Collins JudithHon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you Mr Speaker. Well I enjoyed that speech from the Hon Jenny Salesa. I note that she recorded that the former National Government put some policy work out and proposals out on urban development authority. She could also have mentioned that the specified development project process or the SDP process looks remarkably like the special housing areas—the SHAs—that worked pretty well particularly in Auckland that I could see. So it looks like there are no new ideas. It's more of the ideas that either National tried and unfortunately did not get the support of the then Opposition—SPEAKER: Oh I apologise—I apologise. We've gone into the dinner break. I will interrupt the member now. Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Members before the dinner break we were debating the first reading of the Urban Development Bill. The Hon Judith Collins has the call and she has nine minutes and 19 seconds remaining. Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you Mr Speaker. I may or may not use all of that. We'll just see—wait and see. Anyway I think when we broke for dinner I was discussing how the bill contains something called a specified development project process which is to streamline processes for complex urban development projects. It reminded me instantly of special housing areas—the SHAs—which as I recall the then Opposition now the Government was deeply opposed to. Andrew Bayly: Oh! Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Oh no! Andrew Bayly MP for Hunua has just let out a shout of derision that it's taken the Government at least two years to work out that they should have been supporting the SHAs. We also are very aware of the fact that there is a recognition of aspirations of Māori in housing and urban development as potential development partners which generally I think is a good thing. I think also though that it is useful to say that when I look at the housing that many Māori live in all around the country in provincial New Zealand the parties in Government when they were in Opposition had an opportunity to support Te Ture Whenua Maori Bill which our former colleague the Hon Chris Finlayson promoted along with Te Ururoa Flavell. But it seemed for political reasons that that did not get supported across Parliament which is a real shame because it would have given Māori a far better opportunity to deal with land issues of their own without having to have this sort of body that's in the bill come in to try and help out. One of the things that I see when I read through the bill is that it works very much on the basis that the Government can deliver on large-scale development. Well I think some Governments can deliver on large-scale development. Having heard the Hon Jenny Salesa refer to the Hobsonville Land Co. (HLC) I thought that was pretty interesting—it sounds like one of ours. Also she could've mentioned the Tāmaki redevelopment project which was one of ours where we had to make sure that people were housed before they were shifted out of existing but rundown State houses. That has been continued by the current Government under the HLC or Hobson Land Co. banner. So we have some areas where we can agree but I think what the people of New Zealand will be seeing is that with this National Party in Opposition where we can see opportunities to support legislation even if we think it needs a lot of work and where there are some issues we will try to support it because we think that's the right thing to do. We don't want to start playing the sorts of games that saw the Hon Phil Twyford and the Hon David Parker campaigning against the sort of urban development that we were doing in Government. I note that Kāinga Ora—which is really Housing New Zealand in drag basically—will have—oh I should say in sequins. Kāinga Ora will have land acquisition transfer powers when undertaking any urban development so that is actually a taking of people's property rights by the sound of it. I'm not quite sure how people are going to be compensated for that if that's going to be compensation such as under the Public Works Act and I'm sure we're going to tease out some of the details and whether or not that's going to be a legitimate compensation if land had been bought or retained by private ownership because of a wish to and certainly an understanding of an uplift in land values. I think we need to test that out a bit more. One of the things is I think that the land is going to have to be disposed of under the bill if it goes through without it being required to be offered back to the former owner if certain housing or urban renewal works have not been completed on the land. That is quite different from the Public Works Act. Some of us will remember and recall the issue of the Raglan golf course issue which brought to bear the issues around the compulsory taking of land for defence purposes that occurred during before and after World War II. Thankfully I was not actually alive at that time but I think it is important to remember that by not returning the land to the iwi whose land had been taken that actually meant that it created a tremendous grievance. Those of you who recall it will know that Eva Rickard came to prominence at that time as a leader of her people. So I think it's really unfair for Kāinga Ora to be able to take land not use it for the purposes for which it has been taken and then not sell it back or dispose of it back. So I think that's something that we're going to actually have to look at quite a lot in select committee. When I look at this bill too I think it's great to think that a Government can do all these things except I say to the House that if you think that this Government can do that I give you KiwiBuild. See that was a Government plan that was going to build 100000 houses in 10 years and so far they've been able to buy off developers I think from average it's now 290 as opposed to 100000 or even 1000 or even—yeah even 1000. I mean it's really not a great record and it's taken the Government two years to work out that the Resource Management Act needs to be changed. It's actually referred to in here that there's going to have to be some changes made. But I think one of the things that gets me with this bill is that—and the National Party is supporting the Urban Development Bill for the first reading anyway—a lot of development is not necessarily large-scale development. Yes we do need to have large-scale development and that's very important. If we can speed up the processes and cut all the costs—so much the cost of it—and the unnecessary hand-wringing that goes on every time anyone tries to do anything on their own property these days then that could be a very good thing and that's why we would be supporting it. But there's nothing that I can see in this bill for people who might be small developers. This bill seems to imply or state that a developer who has land and wants to do a development would have to go to the Kāinga Ora people and ask them if they can be part of their Kāinga Ora scheme which seems to me all a bit messy really. It's starting to look awfully like the Provincial Growth Fund—like you wonder who it is you're supposed to be convincing and whether or not it's going to be feasible. I mean who are these people making these decisions? How much property development experience do they have? What do they know about it? I heard the Minister before talking all about the Unitec development which was supposed to put in 5000 new homes. Well how many have been built? Well that would be none. And what's the big issue there? Is it transport? Not so much—it is really but it's not so much. The big issue there is that the land itself and the area it is does not have separation of sewerage and stormwater. So 5000 families doing what families do and it all going out in to the Waitematā Harbour is not a good thing and this Government seems to think that having the Kāinga Ora people do it will suddenly change that. I think someone's going to have to pay for that separation and I don't see anything in here that says it's going to happen. So these are not easy answers but we will support the bill to the first reading. I really look forward to the submissions on this bill in the select committee. I think that we in Opposition will have lots of really interesting questions and I'm looking forward to some answers that make more sense than the KiwiBuild debacle that we've just had two years of. Thank you Mr Speaker.