Robertson Grant; Mallard TrevorHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I want to congratulate Jan Logie the member who's just resumed her seat for standing up today and taking the opportunity to say who she's backing in a situation like this in housing. I want to recognise the issues that face disabled people in terms of accessibility and commit this Government again to working on them. Choosing what side you're on in a debate about housing is really important and yesterday the Opposition had an opportunity to stand alongside first-home buyers. They had an opportunity to stand alongside people who want to add to our housing stock to develop more housing to make sure more affordable housing is available and the National Party did not take that opportunity. They took the opportunity to stand alongside speculators. They took the opportunity to defend the rampant house price inflation that we have seen in New Zealand in the last few months. So when it comes to where people stand on housing in this House I am proud of this Government standing up for first-home buyers and standing up for renters. The housing issues that New Zealand faces are many decades in the making. Constantly around the country when we go and talk about these issues people understand that. They understand that there is no single silver bullet. What they're looking for is a Government that is prepared to take actions that will start to address this to make—Hon Dr Nick Smith: How's KiwiBuild going? Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I'll tell you what Dr Smith. I'll tell you what: I'll stand in this House on the record of this Government building affordable homes versus the shambles that you left us in because that's the truth Dr Smith—the shambles that you left us. Affordable homes were never on the agenda of the National Party but they are on the agenda of this side of the House. The core of the announcement yesterday was about both supply and demand and I want to talk a little bit about the importance of infrastructure in this. Local government across New Zealand has said their number one priority is making sure that there is build-ready land and making sure that actually when it comes time to do the developments they can be done because the pipes are there because the drains are there because the roads are there. What they didn't want was another fund from the National Party that was a loan that they couldn't take on because their debt servicing costs were already too high. What they wanted and what they've got from this Government is a $3.8 billion fund that'll unlock supply right across New Zealand—not just in our biggest cities either but right across New Zealand where we know land is available. More than that it's not just local government. This Government is committed to partnership with iwi and with Māori groups across New Zealand. They have told us There is land available. Help us with the infrastructure and we will build housing for our whānau." and that is what this announcement today will do. When we come to the Budget there will be further support for Māori housing initiatives because we know the partnerships are there to be made. But even more than that this is an initiative that at the same time as dampening down demand is opening opportunities for supply opening opportunities for new building and that's what the National Party opposed yesterday. We are clear: the brightline test extension does not apply if it's a new build; the interest deductibility rule changes do not apply if there are new builds. There are property developers saying this is the answer: this is the opportunity to shift that investment out of speculation and into building new homes. That's the difference here. It's a package that does manage to do two things at once: seek to make things easier for first-home buyers and at the same time see us add to stock. There were other elements of the package yesterday that I want to mention in particular around apprenticeships. This Government is extremely proud of the fact that since we brought in our trade training package on 1 July last year we have seen more than 100000 New Zealanders take up free trade training and free apprenticeships. Of those 58000 have been apprentices and of them a third have been in the construction industry. That is what a responsible Government does. Hon Gerry Brownlee: It's free trade.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Instead Mr Brownlee—the Government that he was part of coming out of the global financial crisis just let everybody go. They let the apprentices go. We're not going to stand for that. It's good for business and it's good for the young people who are training to be kept on. This is a Government that is going to partner in addressing a decades-long housing challenge. There is no silver bullet but the package we put forward yesterday is an important one for shifting the dial for first-home buyers for affordability and for increasing our supply. [Interruption]SPEAKER: Order! Before the member calls I am going to ask Mr Bennett not to make those animal noises again."