Woods MeganHon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): I'm happy to rise to take a call on this—thank you Madam Speaker—and indicate Labour will be supporting this bill to the select committee. This is of course a category of work build-to-rent that I think we've seen is an evolving category in New Zealand over the last few years. Indeed our Government brought legislation to the House in 2023 just over a year ago where we really started to define the category of what build-to-rent was. We did that by using a lever to encourage more build-to-rent and I think we share that with the Government—the desire to see an increased build-to-rent. The lever that we used back in March 2023 was of course applying in perpetuity interest deductibility to newly built build-to-rent developments.But there was a quid pro quo for that. As we were giving a privileged position to build-to-rent we were in the process of defining a category. In that category there had to be some benefits that accrued not only to the owners of these assets which are an important part of how we solve our housing crisis by increasing supply but it offered a different way of renting; that these are dwellings that are built with the idea that we start to develop a rental market such as we see in overseas jurisdictions where people enter into far longer-term leases and make their lives in a rental home. Some people—and many of these that we're already seeing being built quite upscale homes—are seeing making their home in a rental property as a permanent way of life; it's not a stage of life that they pass through.So one of the things that we did is we put a definition around what build-to-rent was. We said there had to be 20 or more dwellings in a single development on a single block or adjacent blocks held in one or more titles. So it is about getting scale and that was a critical component of what we wanted to do. They needed to be owned by the same person and that person included a legal entity like a company. Each dwelling had to be prepared for use available or occupied under the Residential Tenancy Act. But the difference from the standard provisions of the Residential Tenancy Act was there was an option of a 10-year term for tenants with the ability for the tenant to give 56 days' notice of termination. What we were doing was creating a far longer-term framework for tenants who were entering into these arrangements.We also said that every tenant agreement included a personalisation policy—that these were people that were entering into long-term rentals they may want to paint a room a particular colour they might want to make some changes. These are people making their lives in these dwellings and the legislative framework that provided for that needed to reflect that.So when this bill comes to select committee—my reading of the legislation is it's a very small piece of legislation that we have before us; it only makes a very particular change. But one of the things that we will be ensuring at select committee and asking questions about is that those different provisions for tenants are perpetuated with any changes that are made through the legislation that will be going.One of the other changes that we will be wanting to look at is the onsell. This is about liquidity in this market. I accept that. While we received advice while in Government that the Overseas Investment Act was sufficient and there didn't need to be more we always said we were open to changes to the legislation if it was required. But one of the things that I will be wanting to seek assurance of at select committee is around the provision that at least 20 of the dwellings will be made available for lease to occupiers within a satisfactory time frame. I'm perplexed as to why 20. We have some developments that are as large as 295 individual dwellings in a build-to-rent development. This is fewer than 10 percent at that level. Why 20? I don't know that 20 in a development as large a scale as 295 is sufficient to say that we are onselling the same asset class.So these are the kinds of questions that we will be asking at select committee but Labour is more than happy to support it to select committee and have that conversation.