Smith NickHon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): We now have a bid-up on the flaky one-page policy from the Labour Party which says with a one-page amendment we will magically build 10000 affordable houses per year—we have got the New Zealand First policy. The New Zealand First policy is that we just put a one-page amendment and we magic the number—let us do 20000 houses per year with a one-page amendment—and magically we have suddenly built the houses.The very first point is—because I know there are colleagues on the Opposition benches incapable of reading so I have done a really simple graph. This is the level of residential investment in inflation-adjusted terms of about the last 25 years—25 years—and what it shows—Hon Annette King: What's the source?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —is that over the last—oh the member says: What's the source?". The source is Statistics New Zealand and it records the level of residential housing investment—and guess what? It shows that over the last 5 years there has been the biggest increase—20 percent growth every year for 5 years—in the amount of new home construction and residential investment in New Zealand. But I can do even better than that—I have got the figures all the way back to 1922. So I have another challenge: tell me the years—and I say it to New Zealand First I say it to the Green Party I say it to the Labour Party—tell me 4 years any time in New Zealand's history in which there have been faster real increases in the level of housing investment.I have got another lovely graph that I would like to share with the House and this is a graph—just for the excitable members of the Labour Party—that shows the level of ratio of house prices to average earnings. Again this is prepared by Statistics New Zealand. What it shows is that in 1999 the ratio of house price to income in New Zealand was 4:1—4:1 in 1999. Members will know there was a huge deterioration—see the graph leaps up. Things completely went to custard—and what years were those? That was from 2003 to 2008. The ratio went from 4 to 8. My question is this: what Labour housing legislation did we have between 2004 and 2008? Zero—not a single bill. We had the worst deterioration in New Zealand history and you did absolutely nothing and then between now and 2016 that ratio has not moved. So I say to Labour members: shame on you. The worst deterioration occurred in housing affordability and they did absolutely nothing. Over the last 4 years we have seen the strongest growth in residential construction ever.Here is the last point I would like to make: this magical amendment says that you can build 10000 houses every year. I have got a lovely quote here from Mr David Parker from the 2014 election campaign. He said this: "It would not be possible to build 10000 houses in our first year nor our second year or third"—Hon David Parker: Oh rubbish.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: That is what you said. In fact you said: "it would take us 5 years to ramp it up to 10000 homes per year." That is what he said—but do you know what?Hon Annette King: Come on sunshine—what've you done?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I will tell you what we have done: when we came to Government New Zealand was building 13000 houses a year and that number is now 29000 per year."