Smith Nick: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSmith Nick: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 05 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13328. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister of Housing): I moveThat the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill be now read a third time. This bill introduced as part of Budget 2013 is about enabling tens of thousands of homes to be built. It is about helping Kiwi families to realise the dream of owning their own home. It is about supporting the Government’s economic recovery plan by reducing the financial risks of Auckland’s house price bubble. It is about employment and freeing up land so that builders plumbers electricians drainlayers plasterers and painters can get on and construct the homes that cities like Auckland so desperately need.This bill is based on sound research. We have had the Productivity Commission we have had the Reserve Bank and we have had the OECD and the IMF and every substantive report on housing highlights the need for additional supply. Let me highlight the problem. Auckland has got just 1300 sections currently available for housing. That is a third of what it had a decade ago. We need 13000 sections each year just to keep up with population growth. We have got a rigid metropolitan urban limit prohibiting any new housing development beyond the artificial line drawn 15 years ago. We have got a few lucky landowners sitting on the last few parcels of developable residential land holding prospective homebuyers to ransom.Section prices have trebled and have gone up by more than any other part of the housing cost equation. We have got a convoluted Resource Management Act planning system where it takes an average of 7 years to get a plan changed by the time you get through all the consultation and appeal processes. Even when you have got a plan changed it takes an average of another 3 years to get resource consent for a greenfield development and a year for a brownfield development.We have got a constipated planning system bogging new residential construction and this bill is a laxative to get new houses flowing. It will enable plan changes and resource consents to be approved simultaneously. It overrides Auckland’s metropolitan urban limit freeing up thousands of hectares of land for housing. It fast tracks theconsents process enabling greenfield developments to be approved in 6 months and brownfield developments to be approved in 3 months. It makes plain that the Government’s strong preference is to get this work done in partnership with councils through housing accords but it also provides that the Government can get on with the job if councils stand in the way of delivering an increased supply of affordable housing.We have secured the first housing accord with Auckland. In essence it enables the 39000 least contentious homes of the 400000 homes proposed in Auckland’s 30-year plan to be built over the next 3 years. The alternative is that we sit and wait for 3 years before we enable any new residential development. That would be a disaster for Auckland and an even bigger disaster for New Zealand. We are also progressing discussions with other councils with high housing costs to use the tools in this bill to facilitate more affordable housing.The Government has made plain that this new law is just part of a comprehensive plan to address the challenges of housing supply and affordability. We have announced changes to infrastructure costs with a further bill to be introduced later this year. We have announced the next phase of Resource Management Act reforms which will simplify the planning process and require councils to plan for 10 years of residential housing supply. We have got the building materials cost inquiry reporting shortly to Ministers from which will flow significant new initiatives. We have got the work on streamlining building consenting and the new online consenting system.We have lifted our investment in apprenticeships. We have trebled the number of Welcome Home Loans. We have announced the expansion of the KiwiSaver first-home deposit subsidy scheme. We have got dozens of projects under way where the Government is directly facilitating new housing developments like at Hobsonville Rangers Park in ChristchurchTāmaki Papakura and Weymouth. This Government is directly building more houses than any Government in more than a generation. This bill is a critical part of that programme.I must put on record the incredibly shallow response from Labour members which shows that they have been far more interested in playing politics than helping Kiwi families secure an affordable home. They first described this bill as Draconian and going too far. Next minute they say it is tinkering and does not go far enough. They demanded urgent action then opposed urgency to get this bill progressed and filibustered at every opportunity to try to slow it down.They demanded that we secure agreement with the Auckland Council. In fact they put my picture up all over Auckland demanding that we get agreement. Then when we get agreement they oppose the accord and try to do everything to unravel the agreement. Then we have their housing spokesperson saying earlier in the year that it would be very useful for the Reserve Bank to put limits on low-deposit loans. Then when the Reserve Bank does that he attacks it and opposes the measure.During the Committee stage there was this poignant moment when Mr Twyford claimed that the bill had no specific mention of affordable housing. When challenged he admitted that he had not actually read the bill. It reminded me of that snapper moment with David Shearer. I suspect that Labour will soon have a new housing spokesperson along with its new leader.Even more worrying is the Opposition’s intellectual bankruptcy on the core issues affecting housing affordability. Mr Twyford is on record as saying in June that land supply is not the issue. He described the Productivity Commission’s report on housing as the work of dinosaurs. Even more concerning was the contribution from Labour’s environment spokesperson Maryan Street who during the Committee stage said that Labour opposed reform of the Resource Management Act and saw absolutely nothingwrong with it taking 3 years to get a consent for new residential development. That shows that Labour is part of the problem not part of the solution.Labour has repeatedly criticised this bill because it does not guarantee houses at a particular price for Kiwi families. It just shows the degree to which Labour is off in la-la land. Labour members somehow believe that all we need to do to get New Zealanders an affordable house is pass a bill through this House and say that such and such a price shall be the price of a home and it will magically happen. It is about as daft as the idea from two of the Labour Party leadership hopefuls who say that all we need to do to lift incomes in New Zealand is pass a bill through Parliament requiring a liveable wage of $18.40 an hour or their electricity policy that has the Government just setting the price and somehow that will work. It shows a complete ignorance of how a modern economy works.Our job is to make the market work for people and for our country. The truth is that there are dozens of landowners and builders ready and waiting to get on and build the houses New Zealand needs before we contemplate the Government building all the houses we need. We need to remove the barriers and let our Kiwi entrepreneurs and innovators get on with the job.There has been a power of work go into this bill. I want to acknowledge the team at the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment; the team at the Parliamentary Counsel Office; and Sam Lotu-Iiga particularly and the very competent and focused Government team on the Social Services Committee—all of whom worked under very tight time pressure to deliver this new law.The next step after the passage of this bill will be Auckland Council’s adoption of its housing accord next Tuesday and the notification of its unitary plan. This law will then take effect the following Monday. My ambition is to have sufficient special housing areas approved for at least an additional 5000 homes by Christmas. That is what it is all about—getting on and building the homes that Kiwi families need. I commend the bill to the House.