O'Rourke DenisDENIS O'ROURKE (NZ First): The Prime Minister is going to go down in history as a Mr Do-Little" and as a two-time failure determined to do as little as possible about the country's most serious problems and in fact to even deny that they exist.Take housing: Treasury reported just recently that the housing shortage in New Zealand is 60000 houses right now and growing by 40 houses a day—growing by 40 houses a day. What was the Government's response to that? Just to deny the figures as it always does. It denies that there is a housing crisis. Whenever the figures are not favourable—truthful figures factual figures from independent sources—it simply denies them. That is the Government's response. In that context I want to quote from today's New Zealand Herald because I think it is well put: "Last September the International Monetary Fund put New Zealand top of the class for housing unaffordability in relation to how much we earned compared with 30 other rich countries. We also topped a list of 64 countries for house price growth in the past year. What's the Government's answer? To fiddle with the figures." I think that puts it very well and demonstrates beyond doubt just how awful the Government's housing policies have been.In fact those policies are going to continue to worsen because we now have immigration running at a net 70000 per year. We in New Zealand First believe that that is as least 10 times too high putting huge pressure on prices rents infrastructure and services like health education and social services. In the last 5 years Auckland's population has swelled by up to 188000 migrants. House prices in Auckland in the last 2 years have jumped a staggering 29 percent.The Government has scrambled to try to look as though it is doing something about the housing crisis—a crisis that it still denies. It does not actually want to solve the housing crisis because its members and its supporters rather like it. These are people who do not care about others who cannot afford to buy a home and who cannot afford rents.Immigration continuing at the current rate will mean that Auckland will need 140000 houses over the next 7 years. That is the short term. In fact less than half that number of houses are actually being built. All the Government does is talk about the rate of the increase in consents but they are still well below what they were even only a few years ago.So the National Government cannot claim any success at all as a result of its housing policies. In fact it is introducing a number of desperate measures which include for example the Point England housing development. That means that 18 hectares of valuable recreation land is going to be taken to produce only 300 houses some time in the future but at the cost of valuable reserve land and at the cost of compromising wildlife habitat.Then we have the disgraceful Resource Legislation Amendment Bill which will damage the Resource Management Act irrevocably and will not result in any enduring benefit for housing. New Zealand First will not support a piece of legislation that requires the wholesale reduction of appeal rights and restrictions on public participation and notification removing local decision-making in favour of big Government putting the real power in the hands of Ministers. Most of all we oppose the ridiculous iwi participation agreements which are inconsistent with the democratic principles of local government. National's housing policy has been a total failure and an utter shambles.Transport policy is equally shambolic arising from poor leadership and lurching from one crisis to another. Overconcentration on the so-called roads of national significance just means more money spent on useless big roads mostly in Auckland which will in fact solve absolutely nothing at all. There is a failure by that Government to provide sufficient alternatives especially passenger rail and light rail which other cities in other countries around the world are moving to introduce and have been doing for the last 10 or 20 years. But there is nothing like that under this Government. In fact Auckland needs a heavy rail link to the airport not just the light rail system proposed.If that is not bad enough look at rail freight. The potential for that is being held back by a Government that will not invest in the railway system will not properly fund the railway system and sees more and more lines being closed and the whole system compromised. Modern electrification to optimise freight capacity is essential and should be expanded but in fact this Government is doing the opposite.I would like to just say this about KiwiRail's announcement during the holidays—during the holidays because it is so ashamed of this policy that it did not want anybody to notice it and so it released it at a time when it thought people would not notice. During the holidays KiwiRail announced that it will soon close the electrified part of the main trunk line in the North Island and use cheap nasty polluting and unreliable Chinese locomotives instead. The Government could stop that but it has no political will to do so. That is against what the Government says that it wants to do about climate change and the reduction of greenhouse gases because in fact an all-diesel fleet will push up carbon emissions by a staggering additional 12600 tonnes. Diesel is the worst of the fossil fuels producing more carbon dioxide and particulates than any other fuel. And of course that proposal for more diesel locomotives will just mean more imported oil.I want to finish with some comment on the environment because the Prime Minister did not mention it at all in his speech—obviously he is not interested; nor is the National Party. The truth is that fresh water in this country is under threat. It is under threat from special deals with the Māori Party and other Māori and from Government inaction on the protection of freshwater resources. Takes of fresh water surface water must not result in the degradation of major lakes and rivers but that is what is happening more and more. Takes of groundwater must not result in water-mining or reduction in quality and that also is happening more and more. When fresh water is exported from New Zealand in a purely or substantially natural state a royalty should be charged on that of at least 25 percent for return to the area and for the people who live in the area from where the water is taken. That is New Zealand First policy.Finally forestry—because forestry can make a major contribution to economic development. Plantation forests in New Zealand are our third-largest export earner but it is just raw logs and it is too too many eggs in a very small basket. A narrowing range of markets a declining processing capacity and grossly inefficient infrastructure are also the ways in which forestry is being hampered in New Zealand. This Government does nothing. The industry needs an alternative path with high-value wood-based manufacturing industries diversification of export markets thorough Government leadership and incentives and better supporting infrastructure especially including rail. New Zealand's dismal planting of production forests has fallen from a peak of 100000 hectares to 3571 hectares today. It shows you that this Government is doing nothing much about forestry and it needs to target that if it is going to create a situation where this country can prosper."