Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): E te Māngai o te Whare tēnā koe. The Green Party's really pleased to be supporting the Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I just acknowledge the comments by other speakers because even though the first we found out about this bill was when it was introduced about the same time that councils did it has been an incredibly constructive process by the Environment Committee and by the Parliament in improving the bill. I really acknowledge too the strength and the expertise of public submissions—councils individuals the urban design community young people and many others—and the thorough process that all members of the select committee really put their hearts into improving the bill to develop the themes that were coming through in submissions and then to amend the bill accordingly.Like others I would also like to place on Hansard and on the record the huge debt that we owe to the massive mahi by officials from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development the Ministry for the Environment the Parliamentary Counsel and the select committee secretariat of Edward Jacob Izzy and Charles—just all of the work that they put in behind the scenes to actually deliver with Parliamentary Counsel a much-improved bill.This bill builds on the National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD) and brings forward its implementation recognising the real need for urban renewal and densification in our cities to crack through and respond to the housing crisis. It was a very impressive list of initiatives that the Government has taken over the last four years to tackle the housing crisis. But we still have far too many people as the Hon Scott Simpson noted sleeping in motels sleeping in cars sleeping in places that they can't afford because the rent takes far too big a portion of their weekly income. This bill is about providing as a permitted activity the building of three dwellings of up to three storeys across most of the residential areas in our largest cities enabling housing to happen as a permitted activity and encouraging more duplexes walk-up units terrace houses with common walls and the like.We got quite a lot of evidence from councils and others about the extent of housing construction that was already occurring in the year to September 2021. A record 47333 new homes were consented and that was up 25 percent from the year to September 2020 and multi-unit homes accounted for 46 percent of these. So we are seeing already an increase in more townhouses duplexes and the like.Some of the changes that the select committee made in response to submissions were obviously in relation to the density standards providing a 20 percent landscaped area providing increased outlook space increased outdoor space changes to the building envelopes through reducing the height at the boundary to four metres and also major changes in relation to qualifying matters. These are the matters as the deputy chair of the committee Rachel Brooking noted that can be used through the intensification planning instrument to show that some areas are not suitable for medium density residential housing—things of national importance such as the natural character of the coast. But it is on those matters that there were changes to the bill to provide a little bit more flexibility for councils to ensure that medium density happens in more suitable—well doesn't happen in unsuitable areas. A lot of effort too on ensuring that some of the smaller towns weren't included because it wasn't intended that they be subject to the same sort of development as in our big cities.Papakāinga houses—encouraging councils to use the intensification planning instrument to facilitate the building of papakāinga houses rather than plans providing the barrier that they do at the moment. There is a lot of work that is going to have to be done by councils particularly the planning staff and others and also the public in response through these intensification planning instruments. So I would really like to acknowledge in advance all of that work.There was a suggestion from some submitters that the medium-density residential standards be inserted directly into plans because there is of course no ability to change these new density standards in new Schedule 3A of the Resource Management Act inserted by Schedule 1 of the bill. So I would really encourage agencies to very closely monitor the way in which the bill is implemented and how it operates in practice because the select committee has tried to foresee issues. But there may well be things which need to be changed and if it's well monitored then that can be addressed potentially through the Natural and Built Environments Bill and the reform there.We need to do density well if people are to move away from having a dream of having a single-storey house on what was once a quarter-acre section but is now much smaller. And if families single-person households and others recognise the opportunities in living in two- or three-storey units and apartments and duplexes and the like—so doing density well the Green Party believes this bill was a bit of a lost opportunity. We tried really hard to get things like Homestar standards included in the density standards because it is puzzling that when Kāinga Ora committed last year to all of its new homes—and it builds at least 1100 new homes annually—being built to the Homestar 6 standard we want in the Green Party to ensure that everyone has a right to a warm dry healthy home with low ongoing energy costs so that we reduce energy poverty. The Homestar standard can save households up to $570 in power costs annually but at the moment only 5000 of the 43000 homes that are built each year meet those Homestar standards. We need to tackle our climate emissions. With an increasing electricity demand growing by at least 70 percent by 2050 anything that we can do to reduce energy use helps to reduce those emissions.We need to reduce waste. Housing and construction contributes 40 to 50 percent of the waste that goes to landfill each year. Again we heard from submitters that because demolition is a permitted activity in areas like Auckland there is no control or encouragement for construction waste to be reduced for sorting to occur on site for materials to be recovered. Things like Homestar standards do improve that commitment to sustainability. The Labour members have said that things like improvements to the building code belong in the Building Act. Yes they do. But where there are provisions which prevent councils from using their plans to put in place higher standards than apply in the building code and when there is no regular periodic review of the building code to catch up with what is being done in housing developments overseas we think we need to use the opportunities that bills like this provide to have more warmer more pleasant and more energy-efficient homes. So it was disappointing that that did not happen.There is already quite a lot of intensification occurring. We hope that councils with their intensification planning instruments with the new policy and objective framework that the bill has that relates back to the NPS-UD—that that process is not too complicated. But I would just finish by again thanking all of those who made the submissions and the really constructive work that every single member of the select committee did to improve this bill working alongside Parliamentary Counsel the select committee secretariat and officials.