Twyford PhilPHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I want to thank the Minister for allowing us to have this debate. It is the best debate on housing that I can remember in 8 years in this House. I think it has been very illuminating actually because in this Housing Legislation Amendment Bill debate there are two contrasting approaches.The first is one very narrow policy approach based on the idea of drawing some lines on a map and declaring these to be fast-tracked consenting zones. That in essence is the Minister's special housing areas policy. That has been the main solution that he has offered up to a housing crisis that now grips the country and has given us the most unaffordable housing in the world. It is based on the idea that the problem the cause of the housing crisis is slow consenting by councils and I think that if it is not clear to you by now that that is not in fact the root cause of the housing crisis then you—and I do not mean you Mr Chairman—have not been paying attention. If the slow rate of council consenting was the cause of the housing crisis then the special housing areas would have made a much bigger difference in the 3 years since the Minister unveiled that policy.In the debate we have had this afternoon Nick Smith's special housing areas have been contrasted with a broad and deep reform agenda backed by the Opposition parties in this House who will form the next Government.We proposed to this Committee the building of 100000 affordable homes for first-home buyers and National voted against that. National and ACT voted against that. We proposed taxing speculators and National voted against that. We proposed banning non-resident foreign buyers from buying existing houses. National voted against that. We proposed a bold and radical new approach to managing urban growth to reduce the cost of urban land and produce more competitive urban land markets that would lower the cost of housing and National voted against that. We proposed to change the law to stop the Government from using our public housing organisation as a cash cow in the way that is has—withdrawing half a billion dollars out of Housing New Zealand in the middle of a housing crisis—and National voted against that. We proposed to this Committee a comprehensive approach to strengthening the system of emergency housing because on this side of the Chamber we believe it is totally unacceptable for kids in this country to be growing up in cars and caravan parks but National and its subsidiary brand Act have voted against every single one of those proposals.But the reason that Nick Smith brought us here in the last 36 hours to debate this bill is that he wants to roll over his special housing areas. A measure that he described 3 years ago as an interim measure—he has asked us to roll that over for another 3 years. We agreed to that because we did not want to inconvenience the eight developers who otherwise would suffer because of Nick Smith's incompetence because he failed to anticipate the transition issues associated with the demise of the special housing areas.So there are two very contrasting approaches to dealing with this housing crisis. I want to argue that the broad systemic approach that is embodied in the range of housing reform proposals that we have debated here this afternoon is appropriate. It is appropriate because the housing market is a system. It is an economic system that involves the Government councils landowners developers builders homeowners and renters. It is a complex system that lies at the heart of the well-being of our people our families our communities and our economic prosperity as a nation but it is broken. It requires a deep systemic approach to fix it and it is only the policies of the parties on this side of the Chamber that offer that. People have a deep basic need for shelter—for good-quality affordable and accessible housing. They are not getting that under this Minister for Building and Housing and this National Government. It is time for a change.