English Bill: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeEnglish Bill: General Debate[Sitting date: 25 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13702. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister): It must be a good Government when the biggest issue of the day of the second week of the new leader’s career is whether the Minister of Conservation saw a draft report before he knew it existed. That is the biggest issue and I think it does show how out of touch the pale male stale Labour Party is.One of the bigger issues is actually housing and I just want to outline the Government’s programme of work towards resolving New Zealand’s housing affordability issues. In the last economic cycle up to 2007-08 housing in New Zealand became less affordable than it had ever been driven mainly actually by the policies of the current Leader of the Opposition where we ended up with first mortgage rates at 10 percent at a time when house prices had doubled in less than a decade.Back in early 2011 when house prices had actually been falling and were flat this Government decided that it was an issue that needed to be dealt with. At that time we announced the first inquiry of the new Productivity Commission. The first inquiry of thenew Productivity Commission was into housing affordability. That commission did a very good job because what it did was show that in fact the supply of housing was a critical determinant of the price of housing. I have to say that before then when this Government had advanced that proposition it was roundly criticised particularly by local government and also by the Opposition and by pretty much any commentator who thought they knew much about it.The Productivity Commission did its inquiry and released its report in April 2012. In October 2012 the Government released its response to that report and then we proceeded to take action because housing affordability is an issue that affects every New Zealander. We started intensive discussions particularly with Auckland Council because this is about the interaction of local decision-making and regulation along with its impact on macroeconomic settings and particularly in New Zealand on our export sector.Of course the Opposition should have understood the real risks of a runaway housing market because the runaway housing market under Labour was so bad that in 2008 it and then we had to back a sovereign guarantee of the New Zealand banking system with a contingent liability of over $100 billion. So we should all be aware of the risks of having a runaway housing market alongside any kind of financial disruption.It had never happened before that a New Zealand Government had had to underwrite our banking system which is driven primarily by housing loans. So of course we set out to take action to ensure that those circumstances could not arise again. As a result of our intensive negotiations with Auckland Council we have come to an agreement—I might say a historic agreement—that the Government and Auckland will work together on increasing the supply of housing going into that market where prices have been growing by 12 to 15 percent.That agreement is backed up by an innovative legislative solution which I have to say took an enormous amount of work from the previous and the current Minister of Housing and was put through the House in pretty quick time. It still took 6 or 8 months to get it through because that is the time it takes.The housing cycle of course has taken off—there is no doubt about that—and it is fortunate that this Government 3 years ago set off down the path of dealing with housing affordability. Now we are ready alongside the Auckland Council to consent thousands—thousands—of new houses including affordable houses.Phil Twyford: How many affordable?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The biggest indictment on that member’s party is that under Labour’s watch no affordable housing was built in Auckland—none. None was built in a decade—almost none in a decade. By the end of Labour’s time in office you had to pay $600000 or $700000 on the periphery of the city at mortgage rates—