Twyford PhilPHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I am not going to waste any time in this call responding to that mumbling mediocrity from the former chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee Scott Simpson. I want to directly address the claim that Nick Smith has made that this bill represents somehow an attempt to address Auckland's housing crisis. This is the Minister who has spectacularly failed to build any houses. Two years ago he promised 500 hectares of Crown land would be used—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Keep it focused on this bill though.PHIL TWYFORD: —and 10000 houses and I think that promise he made is somehow some kind of inspiration for this bill which would take 11 hectares of prized public parkland and turn it over into housing development. This is the Minister who promised 39000 houses in his special housing areas and has seen 3 years later only 2000 houses built. This is the Government that has presided over a shortfall of 40000 houses in Auckland but it has the gall to come to this House and pretend that taking public parkland to build 300 houses is some kind of credible solution to the housing crisis. Well it is not. It is not a solution and it is not a solution for a community that is about to get 20000 extra people living in it thanks to the intensification that is going to be taking place as part of the Tāmaki regeneration—an extra 20000 people. Where are the kids going to play in that community when Nick Smith has sold off one-third of one of the most precious expanses of open waterfront urban parkland in the middle of a city that is going to get an extra million people in the next generation? Many of those people will be living in high- and medium-density housing. They need open spaces. This is absolute—it is the height of stupidity of short-sighted narrow vision from the Minister from Nelson who thinks it is OK to tell Aucklanders that houses should be built on their parkland.This is not a credible response to the Auckland housing crisis that has built up on this Government's watch. This is Nick Smith thinking that he is being clever. He thinks that he is making a point. He thinks that he is making a point—that Michael Wood and I call for houses to be built in Auckland and yet we oppose his madcap scheme to turn precious parkland into housing. He thinks that is clever and that he is making some kind of political point. It is not; it is just sheer stupidity.One of the things that really concerns me about this bill is that we need lots of urban redevelopment in Auckland. We need investment in communities like Glen Innes (GI) and Tāmaki. We need more warm dry homes. We need better parks and open spaces. We need a better-built environment for communities like GI that frankly have been neglected. They have suffered from under-investment in their houses their parks their town centre and their transport infrastructure. But this bill is not doing them any favour. In fact it is the historical neglect of GI that means that its parkland has not been properly looked after for decades but that is no excuse to take it away. That is not a reason to take away its parkland because this generation needs that parkland and future generations need that parkland. It is so incredibly short-sighted.But when the Government does what it is doing with this bill—when it rides roughshod over local communities; when it takes away parkland but gives nothing in return—all that does is create cynicism and resentment. It divides the community. It creates cynicism and resentment against a Government that will not invest in the community; it just takes things away. We need more good quality redevelopment in Auckland. The danger with a bill like this is that it takes away the public's willingness to go along with redevelopment. We need development by a Government that will take the community with it and that will give it more than it takes away but that is the opposite of what this Government is doing. It is damaging the social licence for Government to do urban renewal and urban development and that is a dangerous thing.