Doocey Matt: Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill Riccarton Racecourse Bill — Second ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDoocey Matt: Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill Riccarton Racecourse Bill — Second Readings[Sitting date: 01 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11604. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): It is an honour and a pleasure to rise in full support of the second reading of the Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill and the Riccarton Racecourse Bill. I must say as a proud born-and-bred Cantabrian I do enjoy getting up and being able to speak very passionately about a fantastic region and a fantastic city. I must say that for most people who grew up in Christchurch or in Canterbury the Riccarton Racecourse is dear to our hearts. We all spent many a good time at the racecourse and I must say if that racecourse could talk the things it could say. It was great to grow up in an era—I am sure Mr O’Rourke would agree with me—without digital cameras and Facebook to record that sort of evidence. There was a great time had by all at Riccarton Racecourse and it is fantastic to be able to speak on another piece of legislation that will move this region forward in its recovery. We are building and rebuilding the best new small city in the world.When I reflect on Riccarton Racecourse I mean the first thing that comes to my mind that is synonymous with racing is the classic call of Reon Murtha when the horses bolted from the gate: “Racing this time”. It is fantastic—oh I could reflect for hours.But the point I want to touch on is why I think this area is critical to the development of Christchurch. Location-wise as has been canvassed by other speakers in this House it is well positioned for development 12 kilometres from the central business district. Also there has been large growth and change in how we view Greater Christchurch. Once upon a time Riccarton Racecourse would have been seen as out of the way. Places like Belfast in my electorate—you would have packed your lunch; it was a day trip. Now these areas are all being seen as pretty much central city. So that is why it is great for this development. People will be able to access the airport and growth areas like Hornbyfor jobs shoot down for a bit of shopping in Riccarton Mall and of course the university. It will be a great place for university students to rent or own to access the facilities of such a fantastic university.In this development we know there are going to be 600 properties. About 30 percent or 180 of them are going to be affordable and they are going to be under that $45000 cap for the KiwiSaver HomeStart loan. I must say I was reading about this the other day; it is going great guns in Canterbury—533 families have been supported into their first house because of this initiative. I know that in my electorate of Waimakariri we are up to about 234 families being assisted into their first home because of this scheme.I think that when you look at that supply-side angle there is real learning for the rest of New Zealand about what has happened in Canterbury and I think this residential development is a good example. Before the earthquakes before we lost 13000 houses if we said we were going to free up a reserve—you know Cantabrians are not very good at using parks; we like looking at them but to actually do something in them we are a bit averse. But now we have this need around freeing-up land and building more houses. We increase supply and it equals demand. I think that when you look at the annual house price inflation it is very minimal now in Canterbury compared with the rest of New Zealand. There is a real lesson in that.Just to finish what was really the strongest point of the select committee process was taking a cross-party membership of the select committee down to Canterbury to show our continued support as people in Parliament of the rebuild of the best new small city in the world. I commend these bills to the House.