Webb DuncanDr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you Madam Speaker and it's a real pleasure. Well actually no it is with some disappointment that I rise after Mr O'Connor and his do nothing" speech—do nothing just like National did over the past nine years. Three hundred and thirty-eight houses; in the past two years Housing New Zealand has added 2026 and we will keep doing that because we think housing of all kinds—State-provided houses community providers of houses private sector houses—they are all important. And you know what? That's exactly what this bill this excellent bill led by an excellent Minister for Urban Development does. It says "We need absolutely to have an overview here and we need to …"—and this is the great thing about this bill; it's an enabling bill.I must say when the Environment Committee heard submissions the bill itself was almost universally supported. And so I'm very surprised—even when we had local bodies Infrastructure New Zealand all kinds of people supporting this bill—that we now have the National Party being the lone guy in the party sitting in the corner by itself no friends sitting there saying "No no no. Do nothing. Sit down. Let's not take action again." Look the Minister in his speech touched on community housing and I also want to just reaffirm how important community housing providers are and how this bill absolutely wants to engage with them wants to cooperate facilitate at every level. We had a number of housing providers. We had the Auckland Community Housing Providers' Network come in and they had some real concerns. I mean they identified the fact that there's 200000 working families out there who are struggling to pay rent let alone to own their own home. Again this is a bill that can and will address that in a whole lot of ways: by ensuring there's an appropriate supply by ensuring that there's an ability to embark on different ways to own a home—a rent-to-buy scheme or a shared-equity scheme. Also the Auckland Community Housing Providers' Network identified the fact that we needed to tap into the expertise of community housing providers and the fact that they were really well networked in their communities: with the community in general; with the faith community in many cases particularly those people like the Methodist Mission; and also hapū and iwi.So we can absolutely tap into that expertise when we're embarking upon these projects facilitating them or whatever the case might be. Of course the community housing trust there they also had a lot to say—really wanted to emphasise the need for partnerships the need for Government and community housing providers to be hand-in-hand along here and also again emphasised decision making at a community level. I'm very pleased that this bill as I'll hopefully get a chance to identify in particular does exactly that. One of my favourites submitters was the Māngere Housing Community Reference Group who came along and informed us that Māngere was in fact the appropriate capital of New Zealand—which I quite liked—but also again talked about the need for engagement with community housing and also just expressed some concerns that historically they've been tied down with bureaucracy. So bringing these entities together with a clear purpose is exactly what we want to do because it's time to take real action because this is a problem that's been here for a long time well over—for many many years throughout the last Government's term. So we're going to build a country that we can be proud of and we're starting here with the Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill. So if we do look at what happened to this bill; it came before us in good shape but we've taken it—we've very much listened. For example even the definition of "financial assistance" in clause 5(1)(a)—rather than just looking at it as a loan or an indemnity or insurance or underwriting the definition was expanded to include "shared equity shared ownership or rent to buy or option to buy" and that's not exhaustive. If people come up with other designs new and innovative ways to help people into homes—whether it be on a rental basis or on a part-ownership basis or any other basis—Kāinga Ora is equipped to provide that assistance including a grant or a loan or more traditional ways to do it. I want to talk about the membership of the board as well because that's important. And if we look at clause 10 of the bill we can see that that board will have a very broad base. Obviously we want people with infrastructure and urban development and technical housing expertise but equally we want people with knowledge of Te Ao Māori with community connections with perspectives of public housing with perspectives of being or assisting tenants in public and community housing because that's all part of understanding how these projects are best delivered. A number of submitters came to us—community submitters—and said "Well in some of these projects that Governments have embarked upon we felt left out of the process. We felt we were only taken into account at the last." Well here we have it that we've got an ability to have those people around the table at Kāinga Ora and making sure that they're absolutely included in the decision-making process. Then if we go to the functions—it is really the heart of the bill the functions of Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities. If you look at that clause 13(1)(f) is really important and that was substantially changed through the select committee process. Rather than just being initiating and undertaking urban development a small but really important word was put in there and that's to "facilitate" so that Government doesn't have to be the deliverer doesn't have to be the centrepiece. In fact they don't even have to be there when the project is embarked upon. They can simply be there in an overarching way helping people along perhaps simply by providing expertise perhaps by sending them to the appropriate people with expertise. Then the other word in that clause which is really important—a new word—to do that whether on its own account or in "partnership". And I think that's really important as well so that it's a new and express recognition that at the heart of this are going to be partnerships—partnerships with community housing providers or with other entities. Conceivably with the private sector as well because we know the private sector has an important role to play; we know that many homes are delivered into the market whether they be for rental or for purchase by private providers. It's really important to recognise as well that these relationships can be built with any entity whether it be the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church in my own electorate which is itself doing a very small project with 15 social houses on the lot at the back of the new church it's just built—the church is fine—or whether it be with a large corporation or indeed a community housing provider who has much expertise and a long history in the area. Of course we've got again the operating principles. So the functions are there we've got the operating principles and we look at it—and it's about time we said these out loud: the idea of providing good quality warm dry healthy rental housing. Not tenuous rental housing where you get thrown out at a moment's notice if there's a sniff of P on the walls. That's what we had under the last Government. Well here we have a stated legislative policy to sustain tenancies. We know for a fact that having somewhere to live for our most vulnerable for our most at risk and—look to be honest—for those people who cause us the most trouble in our communities having somewhere to live is the starting place. Only then can we really go and deliver all of those other services that they need to become meaningful engaged contributing members of society. So that's fantastic. Then there is clause 14(1)(c) working with community providers to support tenants and ensure those most in need are supported and housed because—in fact the Chief Human Rights Commissioner has said this very clearly—housing is a human right; and tenuous housing is not meeting up to the expectations that a nation like ours should have and indeed taking into account in terms of its operating principles its environmental cultural and heritage values. Also an important one is the environmental framework—taking into account the need to mitigate and adapt to the effect of climate change. This is a fantastic bill. This is a real sea change. We're turning around New Zealand after nine years of it going nowhere and falling away and I'm very proud to support this bill."