Adams Amy; Williams PotoHon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Thank you Madam Chair. I do want to take another call on this Part 1 of the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill to respond to some of the nonsense we've heard from across the aisle about the creation of this issue of the lack of housing supply. If you listen to the other side they would have you believe—not you Madam Chair of course; they would have this House believe—that the whole issue magically started in the last nine years. Well I want to inject a little bit of fact into this debate.If anybody wants to dispute this have a look at the Statistics New Zealand website. The Statistics New Zealand website is a bit inconvenient for the Government—they don't want to hear it—but let's look at the reality here. Housebuilding started to plummet in New Zealand in 2003 and fell to the lowest levels for many many decades in 2008 when we took office. In 2003 housebuilding plummeted—it's like a straight-line decline—down to the very lows of when we took office. If you look at that Statistics New Zealand graph—and the Government won't because actual information gets in the way of their ideology—it collapsed under the last Labour Government. It completely collapsed.Under the National Government that rate of housebuilding picked up from the cellar and went right back up strongly. It was the National Government that recovered housebuilding in this country and if it hadn't been for those lost years under Labour when they were asleep at the helm as they are now with the economy—they did nothing to address the complete collapse in housebuilding—we wouldn't have a shortage of housing now. National recovered the sector and frankly it is the work already of this Government to destroy the funding for house construction in this country that is once again creating a problem of insufficient houses being built. So look at the numbers. That's all I would say to this committee or anyone listening to the debate: look at the numbers from Statistics New Zealand.The collapse in housebuilding started under the last Labour Government. It was recovered strongly under the National Government and already we're seeing and hearing from developers that it is because of the changes in this bill that they now can't get financing for their developments. I was talking to developers just last week actually who said to me that they have been building hundreds of affordable properties in Auckland—New Zealand developers not some nasty foreigners. New Zealand developers but yes their financing comes from offshore. Because of this bill they have now lost funding for a number of developments they had planned. Now some of those developments are going to be rebadged as KiwiBuild and Phil Twyford will pretend that somehow he's adding to the pipeline—he is not. It is picking up a few of the lost developments because of this legislation. So not only did Labour break the housing market last time they were in Government not only have they completely failed to recognise how hard it has been to get that sector going again; they're straight in and doing it again.We've just heard from the last speaker that actually this is causing the pressures on the accommodation supplement. Well I'll tell you what doesn't help the pressures on the accommodation supplement: driving landlords out of the market head over tail. Landlords are saying Under this lot there is no reason we would own a property." Costs are going up rents are going up—that is all on New Zealanders and it's on the poorest New Zealanders. So it's not about looking after the top end of town. You make houses more expensive you make rents more expensive you stop the funding of developments and it is people on the lowest wages who miss out.So I couldn't sit here and listen to people in this debate saying that the need for this bill was because of the last nine years. There is no need for this bill first of all. There is no need for it. But let's be really clear: if there is a shortage of houses in Auckland at the moment—and there is and I acknowledge that—that is because they were absolutely derelict in their duty the last time they were in Government and they're showing already the same signs of a rampant and total disregard for any sort of economic analysis any understanding and any willingness to listen to advice to listen to the people who came to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Whether it's in housing whether it's in viticulture or whether it's in the profit à prendre space not once did they front up with any evidence that this will address the problem they're talking about.Everybody who came to the select committee as my colleagues have said made it clear they didn't want any part of it. They could sort of say to the Government "Oh well good on you—nice that you're trying but please carve us out because this will destroy us." Well this is exactly the sort of economic vandalism we are seeing from this Government: have a good bumper sticker virtue-signal something that sounds good in the polls and have total disregard for whether it works.CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I call the Hon Gerry Brownlee.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Sorry?CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I call you."