK, roughly half the Parliament, at least, has got out back and is sticking up for us.” But because you’ve had two parties that together represent—well, what’s 65 plus 33? About, you know, 98 out of 120 seats. So, roughly, 83 percent of Parliament has coalesced around this being rushed. That further damages—you know, people say “Well, you know, bad enough we can’t trust the Labour Party not to rush stuff through; now the National Party is doing it too.” That really damages people’s trust.

The next thing is that often legislation is rushed through Parliament, but there has at least been some consultation of people affected in the drafting of the bill. The problem with this particular legislation is that, due to the unconventional political deal that had to be done between National and Labour, they say, to get this over the line, it meant that while they promised that they were collaborating with each other—and isn’t it great working together—the truth is they didn’t work with anyone else. So there are people who are in councils in New Zealand who actually have a memorandum of understanding to develop policy together with Government, and they weren’t consulted. They’re very angry, frankly, because they spend their whole lives trying to work out how to allow development to happen and make it happen in a way that’s efficient for the use of infrastructure and so on, and they weren’t asked about this. They were insulted. They weren’t even given a pre-announcement briefing when they got wind of it and asked for one.

So the fact that there’s a whole lot of people that maybe, if they’d—I’m talking about developers. I’m talking about planning experts. Maybe if people had actually had some input, then it might be OK, but what you’ve had is the Wellington-based Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and an accounting firm have been asked to put together the policy, and, as a result of not asking those people, (a) those people have lost their right to be asked, and (b) all of those people have actually not been able to contribute to making the policy better. So, you know, given that we’re starting from zero in terms of consultation, that’s another reason why it would be good to have a proper select committee process.

Another reason why we should actually allow the full time to consult is COVID-19. Right now, Auckland Council and Hamilton’s council are affected by COVID-19 in two ways. First of all, they’re dealing with its impacts. So Auckland Council had to shave $750 million off its budget. They’re supposed to be going live on 1 December—which ACT would like to be freedom day from COVID, but that’s a separate subject. They’ve been trying to get a budget together. They’re trying to deal with the impacts and the restrictions of COVID as a task, but also the COVID restrictions make it more difficult for them to perform any particular task because they can’t collaborate and get together. And now they’re having this new thing that they haven’t previously been asked about put on top of them, and they’re supposed to respond in the record time of three weeks. There will be no genuine consultation of councils, and that is a huge mistake. I think it’s hugely unfortunate that councils are not going to have that opportunity.

The next reason why is that the facts of this particular issue are devilishly complex. So over the last few days, I have been talking to a lot of the people who probably should be making submissions, if there’s time, and who should have been asked about the policy before they had an opportunity. Now, these people will say, for example, one of the issues is understanding infrastructure capacity at a micro, street-by-street level. Councils don’t have that sort of data. They usually don’t know they’re overcapacity until something breaks. These are the kind of things that clearly have escaped the people behind this legislation, and I think it’s a real shame that they haven’t been able to do that.

Another reason why there should be a full amount of normal consultation on this is the division that this legislation has the ability to create if people don’t have their voices heard. Now, I think at the moment, at this point in New Zealand history, there’s too much division. People are feeling really quite separated by the actions of the Government on a whole lot of fronts, not just vaccine mandates in the last few days and the way that that’s been gone about by the Prime Minister, but I saw in the New Zealand Herald a headline saying “This is about nimbies being put to the sword.” Well, first of all, I don’t want to see anyone attacked with any kind of sword. I only want the metaphor. I don’t like violence. I don’t like division. I don’t like name-calling. You know, I actually want to see people treated respectfully, united behind good ideas and working together to solve problems, rather than this idea that it’s somehow almost good, it’s tough stuff, to really get in there and belittle fellow citizens. I don’t think that that’s a good way to go forward.

I have to say that I’ve been personally quite dismayed at the response of some members in the House—just in this debate, and I think that’s why it needs longer to dial the temperature down. I’ll give you an example of that, and there will be a few other members that will understand what I’m saying, and they might think about it, because it applies to them too. Tangi Utikere, the member for Palmerston North—now, not so long ago, I was at a Federated Farmers event, and he’s a new Labour MP. It’s fair to say that being a new Labour MP from a city at a Fed Farmers event is not one of the more popular areas to go. It’s a bit like me going to—well, actually, to be honest, I get a good reception just about everywhere now. But it’s not a particularly great place for him to be, and yet, you know, everybody there treated Tangi Utikere with enormous amounts of grace. You know, they clearly had policy differences, but they were able to treat him graciously.

Now, I listened to his snarky, sarcastic speech that he gave about me in the debate, and I thought “Wow. That says a bit about his character.” I know there’s a few other people not so far away from me now that probably just want to think a little bit about their maturity level and how they navigate policy and personal disagreements if they really think that they’re ready for the big time, because I’m seeing that actually maybe they’re not. But the facts are that not only would a longer and proper consultation process be better for relations between people; most importantly, it would be good for policy, and that’s why we should have a proper select committee process on this legislation.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I thank the member who has resumed his seat—the newly gracious member who has resumed his seat—and he calls in aid for his case the COVID pandemic and the outbreaks. I call in aid that as well, because one thing that we have seen with the COVID pandemic is just the extraordinary inequity in our communities and our society.

One of the indicators of that inequity is housing, and we’re seeing that playing out right now in the current outbreak: the fact that those people who are suffering the greatest risk of infection right now are those who are in overcrowded housing and housing estates where a lot of people are jammed together. That is the reason why there is real urgency to getting on with this legislation and having it examined in a meaningful, even if brief, way, so that this House can get on and do the job of creating the basis on which we can get houses built. So it is important that the motion moved by my colleague, the Hon Megan Woods, is approved by this House so that we can get on with the examination.

This is a piece of policy work that has been well consulted with, with others in this House and with the community generally in the housing sector, because everybody is saying that we need the rules to be rewritten. We need the rules to change to help us break through and get the modern, 21st century housing built at a pace that we know we can house New Zealanders. That’s what the bill is about, and we can take six months and we can pull apart sentences and clauses and the grammar and what have you, but, actually, there are tens of thousands of New Zealanders who are going without adequate housing right now, who are desperate to get into good housing. We have developers who are desperate to get the opportunity, with good planning laws driven by good guidelines, to actually get building under way so that we can address that very serious crisis.

This Government came in, four years ago, pledging to do whatever it took and be serious about our housing crisis. This legislation is part of that, but the urgency with which we approached housing four years ago remains today. There’s been a lot of construction and a lot of housing, but there needs to be a lot more, and it’s a category of housing that we have struggled through current planning laws and through current resource management provisions to actually get enough of. We’ve now got an opportunity to do something about it. Four years into the recognition of this crisis, we actually have a chance to tweak some rules and get on and get those houses built that are desperately needed right now.

So the member who has resumed his seat—David Seymour—quite rightly draws attention to the procedural requirements we expect to be observed when legislation is passing through the House, and it is right that the culture of this House and, in fact, the rules written for its conduct are, typically, to allow deliberate, measured consideration of legislation, because, in the end, it invariably cuts across rights and interests right throughout the community. Indeed, when we provide for these new provisions, there will be those who will say, “Well, what about my right to that stream of sunlight that cuts across my property? What about my right to live with less dense housing in my neighbourhood and in my street?” Well, actually, time has moved on, and the need for housing construction is greater than it has ever been.

The need to alleviate the poverty of housing is greater than it has ever been. The need to give people a chance—more New Zealanders a chance—to get a place where they can live in comfort and in a healthy way has never been greater. So we need this law. We need it in place because we need local authorities, local government, to do their work to prepare their plan changes in time for August next year.

So there is an urgency to it, and we should not call on urgency frivolously or wantonly because it is convenient to do so. But in the face of an obvious need and an urgent need, then it is appropriate for this House to suspend its usual rules. Not to avoid consultation altogether, and not to avoid the possibility of citizens having their right to have a say, but to accept that sometimes there are laws that have to move more rapidly than others and to enable us as a country and as a Parliament to seriously address the very difficult problems and challenges that we have. So, on that basis, I support the motion of my colleague, the Hon Megan Woods, and invite this House to continue to support a process that allows us to get moving on this legislation sooner rather than later.