Twyford PhilKĀINGA ORA—HOMES AND COMMUNITIES BILLSecond ReadingHon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister for Urban Development): Thank you Mr Speaker. I move That the Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill be now read a second time. Kāinga Ora reflects a new approach to housing and urban development and it reflects our Government's commitment to take a hands-on approach to tackling homelessness and unaffordable housing. I want to take this opportunity to thank the Environment Committee for its work on the bill and acknowledge their quick work. I also want to thank members of the public who made written and oral submissions on the bill. The committee received 94 submissions and those submitters represented groups and individuals with an interest in housing and urban development in local government Māori and iwi organisations industry groups community housing providers and district health boards and advocacy groups for housing health and disabled people.Of those who expressed a clear position on the bill two-thirds of submitters supported the bill's direction. Some raised concerns about how the bill's provisions will operate in practice and I'm pleased to see that the committee has taken these issues on board and made several useful changes to the bill. Before I highlight some of those key changes that the committee's made I want to reflect on a few of our Government's commitments in this area. Public and affordable housing are at the heart of our agenda. They are places where generations of young families can get a start in life and put down roots in their community and that's the way it's been in this country for a long time and we want it to continue. In this bill we are strengthening that promise. We believe that Government should be an enabler of urban development partnering with the private sector with local government and iwi and investors and developers to build vibrant communities.Rather than crowding out or replacing the private sector my message to developers is that we want you to grow we want you to build more. We understand the constraints on you right now and we want to work together to find solutions. We want to implement good urban design and develop well-connected communities with great transport connections vibrant town centres and the infrastructure and amenities that strong communities need. Mana whenua are at the heart of these developments as landowners investors developers builders housing providers and partners. The first key change the committee's made to the bill is to emphasise the importance of partnership in Kāinga Ora's functions.This change reinforces that Kāinga Ora will need to work in genuine partnership with others to achieve its goals and there was concern as I said from some submitters that Kāinga Ora would crowd out the private sector. The intention is the contrary. The fact is that second-generation growth in our cities urban development projects and brownfield and greenfield sites are often too complex for the private sector to do on their own. They require a lot of work on amalgamation of title and on the provision of network infrastructure and dealing with parks and reserves and transport networks and often that creates too much risk and uncertainty for the private sector to do on its own. The intention is for Kāinga Ora to enable and complement rather than compete with the private sector and it's set up so that it can be a joint venture vehicle for Government to work alongside large developers iwi and local government so that they can benefit from the streamlined powers that will follow in the second bill while making sure that those powers are exercised appropriately and in an accountable way. Kāinga Ora will obviously need to flexible and outwardly focused and I reiterate to the private sector organisations who submitted on this bill that we want to help you grow and do more. I want to comment on the operating principles contained in the bill. Some submitters were particularly interested and although there was a high degree of support for the principles some expressed concern that their effect was ambiguous. The committee's helpful changes clarify that the operating principles are a matter for the board to embed in the new organisation and that the board is accountable to the responsible Minister for doing so. Submitters were keen to see the operating principles encompass the importance of community engagement. Capturing local views and aspirations early in a project and ensuring that those concerns are heard and addressed will be essential and to address these concerns a new operating principle has been added that requires Kāinga Ora to carry out early and meaningful engagement with communities that may be affected by proposed development projects. The committee has also expanded the scope of the focus on climate change in the operating principles by requiring Kāinga Ora to consider climate change adaptation in addition to mitigation. I turn now to the provisions on the Government policy statement (GPS) in the bill. Anyone listening to this debate who follows transport policy will know that the transport sector is guided by a three-yearly Government policy statement. It's a statutory policy instrument that requires the Government of the day to set out a direction of its policy for the transport system its values and its strategies and actions and how it will work with others and it provides high-level policy direction for the entire transport system including local government. We've decided that's such a useful instrument we've incorporated it in this bill so that Kāinga Ora will be required to set out a Government policy statement on housing and urban development with the overall goal of providing direction and alignment amongst all the players: the community the private sector local government and of course the many agencies of central government. The GPS will be an important tool for setting expectations and highlighting priorities for the housing and urban development sector as a whole and I'm gratified to see that submitters overwhelmingly supported its introduction. The committee has made a number of changes to the GPS provisions in the bill in response to submissions. These include adding a purpose clause to clarify the intent of the Government policy statement and a requirement that it should take a multi-decade outlook. Shorter-term priorities will be included but these will need to be tied to a long-term vision for the sector. The committee also added a requirement that the Government policy statement outline how the Government expects Kāinga Ora to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaption. This reflects the need for clear direction to the agency on such a crucial issue. The final change to the GPS provisions is to extend the deadline for the first GPS by a year so that it must now be issued within two years of Kāinga Ora being established. I think that is a helpful and practical suggestion so that we ensure that the first Government policy statement produced by Kāinga Ora is sufficiently substantial in order to set the benchmark for the instrument. Overall the changes recommended by the committee improve the bill and support its aims. I want to conclude by reiterating my thanks to members of the committee and to submitters for their contribution to the Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill. The bill is stronger for their work. I also want to add a few comments about why the Government is establishing Kāinga Ora–Homes and Communities. It's our view that we can achieve more faster by maximising scale and integrating the full Government build programme and this bill will enable us to consolidate our development efforts. Be they State housing other public housing KiwiBuild or market homes we are bringing together the development capacity that currently exists within HLC—the people that brought us Hobsonville Point—the KiwiBuild procurement programme and Housing New Zealand's extremely successful development operation. This will reduce complexity and simplify processes for builders and improve coordination across the programme. It almost beggars belief but those three Government development entities have at times been essentially competing with each other in the development market and that is not in the interests of the Government build programme. Kāinga Ora will also help with the Government move to long-term agreements with builders where we contract a large number of homes a year across the full Government build programme and members of this House will be well aware that the Government build programme is currently responsible for more homes being built by Government agencies than at any time since the mid-1970s. That is only going to increase. It will also help the Government to move to long-term agreements with builders where we contract a large number of homes a year across the full Government build programme giving builders the certainty and the scale to reduce cost and improve productivity. On this basis I commend this bill to the House.