Mackey Moana: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMackey Moana: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10084. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MOANA MACKEY (Labour): There is a very simple reason why this bill the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill should be going to a select committee for longer than 2 months. It is that this issue is too important to get it wrong this issue is too important to risk making mistakes and this issue is so complex that 2 months simply is not long enough to actually give the legislation the proper consideration that it deserves.This is something that we have seen from this National Government time and time again—these truncated select committee processes. The Minister of Housing knows all too well what a dog’s breakfast that causes because he sat on the very truncatedEmissions Trading Scheme Committee for legislation that got 7 weeks at a select committee—a similar period of time. It was a complete waste of time. It was a waste of the officials’ time. It was a rubber-stamping exercise. That was clear from the outset. We were deliberating when we had not even received final advice from the officials on key issues and that is not to criticise the officials because they did everything that they could given the absolutely impossible hand that they were dealt by this National-led Government. So that is what happens when you have truncated select committee processes.I find it extraordinary that we are getting these truncated processes on pieces of legislation concerning issues that are so complex and so critically important like housing affordability or New Zealand’s emissions trading scheme. Arguably these are issues that require far more thought and far more information and far more consideration than some of the much simpler pieces of legislation that go to select committees for months on end. So I do not know why the National Government is insistent on ramming this through unless it does not want the scrutiny that a proper select committee process would deliver.The Hon Nick Smith said earlier that the Opposition did not like doing this because we are scared of hard work. It is actually the opposite Dr Smith. No work goes into these bills when they go to a select committee for 7 or 8 weeks. You know that as well as I do because Dr Smith was a member on a committee that had that process. So—Hon Anne Tolley: Of course it does—we work hard. What a lazy member of Parliament!MOANA MACKEY: Anne Tolley says that it is about being lazy. We actually want to do proper work on this bill. We want to have a process that really allows proper scrutiny and consideration. We want to work hard on this piece of legislation; it is the Government that is preventing that from happening by having a process that by its very nature is going to make it far more difficult for people to submit; far more difficult for key stakeholders to submit; far more difficult for the officials to provide an in-depth departmental report; far more difficult for the members on that select committee the Social Services Committee to then challenge aspects of that support to then ask for further information and to then deal with issues that may arise during that process; far more difficult for officials to get the drafting done properly—and the drafting as we all know is key—and far more difficult for members on that select committee to be able to scrutinise that drafting and to make sure that what was being agreed to in terms of what is being put in place is actually what ends up in the drafting. That is the very important work that select committees do and if National members do not value that work then they should just come out and say so. If they do value it then there is absolutely no reason why there should be a 2-month deadline for the select committee.Across the country—and outside Auckland in particular—key stakeholders have not been talked to about this. They have not had time to consider what it means for them and that is critical because although Auckland has its unitary plan and has been talking to the Government this legislation is going to apply across the board. The issues for different councils are going to vary greatly. We need to make sure that we have taken the time to talk to Local Government New Zealand and to talk to the various councils which are now going to have to hurriedly rush and push something together to get it to the select committee. I mean the bill is just the bare bones. We do not really know what it is going to mean for those other councils. We could have the opportunity to actually do that work if we had the bill at the select committee for longer than 8 weeks.The reality is that the Government does not want that work done. It is doing this because after 5 years it is desperate to look as though it is actually doing something about housing. The only reason we are actually passing this legislation is that it wasspooked by Labour’s housing announcement last year because finally the public saw that there was a choice between having a Government that would do something about housing and housing affordability and that would take it seriously and the current Government which in 5 years has done absolutely nothing except repeal every single piece of legislation we had put in place.What a good select committee process would give us the opportunity to do would be to consider what are going to be the likely implications for the various councils because housing affordability is not just as simple as looking at the cost of a house. You actually have to look at the relative income of the places where people are purchasing their houses as well. So something that might seem affordable to people on an income in Auckland—on the North Shore perhaps where Maggie Barry comes from. She has been very vocal in this debate with—Maggie Barry: What’s wrong with the North Shore? You’re knocking the North Shore are you?MOANA MACKEY: No I was not. I was just mentioning that you were from the North Shore Ms Barry. That was all—that was all. Slightly sensitive—just calm down take a few deep breaths. I did not realise that telling people you were from the North Shore was such an insult and that you were so ashamed of it. Now that I know I will never mention it again—never mention it again. You are not from the North Shore. She is not from the North Shore. I withdraw and apologise—I withdraw and apologise.But the issue that I was trying to raise before Ms Barry did what she does was that the average income on the North Shore and the average price of housing is going to be very different from what it is in Gisborne and a house that looks affordable to someone who as you said is looking at the Auckland housing market might not be—Tim Macindoe: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I raise the same point of order again. The member is now straying well away from the point of this particular question and I ask you to bring her back to the question or to resume her seat.MOANA MACKEY: No I was not. I was saying why we needed the process.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Well can I just say to members that the debate really is on the point that the committee report by an early date and that the House is giving certain powers for the committee to meet. That is the narrow focus of the debate.Hon Phil Heatley: That’s right.MOANA MACKEY: That is the most sensible thing Phil Heatley has said all night. The point that I was making was of course that 2 months is simply not long enough to consider—Tim Macindoe: You were talking about the North Shore and who lived there.MOANA MACKEY: I was responding to Ms Barry’s interjections just as I am responding to yours now. So if you want me to get back to the substance of the thing I suggest you just zip the lips and then I will do that.So the point that I was making was 2 months on an issue this complicated is simply not long enough. It is simply not long enough on an issue that is this complicated. So I ask the Government what it is afraid of. What is it afraid might come up at the select committee that it needs to truncate the process and not have the adequate time to consider these things? I remember when we were in Government and we had similar issues come up we often had longer time periods. We had inquiries into these kinds of issues. We allowed select committees to do the work that they do. Select committees should be allowed to do the work that they do and when they are given such ridiculously short time frames they simply are not able to do it.My concern is that the truncated time line could actually result not just in legislation that actually does not do anything which is a risk with this piece of legislation but wecould end up with legislation that actually does damage because it is not carefully thought through. Rushed law is bad law. Rushed lawmaking is bad lawmaking. If the Government really wants to take this issue seriously—Hon Phil Heatley: Why do you hate North Shore people?MOANA MACKEY: I know it is all a joke to Phil Heatley—all a big laugh you know. He is all right he has done OK so why should we make sure that the rest of people in New Zealand can have access to affordable housing—[Interruption] What? You have got four houses? Yeah I do not know why you told me that but anyway—that was really random.Anyway the point is that there is a danger that we actually make bad mistakes when we rush lawmaking and that we actually end up with unintended consequences which would not occur if we simply allowed—we are not asking for more time than a select committee normally gets—for the proper course of a select committee consideration to take place. There is a reason why there is a generally understood time frame for select committees. It is because that is what practice and experience have told us is the time it takes for officials to do the work that they need to do; for submitters to be able to find out about the legislation put that work together and send it to a select committee; and for members to actually be able to read the submissions that come in—National Party members might not read the submissions that come to select committees but members on this side of the House do—and then for the officials to go away and do that work; and for the committee to deliberate. That is what they do and over a period of years we have come to an understanding in this House about how long that process generally is.Sometimes we have been happy to support the Government where we have seen that there is a real reason and a cause for a short time frame for the select committee and sometimes there are very real and legitimate reasons why that needs to happen. Where there are legitimate reasons we are always happy to assist the Government in that matter. There is no legitimate reason for such a truncated time frame with this piece of legislation. If we are going to do it let us do it right and let us make sure it is done right. The reality is the Government does not care about doing it right; it just cares about looking like it is doing something.