Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I don't want to take my full time because I'm eager for the bill to pass into law but I do just want to make a few acknowledgments. The first is to acknowledge the bill's sponsor Nicola Willis for her passage of this bill—I think it's going to pass unanimously through the Parliament and that's a great thing—but also the Hon Nikki Kaye and the Hon Judith Collins for all their work done in the past. I remember Nikki Kaye coming to talk to me about this issue it would have been in 2015 or 2016 and I remember thinking to myself at the time Gee that is a tricky one to take on. I'll be intrigued to see how that goes." And then it became even more difficult when National moved into Opposition because it's harder to get bills through the Parliament in Opposition obviously. In that vein I would like to sincerely say thank you to the Government for recognising that there's a legitimate issue here and that this was a bill that was advanced in good faith to improve the law for many people. It would have been really easy for the Minister of Housing and the Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing) Poto Williams who has responsibility for this particular issue to just say "Ah well we'll do it eventually and get around to it." But when a bill a legislative vehicle is before the House I actually think it's incumbent upon politicians to take advantage of that. It's really great that Minister Williams made the officials available I understand from other contributions—and I see Helen White nodding her head vigorously—that the officials did a lot of work on again that's something that the Minister doesn't have to do but of course it makes it far easier for particularly a technical bill like this one to have its passage through the select committee. So that is a good thing. It's a really good thing and it's Parliament working at its best so I want to acknowledge the Minister for that and also the previous Minister of Housing—I see he's in the House—Phil Twyford as well.Helen White in her contribution made reference to the framework and the architecture and the Torrens title—I haven't heard the phrase "Torrens title" since my property law days across the road at Victoria University of Wellington. Maybe it bodes well for the future that I scraped an A- although I haven't heard the phrase "Torrens title" for so long. But of course she's right and we do enjoy a very good framework for property law in this country and this is another contribution to it. There are bills that come before the Parliament that people regard as boring but that are fundamental to the way in which we live our lives and this is one of them. Many more New Zealanders in the future will live in apartments and unit title properties. It's just that straightforward. That is the way of the future for New Zealand. The MP for Tukituki expressed some amazement at the future of apartment living in Havelock North and Hastings but I tell you there's going to be apartments in Hastings. There's going to be apartments in Havelock North. They might not be the size and the scale of Wellington Central and Auckland Central and Lower Hutt and Christchurch Central but there'll be unit titles in those places. There are already and there will be more in the future because we've got to go up in our cities and we've got to go out and part of that is apartment living. So it's incumbent upon us as a Parliament to get the legislative framework right. It's things like the Property Law Act the Unit Titles Act that we're talking about the Land Transfer Act. All of these things we take for granted as being effective and being efficient but when they go wrong chaos is created. Too often in the Parliament we underappreciate the importance of stability of a legal framework that allows people to make decisions and allows people to plan their lives knowing that the law will be enforced efficiently and effectively and that there is a clear and simple—or as simple as possible—legal framework for people to operate under. That in and of itself is a massive contributor to New Zealand's prosperity and too often we forget that. Countries that don't have stable rule-of-law systems particularly rule-of-law systems based around the stability of private property rights—countries that don't have that suffer. They suffer because people can't plan properly they can't make decisions properly they can't rely on decisions that they've made being enforced properly and agreements that they've entered into with other people being enforced properly and that leads to a lack of encouragement and incentive to invest and to try to create the prosperity that we all want. So it's very important that we get the underlying legal framework of property law in this country right and this bill makes a significant contribution to that. I take Helen White's point that it is not the be-all and end-all and we will return to it no doubt as a Parliament. Finally—I said I wouldn't take very much time but as is usual I have taken quite a bit—I want to say that my personal view is that apartment living is fantastic. My first house was an apartment or my first property was an apartment and for many younger—I'm no longer young but for many younger New Zealanders people my age and below—I said to my wife the other day "I'm 38. I'm no longer in my mid-30s. I think I'm in my late 30s."Nicola Willis: Definitely.CHRIS BISHOP: "Definitely" says Nicola Willis who's definitely older than me.Hon Members: Oh!CHRIS BISHOP: Oh sorry—sorry deputy leader! But for those of us my age and below many people will buy apartments for their first home. It's how I got into my first property and it will be the same. Chlöe Swarbrick has made a very good contribution to this bill as well. I want to acknowledge her efforts as well as the MP for Auckland Central. She knows that many of her constituents live in unit titles and live in apartments and they deserve better protection and better laws that govern the property that they live in. For many people—in fact for almost everyone who buys an apartment and a property—it will be their biggest investment that they ever make and it's important that we get their legal framework correct.So apartment living is the way. It's part of the future of housing in New Zealand. It's not the answer for everything and it's not the answer for everyone but it is part of the mix. We've got to get that legal framework right. I'm really pleased this bill is passing into law unanimously because we've got consensus around it and I commend the bill to the House. Thank you Mr Speaker."