Woodhouse Michael; Twyford Phil; Borrows Chester; Hipkins ChrisHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I seek your ruling under Standing Order 302(2) about the admissibility of proposed Part 8 in Mr Twyford's name. Before the dinner adjournment I raised this point on amendments amending the Income Tax Act the Overseas Investment Act and the Resource Management Act and it was declined on the basis that however oblique those amendments did relate to the issue of housing affordability. However having read this amendment the amendment itself however noble does not relate to that and the purposes of the bill we are debating—it relates to income-related rent the issues of homelessness and the issues of emergency housing. Nothing in there has anything to do with the primary purpose of the bill which is related to affordable housing and I seek your ruling that it is out of order.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I think it is not enough for a bill to just say This bill seeks an increase in the supply of affordable housing."; I think it is reasonable that we should apply some critical faculties to this. I would argue that it is almost self-evident that the provision of affordable rental housing through an organised programme like State or social housing is about supplying a significant part of our community with just that—affordable housing. It is so close to the declared aim of Parts 1 and 2 of the main bill that I would have thought it stands.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration): Speaking to that and accepting the point Mr Twyford makes the Standing Orders are very clear that where there is a single bill being amended the scope to introduce new amendments—even by the Minister or the Government—is extremely narrow. The reason we are able to have debates of this nature is that this is an omnibus bill and as a consequence a much broader discussion about the issue at hand. But in this case the issue at hand is not about income-related rents or homelessness; it is about housing affordability. It is on that point that I seek the matter to be ruled out.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): Indeed the scope for considering additional parts to this bill is confined to the subject of affordable housing and I would just reiterate that providing affordable housing in the form of State or social housing or emergency housing for people who are most acutely in need is directly synonymous with the supply of affordable housing. There is nothing in the description of the earlier parts that says it is exclusively about affordable housing for homeownership. It is about affordable housing.Su'a William Sio: Mr Chairman.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Su'a William Sio—is it a point of order?Su'a William Sio: No I am going to—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Well give us a chance to have a think about it will you?Denis O'Rourke: Mr Chair.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Is it a point of order?DENIS O'ROURKE (NZ First): It is just speaking to the point of order. I would like to make very strongly the point that the term "affordable housing" does include rental housing and does include social housing and the two things are actually directly interrelated—people who cannot afford to buy houses do actually have to rent houses and the problem is that some of them cannot even do that. So this matter has to be looked at considerably wider than the Minister has indicated. It is not as narrow as he tried to persuade you Mr Chairman. Affordability is a very broad subject and we were assured when I raised a point of order at the very beginning of this debate that this would be a wide-ranging debate. It would not have to be very wide if you were to include affordability of housing whether it be rental or house purchases as part of the consideration of this bill.CHRIS HIPKINS (Senior Whip—Labour): Speaking to that I may be able to be of some assistance in that these issues were in fact canvassed and the Speaker did give a ruling indicating the breadth of the debate. One of the issues that this bill deals with is the disposal of State housing land so therefore it does actually open up the scope of debate around affordable rental housing and State housing—or what the Government now calls social housing.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): I am prepared to rule on this matter now. There are a number of matters within the amendment. There are some matters in it that I do not think fit within the scope—for instance the plan to end homelessness. But I do note that in the explanatory note on page 2 it says that "The purpose of the bill is to support the wider Government programme of work to increase the supply and affordability of housing"—not referring to homeownership—"and to maintain the momentum of strong growth in new home construction." New home construction in the view of the Chair includes rental accommodation. I do not believe—and I want to restate this for the purpose of Minister Woodhouse who has taken this point of order—that anything that relates to a house or a rent or a condition such as homelessness or a situation that people find themselves in will fall within the scope of this bill but I am convinced that the current amendment is narrowly within scope."