Adams AmyClauses 1 to 3Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Thank you Madam Chair. We obviously now come to the point of the debate where we debate the title and commencement clause. In this area there are a number of matters that I want to raise in respect of both the title and commencement. The first obviously is to do with the title of the legislation. The bill is named somewhat innocuously looking on its face the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill which all sounds very dry and worthy but in actual fact what we have heard through the course of this debate as it has progressed over the course of now several weeks is that actually this is a bill that is going to rip the guts out of the housing sector see less houses built and completely devastate the ability of those in the primary sector to use profit à prendre in anything except the Government's chosen sector of forestry where they obviously are quite happy to have overseas money pour in.My question to this committee then is shouldn't the bill really be named something that is far clearer about the effect that it's going to have on the economy? I would suggest that in fact a title along the lines of Stopping Foreign Investment in the Sectors the Government Doesn't Like (But Making it a Whole Lot Easier in the Bits that They Do Like) Amendment Bill" might be quite a good one. It would at least tell people looking through the legislation exactly what the bill does. Perhaps it could be called "A Dog's Breakfast of a Bill Because the Work Wasn't Done (Had to be Patched Up at Select Committee and then Again by Numerous Supplementary Order Papers from the Government) Overseas Investment Bill" which would also tell the public a lot more about the legislation. Or in fact we could go on to say "The Bill that Says it is Going to Make Things a Lot Harder (When in Actual Fact Making so Many Rules that Leave so Many Doors Open for Foreigners to Come Through in a Myriad of Different Ways Because the Government Didn't Put the Time in to Getting It Right) Amendment Bill". I think any of those might tell a much clearer story about what's actually going on in this legislation.Here's the real tragedy: the bill that was promoted to New Zealand as being one that was going to help with housing affordability will do nothing about housing affordability. In fact the submissions to the Finance and Expenditure Committee were that it was going to make the problem worse. So how about "The Bill that Actually Does the Opposite of What the Government Said It Would Do Bill"? I think that would be a pretty good title for this legislation because when you name a bill it should bear some semblance of relation to what the content of the bill does.What we've seen through this debate is a poorly conceived poorly designed rushed piece of legislation that even the officials had to admit on several occasions had been done under time pressure without the ability to work through some of the stuff. On much of it all they could say to the select committee was "Well we're going to work through all of that. We're not quite sure yet." When the select committee asked for example some reasonably basic questions about the economic rationale or the policy assumptions that led to some of the conclusions all we were told was "Well we're doing it because that's what the Government said it wants." So perhaps the bill then should be called "Not Good Policy Process (But What the Government Said in their Manifesto so They're Going to Do It Now Whether It Makes Sense or Not) Bill". I think that might be quite a good title for the legislation.The other part of course of what we are debating now is the commencement clause. This commencement clause sees a rushed process rushed further. I know my colleague from Clutha-Southland has real concerns about the fact that the work hasn't been done to understand exactly what the impact of this bill will be on places like Queenstown that he represents. I know he has a Supplementary Order Paper that he will want to debate that talks very carefully about how he could ensure the commencement is adjusted to ensure that at the very least the Government takes the time to understand the impact.I wouldn't have thought asking a Government to understand the impact of its legislation in the very area that it said it was concerned about which is the housing market would be a big deal. But no it seems that the rush to be able to tick another box on the to-do list over-weighs the importance of actually getting the legislation right—working out whether it's applicable working out how it applies more particularly and ensuring that they understand the impact. All of those seem to go by the wayside and what we've got here is a process of just get it passed so that David Parker can point to having done it—never mind that it will do nothing whatsoever to help house prices in New Zealand. It will make it worse. It will make the dealing of land in this space worse. It's a bad bill."