Turner Judy: Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Turner Judy: Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 02 September 2008. Volume:649;Page:18502. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I want to take a very brief call on behalf of United Future on the Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Bill. As I mentioned in the second reading United Future supported the first reading. We were excited to see the Government weighing up some options around affordable housing but we have been disappointed in what has come out the other end and are unable to support the bill any further. 
The bill gives powers to territorial authorities that they may or may not use. If they do choose to exercise the powers contained within the bill it is unclear whether they are obliged to apply them in an even-handed way. The truth is a council could impose rigid obligations on one property developer and choose not to require similar obligations of another. How that would play itself out at a local level is completely unclear. 
The bill provides very limited guidelines to the territorial authorities about who they can capture with these new powers if they choose to use them. It is unclear for instance whether they can capture current landowners who purchased land in anticipation of establishing a housing development sometime in the future and who were unaware at the time that they purchased that land that the territorial authorities would subsequently be given powers to slap some serious challenges on to their business plans. 
United Future agrees with I think all parties in this House that central government should be looking very seriously at a range of options to better facilitate the provision of affordable housing in New Zealand. However we do not believe that this bill is a well-considered option and we are sorry to say that we have to pull our support at this stage. The bill has some other interesting provisions that have merit but we cannot agree with the main thrust of it which I think is to place upon the territorial authorities much greater responsibility for the provision of affordable housing. One of the things that United Future is scared of is that it shifts the responsibility to the territorial authorities in a way that is unhelpful. We think that the territorial authorities could choose to incentivise the provision of affordable housing through reduced compliance costs—that is a hugely positive possibility that even now they could choose to do—but they should not actually dictate to a landowner. That is why United Future is a little surprised that the Maori Party has chosen to support this bill. That party has a fine track record in this House of advocating and standing up for the property rights of others. I think that is an area that that party has neglected to consider in terms of the imposition that this bill allows the territorial authorities to place on landowners. 
The motive is good the motive is fine but the bill certainly breaches the principles of our party and we are unable to support its third reading.