Robertson GrantGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I am grateful to Groucho Marx" who has just resumed his seat because you know if you do not—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will withdraw.GRANT ROBERTSON: I withdraw. I am grateful to the Minister Nick Smith who echoed Groucho Marx when he resumed his seat—"If you don't like these principles I've got another set." That is what we heard from the Minister for Building and Housing just now. You know it is all very well to say that National is the party of private property and of liberal interests in this but you know when it comes to this piece of legislation it says: "We'll shelve that." As for David Seymour on that he was bought off by a 10-year review. That is the price—jeez! You could have bid it up a little bit higher and maybe we will see an explosion of charter schools or something like that as a result of this deal that has been done between the National Government and the ACT Party. The Minister's response to those questions was wholly inadequate. Let us start with a couple of important points. Every piece of legislation currently on the books that relates to the Public Works Act comes under the Public Works Act. It is not the Minister's right to stand up and say: "Well the Housing Act meant this and so that Public Works Act goes out the window." I know this very well. I brought a bill to this House on behalf of the Wellington City Council this year where we tried to do exactly what the Minister is doing today and actually the Government denied us the right to do that. So the Housing Act has the Public Works Act which effectively overrides it. That is the point of the Public Works Act. So just coming to the Committee of the whole House and saying "Oh well we've got this bit of a conflict so we're going to get rid of the Public Works Act." is not a good enough response from the Minister. The second point that is completely ridiculous in what the Minister just told us is that he took the example of the last Government allowing houses that were State houses in the Rimutaka electorate to be onsold. The question there is not whether or not a Government can do that; it is what then happens under the Public Works Act which is under section 40 that the land has to be offered back to the original owners. The Minister did not answer who the original owners of that land were because it is the Government—it is the State. That is the point. That is the very point of it. The question the Minister actually has to answer and failed to answer is why this is being done under urgency. There may well be good reason why this issue has drawn itself to the attention of the Government but the problem is that Parliament is not being treated with respect on this matter. The paper that I tabled in the Committee earlier—the Cabinet paper that describes this bill—in the section covering the matters dealt with under Part 2 has one two three paragraphs redacted. Those paragraphs are being withheld and I venture to suggest that what those paragraphs tell us is that there is some form of legal challenge coming to the Government's programme of land sales. I would further venture to suggest that that might have something to do with the Hobsonville development because if we actually look into the purpose for which Hobsonville land was originally taken that is where the Government gets itself into trouble. Section 40 of the Public Works Act says: "(1) Where any land held under this or any other Act or in any other manner for any public work—(a) is no longer required for that public work;"—it is not an "or" that comes next; it is an "and"—"and (b) is not required for any other public work; and—(c) is not required for any exchange under" various other matters. So the Government when it is disposing of land has to establish whether or not it is required for that public work. We will do some research—and I am sure my colleagues may have already done this—around exactly why Hobsonville and the other land that the Government is working on in terms of its housing programme was taken but I would venture to suggest there may well be a challenge. But we are doing this under urgency and we are not being told—Parliament is not being told. So I want a Minister in the chair to stand up and be up front and honest with this Parliament about what is driving this process being done under urgency because the public of New Zealand deserve the right to know. There is nothing urgent about passing Part 2 on the surface. According to the Minister this is how it has always been done. He said: "This is the way in which it has always been done. There's nothing to see here." Apparently we are not trampling on anyone's rights to have it offered back. The departmental disclosure statement tells us that apparently no one's rights are being changed by this law. How can that possibly be true because quite clearly under section 40 of the Public Works Act there is an offer-back right to those who were the original owners of the land. That is quite clearly true. So clearly—Hon Member: And that's a property right.GRANT ROBERTSON: That is a property right. Quite clearly someone's property right is being compromised by this law so we have a major problem in the way the Government is bringing this bill to the House. It is not being honest with New Zealanders about the consequences of this piece of legislation. Ministers—and the Minister in the chair now Paul Goldsmith—must have been in the Cabinet discussion and I am also going to make another suggestion to the Committee. I do not think Cabinet is fully in agreement on this. I think we will find that Cabinet has had a vigorous debate about this and many members of Cabinet are uncomfortable about this change because they know it is a significant thing to change and take away the Public Works Act from operating—as it does on any other piece of legislation—as a check on the Government when it goes to sell off land. I am going to make several other points and I am going to run out of time in this call so I will seek others. When one looks at what is in clause 10 of the bill we have to be absolutely clear that there is no guarantee in here that what happens to this land will be to support housing. That is not guaranteed in clause 10. I asked the Ministers to stand up and confirm that to us particularly when it is all dressed up in the idea—as Dr Smith finished his contribution on—on making sure people have roofs over their heads. This could go off in all sorts of directions such as commercial buildings or other services that are required. The definition is broad enough in clause 10 to my mind to create the possibility that this land will not end up being used for housing at all. This is exactly what we could explore in a proper select committee process to ensure that we do achieve the goal which I think is shared across the Parliament that we use public land in the best interests of the people of New Zealand and in providing affordable housing for New Zealanders to buy and for that housing to be developed—that is shared across the Committee. I do not know that Part 2 achieves that. It looks to me as if what Part 2 is doing is trying to deal with a problem that has come up in front of Cabinet with a specific parcel of land and a possible legal challenge. That is what it looks like but we are not being told that. We are being kept in the dark and the people of New Zealand are being kept in the dark by this Government. I have tabled that Cabinet paper today. It is on the public record. There are paragraphs missing. We need a Minister to stand up and tell us what is really going on here because in the absence of that it looks like the Government is trying to slip through a change that fundamentally affects the property rights of New Zealanders under urgency without any public scrutiny. Just think about that for a minute. That is the National Government deciding to take away the property rights of New Zealanders retrospectively under urgency without explaining to New Zealanders why. That is a disgrace. That is an absolute disgrace from a Government. Jono Naylor is up the back laughing. He would not have a clue. The National caucus will not have been told a single thing about what this is about but it is right here in the Cabinet papers. I want the Minister in the chair Paul Goldsmith who pretends to be somebody who believes in these principles—he has written all sorts of books about the importance of liberalism. He parades around Epsom trying to out right-wing David Seymour but he is not prepared to stand up today and say to New Zealanders what is going on here. Clause 10 of this bill does not give me confidence that what we are doing in this Committee today is ensuring the Minister's stated objective of making sure that there is more affordable housing available for New Zealanders. I want a Minister to stand up and guarantee to us in this Committee that that is the only outcome of this. Secondly a Minister needs to answer why we are doing this under urgency today. This should be the subject of proper public scrutiny. The fact that it is not shows the National Government has something to hide on this matter."