Doocey MattMATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): I am rising in opposition to the Housing Corporation (Affordable Housing Development) Amendment Bill. Just in response to that last speaker Mr Twyford who wanted to give almost a scorecard approach to the Government's wins versus the Opposition's losses—all you would need to weigh up is the Warm Up New Zealand housing programme; look at the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill last year which introduced insulation standards for social housing; and look at Budget 2016 which actually increased the number of places available for social housing. So I think what we can do is look at the reality of the argument. When you look at this bill it is solely premised on the belief that it takes the Government's intervention—the State's intervention—to construct houses. But when you actually look at the constraints on housing and affordable housing at the moment it is to do with two key things and that is what I will be touching on in my call tonight.I first just want to tell a story if I can that will illuminate my call tonight. Many years ago in the late 1990s I travelled the Czech Republic. I was on the outskirts of Prague ordering my coffee and my lunch and I was struggling to speak the language but luckily there was a lady next to me who spoke quite a bit of English. I started having a talk with her over lunch and I naively said to her: Well it's been quite a few years now since the velvet revolution and the velvet divorce. It must be great to live in a country now where you have such freedoms." And she said to me: "Matt well yes we have freedom now but we must never forget every day we must focus on people who say they want to support us but actually just want to take power away from us."This bill underpins very much the Opposition's approach not so much about housing but this is about centralising power—it is only the State that can intervene; it is not the hard-working builders. They are the ones who are the experts on the ground and they know how to get out there and build. This bill is pitched as a very benign: "If you don't plan to fail; you fail to plan. You need to have a plan." It has nothing to do with that; it is purely the Opposition's ideology that it knows best and only it can deliver the houses to those vulnerable New Zealanders.Look at that track record of my region. Look at the track record of my electorate in Waimakariri. What the Government did was intervene to free up that sector so they could go on and build affordable housing for the people. We lost 23000 houses in the earthquakes. They have been rebuilt and what that was about was the Government intervening under the Land Use Recovery Plan and freeing up land. This is not an issue around construction of houses; it is an issue around land availability. Even if the Government intervenes it would still need to free up the land and that is what we did in Canterbury. Not only that we incentivised and sent signals to the building sector about how it can deliver homes under the cap of $450000 for affordable housing. When we had the KiwiSaver HomeStart roadshow not only was the one in Rangiora town hall packed with young families looking to see how they could buy their first house but it was packed with building companies and builders wanting to learn how they could build houses under the cap so they could get KiwiSaver HomeStart loan applicants. That is the framework that the Government should be providing.This is a false argument. When you look at it what are the terms? Under this bill it is pretty weak. It is pretty light. Where are the definitions of affordable first-time buyer and speculation? What is the difference between someone speculating versus someone who just needs to sell their house when life changes for them? And that is why I do not support this bill."