van Velden BrookeHOUSING INFRASTRUCTURE (GST-SHARING) BILLFirst ReadingBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. I move That the Housing Infrastructure (GST-sharing) Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill.Every week ACT MPs are in the community hearing from Kiwis at public meetings local shops at street corners or visiting local businesses and we hear many concerns that we bring to Parliament and our job is to represent everyday New Zealanders. We hear concerns about rising levels of crime and rising costs of living but there is one concern that I hear often and it's whether young Kiwis will ever have the chance to own their own home and feel like they have a future in this country. That's a real concern that my member's bill addresses. From Northland to Southland I've met Kiwis who've said I'm not sure I will ever own my own home." Too many people put more and more money aside every week and feel like they get nowhere closer to putting an offer on a home. They can't see a future where they have a shot at the Kiwi Dream. We hear young Kiwis and their families say that it might be better for them to move to Australia and that is saddening.We have a housing crisis in New Zealand. There aren't enough homes for the number of people who want and need a place to live. My bill the Housing Infrastructure (GSTsharing) Bill would fix this. It provides an environment for more housing development so more Kiwis can have access to a warm dry affordable home. Over the past few years we've seen successive attempts to address the housing crisis from the KiwiBuild failure—the Government's flagship promise to build 100000 new homes which failed to get off the ground—thousands of Kiwis placed into motels the Government's attempt to tilt the housing market away from speculators and towards firsthome buyers by increasing costs to landlords and tenants and the Government teaming up with National to create a new law that would allow three three-storey homes built on any section.Everyone—and I believe everyone—can accept that there is a significant housing shortage in New Zealand. What is causing this frustration is the lack of enduring solutions being proposed to actually fix it. None of those policies that I mentioned come anywhere close to addressing the housing crisis and making it easier for builders to build or Kiwis to have stability and a future where they can own their own home. That's because they've misdiagnosed the problem. They don't address the problem that's preventing houses from being built.The housing crisis is an infrastructure crisis. Infrastructure is expensive. Councils don't have the funds for the vital infrastructure needed to connect new homes to the community. Councils face poor incentives to build. Every new development that goes in involves costs to existing ratepayers to provide new roads water sewerage connections which acts as a disincentive for councils to approve new homes and subdivisions.The Housing Infrastructure (GST-sharing) Bill works like this: the Government would share 50 percent of the GST revenue of a new house with the local council that issues the consent to help them cover the infrastructure costs associated with new housing developments. This would provide the environment for local councils to approve more housing consents and enable builders to build with less delay. The GST-sharing scheme is estimated to deliver over $1 billion every year to support local development - enabling infrastructure. But councils that consent more will get more—it's that simple. ACT has realised for a very very long time that the housing crisis is an infrastructure crisis and the idea behind my member's bill the Housing Infrastructure (GST-sharing) Bill is that it would change the incentives that councils face for building and development.The only time that you get prompt service from a council is when they're issuing you a parking ticket. They'll come to you anywhere anytime because there's money in it for the council. Imagine how many consents councils would issue if there was money in it for them. I've spoken to too many builders to count that say it takes longer to get consent to build than it actually takes them to build a home. Imagine how much faster the process would be and how much faster a family could make a new house into a home if councils faced the right incentives to allow for building and development.This is an idea whose time has come. ACT has been campaigning on this bill since 2017 and a recent poll released within the last few months showed that an overwhelming number of Kiwis support it—70 percent support versus 15 percent opposition. I'm not surprised by that at all; Kiwis recognise practical solutions are needed to address the housing crisis that we face. Currently councils have to come cap in hand to the Government and hope to get a grant for infrastructure from the Housing Acceleration Fund. The problem with this is that it means that central government essentially has total control over what projects get the go-ahead and which ones get put on the scrap heap. The Government shouldn't be picking and choosing winners; councils should be allowed to set plans that work for the local community and to plan for the infrastructure for that community. This transfer of funds from central to local government that my member's bill proposes would be a long-lasting solution that would ease the imbalance that local councils face. Central government currently gets all of the benefits while the local councils stomach all the costs and that is wrong. Under my bill every time a new home is built in the area of the local council they would receive funding for the vital infrastructure to connect that home to the community—and that is the right thing to do. We know that there is a need for better infrastructure. We also know that councils don't have the money for it. Councils are crying out for the funding to connect homes to the community to have money for that vital infrastructure. If we care about getting more houses built faster for more Kiwis to live in we need real change. We need this bill to become law so that Kiwi homeownership dreams can become realities. Parliament tonight has the ability to support a practical solution to free up infrastructure funding and get houses built for the next generation. Other parties here should vote in favour of this bill. It would be a vote for better housing for the next generation. We don't need more central planning; we need incentives to consent more developments. Because there are Kiwis living in motels struggling to compete for rentals and finding the dream of homeownership slipping away I am bringing this bill to Parliament to create a better environment for building and investment so that everyone can have a better future in New Zealand and more Kiwis can know that they can achieve the Kiwi Dream. I commend this bill to the House and I hope and urge all of my parliamentary colleagues to support it. Thank you Madam Speaker."