Genter Julie AnneJULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): I have a slightly different perspective on the situation than the previous speaker Phil Twyford. The Green Party will be supporting this amendment on the condition that there are several amendments to it. My slightly different perspective is that there is a story around development in New Zealand particularly in Auckland that says that people want to live on a quarter-acre section they want to be able to drive everywhere and we need to build motorways to assist that. The reality is that there is no point building a whole lot of cheaper houses and places for people to live unless people have affordable access to jobs schools shops green spaces and amenities. People do not need just houses and that has been the whole failure of this special housing area approach. It is entirely focused on houses not on neighbourhoods which is what people need to live good lives. We will completely undermine the objective of making housing affordable if we do it in a way that makes transport far more expensive. So we can support this amendment on the basis that it is not going to result in urban sprawl because of the many subsections that do not just stop urban growth boundaries but actually require local authorities to take a much more proactive detailed spatial planning process that sets aside land that is of special value. It might be a value for a community to have land that is used for agricultural purposes close to the city to have land that is preserved for biodiversity purposes and to ensure that all of the new development is around infrastructure corridors that provide good transport linkages to other parts of the community. It is not just any transport corridors because the other thing that is missing I think from this amendment is the recognition that climate change is an urgent urgent challenge for everyone on this planet and we have to be thinking and creating communities where people can get around without increasing dangerous climate pollution. It is not affordable and it is also not wise to be planning for car-dependent sprawling neighbourhoods that cost people a fortune segregate communities mean it is harder for them to access jobs and on top of it all we have got this warming climate we have got a pressing need and an opportunity to create vibrant livable communities that are linked up by smart clean public transport that means people can socialise work and relax while getting around the city. They do not have to spend hours stuck in traffic and they do not have to spend a whole heap of their income on ever more cars just so their kids can access schools and jobs. So the Green Party can support a smarter approach to planning that is going to achieve not only affordable housing but affordable transport and access to the things that people need to live a good life. That takes a proactive local government approach and that is what has been lacking under this National Government because it is so ideological and it is so—as my colleague Marama Davidson says—disconnected. It is thinking about things in a very siloed way. We have got this focus supposedly on affordable housing. Well (1) we are not even going to achieve that with special housing areas but (2) what good is cheap housing if you have expensive transport and what good is cheap housing if you cannot access jobs? It is not going to solve the problem. So the amendments I plan to table will amend the proposed part so that it prohibits the use of planning rules that are currently used like minimum parking requirements which are actually pushing development out from the centre. Where people actually want to live is in the existing urban area because that is where one has access to jobs access to communities and access to schools and hospitals—everything that they need. That has not happened because planning rules actually make it more difficult and more expensive to provide homes in the existing urban area. If we did not have all those rules we would not need urban growth boundaries but the reality is that we have all those rules and so we also have urban growth boundaries and so there is pressure from both sides. I would prefer to leave the urban growth boundaries in place until we have sufficient development within the existing area but I can see that if every part of this proposal in Part 6 was included including the detailed spatial planning setting aside areas of special value ensuring that future infrastructure corridors and networks—[Bell rung] But if we have new communities sprouting up in places like Warkworth or in between Pukekohe and Auckland they have to be around the rail network and there has to be electrified passenger transport services. Those communities in greenfields could be within walking distance of electrified rail networks and they could have schools parks and amenities—everything that people need. But if we are going to go down the route of a paddock subdivided into a bunch of McMansions with no schools no amenities no shops and everybody having to get on the motorway and into a queue of cars to get anywhere that is not going to be the solution that New Zealanders want is it? New Zealanders want affordable housing they want affordable transport and they want to do their bit. They do not want to be adding climate pollution to the atmosphere and they need the Government to be proactively investing in the infrastructure—that is the transport the water management and the housing itself. They need the Government to be leading on that infrastructure investment in a way that enables them to live good lives to reduce our energy use and our pollution use and to create happier healthier communities because that is the opportunity we have. We have done things pretty poorly for the last 50 years but we can see in communities overseas that have a much more integrated approach to planning and have a much more proactive investment strategy around public transport—it works well and people love it. They love living in those places. You can have affordable housing affordable transport and respond to climate change and have vibrant thriving green communities. It is fantastic. It is just sad that the current Government does not seize this opportunity to create far more livable neighbourhoods for New Zealanders. So on the amendments that I want to propose—one is that we prohibit the planning rules that are preventing more homes and neighbourhoods from being built in the existing urban area as well as prohibiting urban growth boundaries and we need to have a requirement as well. In new section 46C(2)(b) we have got this requirement for local authorities to undertake detailed spatial planning …" and in that requirement they need to take into account climate change. There is no point doing this planning around long-term projects like affordable housing and affordable communities if we are not taking into account the urgent need to respond to the long-term challenge of climate change. That needs to be at the forefront of our thinking of the way our cities and towns develop in the future. It has to be. So I will table a proposed amendment shortly that will mean that local authorities in undertaking their detailed spatial planning will take into account the need to mitigate and adapt to climate change which I think is fair enough and I am sure the Labour Party will be supportive of that. Thank you very much."