White HelenHELEN WHITE (Labour): It's a pleasure to rise and take a call on this bill. I congratulate Brooke van Velden for getting her bill out of the ballot.David Seymour: It was just luck.HELEN WHITE: Yes that's unfortunately where I have to stop because I can't support the bill.When I look at what this bill does—which is provide 50 percent of the GST from the construction costs or value of a new home to the local council—it doesn't target spending in the way that we need to target it in a situation where we have a housing crisis. We need to build houses in the right places and we need to fund the infrastructure in those places. So this would be a scheme where the amount of money that was produced went back to the local council regardless of the infrastructure needs of that community. So in a place like Hastings the cost may be much more expensive than that or in another place it may be less and the GST would come back at the same rate.What actually is happening at the present time is that there is big good supportive infrastructure funding going on. So we have an accelerated housing fund and that is $3.8 billion—it's a lot of money and it's going to be targeted and it is going into places where we need to build houses and where they make sense to build. That is how we're supporting the local councils. That is the right way to do it.Now obviously there is a need to have more than one thing going on at the same time and so we have done some other really good things. I just want to go through them. One is unfortunately we came to an agreement with our—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just relating them to the bill as we do so Ms White.HELEN WHITE: Yes. Of course this is actually relating to the bill because it is why we aren't supporting the bill because in fact we are doing other things that are a better use of the money. So the money that actually is gathered up in that way—the GST etc.—goes into those funds. It goes into the accelerated housing fund—the $3.8 billion—it goes into the affordable housing fund it produces money for those things.It is actually with a little bit of sadness that I see that ACT is now joined by the National Party moving away from the accord that we had that was actually releasing the capacity to build in our cities where we need it. It is such a pity because that gave a lot of certainty to private developers etc. It meant that they knew that they could invest in that housing. Now the carpet has been pulled out from under their feet. Unfortunately New Zealanders are going to pay the price for that.So this is not a bill that would actually target funding where it is needed but rest assured that the reason the Government is not supporting it is it wants to target that money where it's needed and it is doing so. That is what it will do. It will continue to make sure we build in the right places for our environment for our building better cities. It is going to do that because that is what is necessary at this time. Unfortunately this bill is one of those bills which is probably very well meaning but it is not targeted in that waySo it cannot be supported by this Government because let's face it this money's actually taxpayers' money. The GST collected etc.—that's taxpayers' money. And guess what? We care what happens to taxpayers' money. It shouldn't just be spread; it's got to be targeted. So in this situation we have to be respectful of our taxpayers and make sure that the money goes into the right places. That is one of the great fallacies isn't it? That in fact people who want to do these kinds of things do need to be respectful. Actually the fallacy is that ACT and National care about the taxpayer when in fact it's the Labour Party that's sitting here guarding the money that the taxpayer needs and making sure that it is used in the right places. That is what it's all about people. Thanks. I commend this bill to the House.