Hipkins ChrisClauses 1 and 2CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am happy to take the first call on this—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): As long as the member puts his collar down.CHRIS HIPKINS: Happy to dress myself properly.Hon Members: The jacket collar.CHRIS HIPKINS: Oh the jacket collar. Thank you for your sartorial advice Mr Chairperson. I am very happy to take this the first call in the summing-up debate on what has been a significant discussion on issues related to housing and we thank the Government for the opportunity to do so. In the summing-up debate of course we debate the title and the commencement of this bill. I actually think that there is a different title for this bill. Perhaps we should call it the Hasher Bill" or in Nick Smith's case the "Hash-up Bill" because just about everything that the Government does around housing is a hash-up. We have seen that today and yesterday and the day before—in fact it has been ongoing for some time. But what is interesting about this particular debate on this particular series of amendments that the Labour Party members have put forward is that although the Government members have no ideas of their own on how to deal with the housing crisis that New Zealand faces they have voted against every single amendment and every single proposal put forward by the Opposition that would actually deal with the substantial housing issues that New Zealand faces. But I want to turn in particular to the debate that we had on Part 2 of this bill because if anything that demonstrates why this should be called the "Hash-up Bill" or the "Hasher Bill". The Government told us all the way through that debate—all the way through right to the bitter end of that debate on the changes to property rights—that it was not in fact changing anything. But let us be really clear. I want to know because we have been researching this—and this is something that we would have raised during that part of the debate had it not been under urgency and had we actually had the time to consider it properly—about some advice provided to the previous Labour Government when it was preparing a national policy statement. The advice was very clear on offer-back provisions in which it said that "The existing legislation does not provide an exception where the disposal [of the land] itself is part of the public work."—i.e. a housing development. "This has significant implications for sustainable urban development projects which aim to create well-serviced parcels of land to sell to an end-user (e.g. a developer an owner-occupier or an institutional investor in affordable rental housing)." In other words the advice that the Government gave this House all the way through the Committee stage on Part 2 of this bill was wrong because it was inconsistent with the advice that previous Governments had been given and yet there has been no change to that part of the law. So how is it that a previous Government could have been advised that the existing legislation did not provide exceptions when it came to the disposal of land as part of a public work—i.e. a housing development—and was provided with clear advice that that had implications for urban development and that the law would probably need to be changed and yet the Government today said that that was not the case?So I would like the Minister to take this opportunity in the closing stages of the debate to clarify exactly why the advice seems to be different now to what it was previously although the law has not changed. I am looking forward to the Minister's contribution to that because if the position previously—and I want to go through it again where it says: "This has significant implications for sustainable urban development projects which aim to create well-serviced parcels of land to sell to an end-user (e.g. a developer an owner-occupier or an institutional investor in affordable rental housing)." If that was the case then why is that not the case now? I would like the Minister to answer that. The Government basically has pulled the wool over the House's eyes by trying to say that "This bill does not actually change anything and yet it is essential." Those two things are actually contradictory. Either it is essential and it changes something or it does not change anything and therefore it is not essential. So which is it? It cannot be both. It cannot be so urgent that the Government must push it through to avoid the potential that there will be litigation as a result of this loophole being identified and yet it says that actually there is no loophole. The Government is trying to run both arguments simultaneously and it did that all the way through the Part 2 debate and yet we have now got clear evidence that the advice that it was giving the House is not true. Why did this bill not go to a select committee where that could have been properly teased out? The Government could not answer that and it did not make any attempt to answer that. I am asking for the Government to now provide the explanations that it should have provided earlier on because it has not done so so far. Perhaps in the Government's summing-up in this debate and in the Minister's contributions he might like to also explain why those members voted against eight proposals—eight concrete proposals—that would have dealt with many of the issues that New Zealanders face when it comes to housing. Government members and the Government party chose to vote against all of them and I would very much like to hear more of that contribution. But the offer-back provisions—and I want to talk about this. This was not an issue that we had the opportunity to canvass because the information was not available at the time. So I want to quote again from the advice that the previous Government received: "Any land acquired for an urban development project or existing council or government-owned land within that project is likely to be sold. So even if it could be argued that a particular site should be compulsorily acquired for an urban renewal project the offer-back obligation may still complicate matters when it comes time to sell the land." So again I put that to the Minister: if that was the position under the previous Government and the law in this area has not changed since then why is the advice the Minister is giving the House now so different to the advice that the Government of the day back then received? This is what the whole issue and the whole I guess length of this debate has been driven by. It is a concern that Parliament under urgency without any consultation with the public is changing people's property rights and they are not getting a chance to have a say on it. That is actually a very significant thing for any Parliament to do under urgency—to change people's property rights—but not only to change them for now and for the future but to change them retrospectively which is what this legislation has done. So I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to give us a detailed explanation as to why a position that was long standing where the law had not changed somehow has miraculously changed and the advice is now different. I look forward to that contribution from the Minister."