Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I won't do as good of a job of speaking on this piece of legislation as our Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter would but filling her massive boots this evening I'd like to state upfront—just because the Hon Scott Simpson asked us to be upfront about our position—the Greens do support this legislation. This legislation the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Bill—as I think was quite well articulated by the Hon Scott Simpson the problem; but I don't know if he'd necessarily agree on the solution—speaks to the failing or the failings rather of our currently very centralised model of governance and of resourcing of projects. Primarily what we've seen—the problem that I'm speaking to is over the past several decades and the past decade in particular—is an expansion of the mandate of local government the amount of things that they are blamed for and expected to do but no requisite expansion of the resources available to them which means that frequently there is a reliance—or an overreliance arguably as was put forward by the Hon Scott Simpson—on rates. I would argue that there is somewhat consensus on the kaupapa on the Government benches. I've been pushing the Minister of Local Government the Hon Nanaia Mahuta on continuing to expand and change those models of revenue available to our local governments. But to the purpose of this legislation—as has been well articulated by a number of members across both sides of the House and it would appear that everybody is in agreement on it—basically it enables a special purpose vehicle or an SPV which will be set up for each project. It's responsible for raising the necessary finance and in most cases also constructing that infrastructure. For those who happen to find themselves tuning into Parliament TV—best show on TV—just to let those folks know something which I think is critically important and in listening to the debate so far I'm not sure has been raised which is it's worth noting that this infrastructure funded by these SPVs will always end up back in local council ownership under this model meaning of course that the infrastructure that is built—which you know the community needs and wants—will remain in the community's ownership fundamentally.There's been a lot of talk of housing throughout this discussion of this infrastructure legislation this evening. Infrastructure is of course recognised as critical potentially for different reasons and from different perspectives across political parties. Housing is of course important. I was finding it fascinating listening to the contribution of the new shadow Leader of the House Chris Bishop and his statements that everything is connected as far as housing goes because funnily enough that's frequently a turn of phrase that you will actually hear from the Green Party talking about how everything is connected—whether it's in terms of policy the economy housing the environment or otherwise. I found it fascinating that he spoke to the fact that housing and infrastructure and our communities are connected. But he didn't quite connect the dots back to the issue of inequality which in his contribution Fletcher Tabuteau did.Chris Bishop also spoke to the issues only of supply in the housing market and didn't quite hit the nail on the head with regard to the issues around demand which actually we have an opportunity to recognise in this House. The issues around demand are largely driven by the systemic settings that we put in place which enable the seeing of housing as commodities. Housing isn't stocks. People do need to live in housing and there currently is a disproportionate taxation on working income as opposed to capital.But all of that aside recognising the inextricable links between our housing stock and the infrastructure that is critical to supporting it and to supporting flourishing communities particularly where there is increasing intensification and the need for density done well the Greens support this bill for its facilitation of the development of that necessary infrastructure. There has been a whole lot done in this past term of Parliament but there is as I think everybody in this place recognises still a whole lot more to do. The Greens support this bill.