Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Mr Speaker. Well it is great to speak on this Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. As the previous speaker Tangi Utikere said it is great to see a bipartisan approach on this very important development. I look back to what happened in Christchurch after the earthquake where the land was freed up where bureaucracy got out of the road—it actually kept house prices down for many years. In fact house prices in Christchurch have only really started to accelerate faster than the rest of the country now and they're a long way behind as a result of that period or respite put in place by the National Government at the time. I think that we have to remember these things very clearly because we should remember the lessons from the past and I'm sure this will be a great example for the future as well of working together to get those roadblocks out of the road.I had the pleasure of having Nicola Willis in my electorate a little while ago and we visited not only the council and their resource consent team but also had a meeting with some developers and some builders and it was very informative. We got a good feeling for what the councils were expecting and where they saw the roadblocks and then we actually got the real oil if you like from the people on the ground who are having to deal with these things day in and day out. I can tell you that yes infrastructure is really important—absolutely it's important and I'm not belittling that at all—but the issue with resource consents and developments in subdividing and greenfields developments is not only the cost of that to the councils it's the costs to the developers of all the uncertainty. They have no idea often of how long it's going to take.You might be a very experienced—not you of course Mr Speaker. But for those very experienced developers who have had many developments they still have no idea how long it's going to take to get through the resource consent process. That has a huge impact on their ability to trade if you like. They have to ensure that they have enough capital to be able to weather that period and come out the other side with a development and with still enough capital to get that development under way. This will actually help this process immensely. In my own town—and while it's not a tier 1 council I know that in Blenheim there are a huge number of sections so called available. When you look at that that's a whole lot of houses that have got potential for subdivision where those owners may or may not want to subdivide their properties. But when we talk to the developers they say Well you'd have rocks in your head if you wanted to subdivide your property unless you had good assurance that the process would go very smoothly." Often it doesn't and we end up with people coming out the other side costing them money to subdivide their property for a section on the back of the property.The beauty of the ability to do this is that it frees up more homes and potentially smaller places for first-home buyers to get a foot on to the property ladder but it also unlocks capital for those people that own those properties that are subdividing. This is obviously a huge generalisation but more than likely the people that are subdividing will be later on in their lives—when they've built up their capital paid their mortgage and they're looking to free up a bit of capital—and the buyer is more likely to be a younger person at the beginning of their establishment of their home and their family life. We are therefore making an opportunity for both of those parties to go forward. If we end up with three-storey buildings on some of those fantastic. I note David Seymour's comments before and I thought "This is the champion of the free market calling for some regulation." I thought that was a bit ironic and fortunately we're not asking him a question or that wouldn't be allowed.But look in closing this is a great move. It's a great day for young people in New Zealand looking to get on to the property ladder. It's also a great day for those people who are not so young and wanting to free up some of their capital for the greater enjoyment of their lives and I think this is a win-win all round.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order. The member's time has expired."