Williams PotoHon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister for Building and Construction): Thank you Mr Speaker. Today I want to talk about the dream of homeownership. I know that there are some in this House—probably a few in this House—who have their own home but there are plenty of New Zealanders for whom yesterday's announcement is a game-changer. We know the value of homeownership in terms of the financially advantageous benefit it brings to the family and how it builds communities. When you have your own home you put down roots you make social connections your kids go to the local school—they build connections. You build friends and friendships and people that will help you when times are tough—people that will do things for you.In my own neighbourhood Barry and Isabel next door to me they get their paper delivered every morning. It's dropped off somewhere on their driveway and on my run in the morning I pick it up and I drop it at their front door. And for me they put my rubbish bins away when I'm at Parliament. You do things for each other. You build communities. You build strength. That's what the fabric of society is about. That comes from homeownership and it comes from the aspiration that we have for everyone to have that opportunity and yesterday this Government made it easier for first-home buyers.There was a raft of things that happened. Firstly we dealt with how do we incentivise the build of houses because one of the biggest issues that we faced was the lack of supply. A lot of properties were turning over but we need to build more in order to deal with the demand that people have for homeownership. But at the same time the other factor that has been really problematic is the cost. And that cost has been driven up by people who are investors in the market who speculate on the market who make an income from the market who do things like take interest-free loans who take things like increasing the value to make a capital gain and that's how they make their money. Now you know on the face of it some of the market kind of specialists in this House would say that's not a bad thing. But when it actually goes to the heart of the aspirations of those who want to own their home then you have to intervene. I have to say: what does this mean for Pacific? For Pacific it's more than a game-changer; it provides an opportunity to do what we haven't been able to do in generations and that is increase our levels of homeownership. We've got the lowest homeownership rates that we've had in 70 years and at the bottom of that list are Pacific people for whom the ability to build communities to build social connections—it impacts them exponentially to other population groups in Aotearoa New Zealand. What will that do for Pacific people—the ability to own their home?Now the Ministers today who've spoken about this in the general debate have missed some of the factors that are also really important to Pacific people—the fact that we are now looking at things that will allow us as Pacific people to do things in a different way to purchase homes as a whānau as a family as a aiga rather than as a couple. The work that Minister Woods our lead Minister in this space has been doing has been extraordinary.But there is a whole lot of other benefits that come to our people because of this and one of them is the ability to be the rebuilders of our communities through the apprenticeship scheme. How many people have we heard have taken that up and how many in construction alone? Twenty-six thousand. I have to say quite a few of them are women but we know a lot of them are Pacific people—Pacific people who may have been working in construction who have now taken the opportunity to learn how to be a tradesperson. So not only have we provided this game-changer in terms of homeownership opportunities for Pacific but we've also given them the basis on which to become the masters of their own destiny. I'm enormously proud of the game-changing policy that this Government has put in place. Tēnā koe Mr Speaker.