Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. In standing to support this bill on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand this evening I want to acknowledge the forebears that brought this piece of legislation to the House to the hands of Nicola Willis who I must say has done an incredible job in collaborating across the Chamber to ensure that we get this to the Finance and Expenditure Committee—a mighty fine committee it is. I need to acknowledge my predecessor the former MP for Auckland Central Nikki Kaye. I know that she held an immense amount of mana and respect in this space in particular.But of course this is a huge issue for Auckland Central and I note even within the Finance and Expenditure Committee we have the chair Dr Duncan Webb who represents Christchurch Central; of course Nicola Willis is a list MP based in Wellington Central. I believe that the Minister of Finance as the member for Wellington Central has a direct interest in this. So I'm hoping that us who represent cities—where places are becoming and abodes are becoming more dense as my colleague Greg O'Connor put it here in order to minimise sprawl and make housing more affordable—are incredibly engaged in progressing this legislation and improving it through the process of public engagement.With only five minutes to contribute tonight I want to acknowledge that a number of the issues have already been canvassed including particularly in the contribution by Nicola Willis. But fundamentally the current law is not fit for purpose. The unit titles legislation the Unit Titles Act has a number of fish hooks and loopholes and this manifests in a huge number of problems. The units for example to which these titles are afforded range all the way from small town houses where there may be a handful of different unit titles through to heritage buildings and apartment blocks but also pertain to commercial buildings. Importantly this doesn't only pertain to apartment blocks.There are issues with disclosure as has been noted with maintenance with disputes resolutions with fees but also importantly with some conflicts of interest. Some of the problems that start to emerge and that I've heard of from not only members of the electorate but also from my friends and my family—and myself in digging into these prospective apartments—are that sometimes it appears as though issues inside of apartment blocks as they already exist for those unit owners at present are not investigated for the potential that more costs might arise by virtue of the need to invest in something like a long-term maintenance plan or potentially disclosure or lack thereof to prospective buyers. This is a case that I have seen with a number of heritage apartments in the instance of asbestos where there is some recollection potentially that when these buildings were produced there may have been asbestos used but there isn't the inclination or the interest in investigating it which creates a problem not only for those present owners and the maintenance that is being postponed where issues may arise further down the track but also for those potential prospective buyers.It also poses a number of issues where a few people—those who will proverbially go down with the ship of the building—decide to wait see out their time however long it may be that they will live in that apartment and block progress of maintenance plans. On the flip side of that there are some people who do what is colloquially known as as the member Nicola Willis noted proxy farm where they go about a process of effectively capturing a number of votes and forcing some process progress or changes which can end up binding a number of members who live within that block being lumped with bills that they cannot afford. These are a number of the issues that are starting to bubble up and have been for several years now.I do have one question that I think will be really important to investigate as we go through the select committee process and that is a discussion point raised to me by an expert a lawyer in this area who asked about what should be in the primary legislation—that is that that has currently parliamentary oversight and that we can rigorously debate and investigate but it takes a long time to change as has been evidenced by the progress of this legislation—and what should be in the secondary legislation in the regulations that can be a lot more flexible but don't and aren't afforded that same level of parliamentary oversight.The Greens are proud to support this because it is one critical tool that will enable more people to get into a diversity of different living situations but it's important to note that this is only one tool; there is a number of others that must be investigated and applied to solve the housing crisis in this country. Kia ora.