Shaw JamesJAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): I rise to support the Housing Corporation (Affordable Housing Development) Amendment Bill in the name of Kelvin Davis and am pleased to do so. This morning's New Zealand Herald carried yet another story—yet another story—of a house in Auckland that had been flipped on for a ridiculous price. It sold for $819000—itself a fairly eye-watering price for a lot of families—and it was resold for $900000 the same day. It sold for $819000 in the morning and $900000 in the afternoon making an $81000 profit over lunch. It is pretty impressive. It is a pretty impressive way to make a living. I think most people in this country should be houses. If you were a house you would make a lot more money than you would earn in a job and of course we also know that you do not have to pay much tax if you are a house; you only have to pay tax if you work for a living.The thing about houses in New Zealand is that they are no longer homes to live in; they are financial instruments that are being traded by an investor class who enjoy a privileged tax status that does not apply to any other asset class in this country nor does it apply to people who have to work for a living. But the thing about this average Papakura house—built in the 1960s made out of brick; a fairly average house which sold for $819000 in the morning and $900000 in the afternoon—is that it should not have even cost $819000 in the morning. Right? It is a pretty average house. The median income in this country is just shy of $50000 so this house—this fairly average suburban house—was 16 times the median income of the average person. That is an extraordinary statement of failure in terms of the New Zealand housing market.House prices in New Zealand on average are roughly 10 times the average income. By one measure New Zealand is now the fourth-most unaffordable country for accommodation in the entire world. We have a very low population density but we have this extraordinary unaffordability. By another measure—and I think it was the International Monetary Fund measure that was mentioned earlier—we are the most unaffordable. By one measure we are the fourth-most unaffordable and by another measure the most unaffordable country in the world when it comes to housing.The thing that I like about this bill actually is its simplicity. The Government keeps saying that it has a comprehensive housing plan. It says it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and yet we have this extraordinary market failure after 9 years of this Government.One of the things I like about this bill is that what it says is that the Government should have a plan. Well if it has a plan it has got nothing to fear from this bill; it could just submit the plan that it has got. The problem is that this bill also calls for actually building houses not just having a plan. In that I can see why the Government does not support the bill. It might have a plan but it is not actually building any houses and so I can see why it is not all that keen on this particular bill.But the simplicity of this bill—the idea that when it comes to one of the most important responsibilities of Government it is to ensure that our people actually have accommodation and housing and a roof over their heads—is I think its great strength. It says that in Government one of our primary responsibilities is to ensure that our people are not living in cars and garages that they have adequate accommodation and that therefore in a very simple way we should instruct the housing Minister to come up with a plan and start building some houses.It is absurd that we have gotten into this situation in the first place. It is because this Government does not have an interest in actually building houses. It actually has an interest in maintaining this speculative economy because that is good for its voter base—the same people who benefited from the superannuation adjustment announcement the other day. It wants to appear to look like it is solving the problem which is why it makes announcement after grand announcement but its actual results are nothing—lots of heat and light and noise signifying nothing.This Government when it comes to housing is as they say in Texas all hat and no cattle". This bill would ensure that it actually went out and built some houses. I am pleased to be able to support it."