Banks John: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBanks John: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 05 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13338. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon JOHN BANKS (Leader—ACT): I was listening carefully to the co-leader of the Green Party Metiria Turei and I was shocked to recall in my mind the Committee stage of this Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill when her colleague Holly Walker simply denied that there was a link between the supply of land and theprice of homes. It is a sad reminder to us that the Greens simply choose to deny basic economics.As I said earlier the time for debating the problem is over—it was over a long time ago—and today we have an opportunity. I am reminded of the advice that Keith Holyoake gave us all of those years ago as young members of Parliament. He said that for every bill that comes into the House there will be 80 percent of the stuff that you will agree with and 20 percent that you will not but he said that if you are part of the team promoting it you go with the 80 percent because that is way it works.I was surprised this afternoon that the Labour Party which looks after the poor and the dispossessed and the low-paid workers and those striving to make ends meet and to get a better life would deny those people the opportunity through this bill to own their first home as a first step even if it does not agree with 100 percent of young Nick Smith’s bill but agrees with only 80 percent of it. Listening to the speeches today there is a lot that those members do agree with and not much that they disagree with but they are not going to support it and they are not going to vote for it. That is not the way that this Parliament should work in the best interests of people struggling to buy their first home.So the ACT Party and the people of Epsom are pleased that the National Government is doing at least something to address the issues because what the Opposition parties are suggesting is simply not workable. Labour wants to tax New Zealanders more through bringing in a capital gains tax that cannot work. It has a xenophobic attitude towards foreign ownership because presumably the foreign owners—the 3.7 percent who bought homes in Auckland last year—are going to take them out on the Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong tonight. Then the next proposition is that the Labour Party is going to build 100000 new homes over the next 10 years—10000 homes a year. In the last 12 months 1300 new homes were built in Auckland. It is not going to happen.This bill is a way forward. This is a mandate to get some progress. During the period 2001-07 house prices nearly doubled and wages did not increase by more than 20 percent. With prices still rising too many young people are struggling to purchase new homes. I was disappointed to learn in the House today that the five big foreign-owned banks lending into the housing market in New Zealand are putting a premium interest rate—a penalty if you like—on those new home buyers and low-income families who are struggling to get into their first homes with their mortgages because they are stretched beyond the loan-to-value ratios that suit the bank. That is disappointing. If this Parliament can do something in the interests of getting people into their own home and building more houses in a property-owning democracy then I think that the rich and powerful foreign-owned banks should pull their weight.The Productivity Commission has concluded that there simply is not enough land that is free to build on and as a result there aren’t enough houses. In Auckland the price of a section is on average 60 percent of the price of a home. This is extremely high by international standards.My diagnosis of the problem is complete. We now know the problem. I think all sides of this Parliament agree on the problem. It is a land supply problem. It is a demand problem. There is not enough land within the urban metropolitan limits of our big cities like Auckland and Christchurch to allow the building of new homes for new home buyers and there is not enough land supply because there is not enough actual land. That is why there is a land supply problem.New Zealand is one of the least densely populated nations in the world with only 3 percent taken up by residential development. So why are people not building on the spare land? The issue is that we are not allowed to build on most of it. The Government through the Resource Management Act—and I was here in Parliament in 1991 at aquarter to 11 one night when within 7 minutes we passed unanimously in this House the Resource Management Act. It has been the greatest handbrake on investment growth and jobs that this country has ever seen. This Government under Amy Adams is doing something about it. We are trying to address it. There is a long way to go but the Resource Management Act and the bureaucratic interpretation by individual local authorities has been very bad in the interests of supplying more land to build more houses. It is great to see that we are making some progress.The metropolitan urban limit that I talked about is the worst offender. Land 2 kilometres inside the metropolitan urban limit is 8.65 times more expensive than land 2 kilometres outside it. That is staggering. The Housing Accords Bill and Special Housing Areas Bill is a lukewarm response to this but the ACT Party and the people of Epsom want me to support this in the House today because it is a major step in the right direction. I could throw out the toys from the cot but I have decided that on balance the progress is such that it deserves the attention of this House today. It deserves to be put on the statute book so that we can get more people into homes in a property-owning democracy. So I am supporting this bill.The bill itself says that these special housing zones will be established in areas that are already having a housing affordability problem. That amounts to waiting for the problem to occur and then rushing in to provide some short-term relief.The ACT Party supports significant reform to the Resource Management Act. The ACT Party supports freedom to build. The ACT Party supports the freedom to build a new housing development when there is demand from the community for more homes. The people of Epsom support a less hands-on approach by territorial local authorities and some time constraints around the bureaucratic process of resource consent. This bill addresses that. We need to let the market operate as freely as possible so new houses will get built in response to demand. New Zealanders want affordable homes and developers want to build affordable homes yet unnecessary regulation is stopping simple demand and supply from working.The ACT Party is committed to real reform around the Resource Management Act and will have plenty to say about that as this Parliament rolls on. But we are pleased that the Minister and the National Government are doing at least something to address the issues through this legislation because what the Opposition parties are suggesting is laughable. It is time for real action not just a few special housing areas in places where we have a real crisis on our hands. New Zealanders who work hard deserve to be able to save and buy their own home. We must restore the freedom to build. The people of Epsom and the ACT Party support this legislation.