Lees-Galloway IainIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): Wonders never cease Mr Chairman. Thank you very much for the call. I would like to speak to the title of this bill. I tried to find the direct quote—I could not find it but Sir Geoffrey Palmer once said something along the lines of Titles of bills should be succinct and as clearly as possible articulate what the bill does." So when looking at the purpose of this bill I wondered why the title of this bill is not the "Housing Supply and Affordability Bill" because that is what this bill purports to do. It purports to improve both the supply and the affordability of housing. So let us look through the bill and see whether or not it meets its purpose and whether or not that title would have been a more appropriate title for the legislation.Does this bill improve the supply of housing? Well maybe a little bit—not a lot but a little bit. By extending the provision of special housing areas and having the fast track provisions that go with special housing areas perhaps there will be some improvement in the supply of housing. Not all of that housing will be affordable. In fact there is very little provision to make sure that the housing is affordable. There is nothing to stop houses in special housing areas being flicked on by the purchasers of those houses after 2 years for untaxed capital gain so that makes no difference to the affordability of housing. But nevertheless the period in which special housing areas can be created is extended by this legislation. There may be some insignificant but nevertheless noticeable change to the supply of housing—not nearly enough to actually deal with the housing crisis but nevertheless a change to supply.The next question is: does the legislation deal with the affordability of housing? There is nothing in the legislation as it is now. Having gone through all the various parts and the debate that we have had there is nothing in Parts 1 and 2 which remain intact in the legislation that actually changes the affordability of housing. The minuscule changes to supply that are allowed for in Part 1 of the legislation will have no impact on affordability at all and Part 2 has nothing to do with the affordability of housing whatsoever.What would have had an impact on the affordability of housing were the various other parts that we have debated over the last day and a half. New Part 3 which was proposed would have introduced essentially Labour's KiwiBuild policy to build 10000 homes a year—10000 affordable homes—and put some parameters around what affordable homes look like. That would have had a significant impact on affordability. The parts to do with foreign investment in our property market and the various other parts that were proposed by members on this side of the Chamber would all have had a real impact on the affordability of housing not just in Auckland but in other parts of the country as well. I recall actually an amendment that Metiria Turei offered to Part 1 of this legislation. It also would have added a definition of what an affordable house was and would have required special housing areas to have a particular proportion of affordable houses.All of those changes were offered by Opposition parties and Opposition members. All the things that would actually have made this bill a housing supply and affordability bill were offered by members of the Opposition and all of them were voted down by the Government. It is a bit rich to hear the Minister for Building and Housing and members of the Government say that members of the Opposition have come to the Committee and played games with this legislation or that members of the Opposition have come to this Committee and voted against provisions that would have improved the affordability of housing. Actually we voted in favour of the provision that would have improved supply and we offered all of the things that would have improved affordability and it was the Government that voted them all down. So I am going to speak in favour of the Housing Legislation Amendment Bill title because it tells us absolutely nothing and this bill does nothing. Indeed it amends housing legislation but it does sweet bugger all else. So let us stick with the title of Housing Legislation Amendment Bill."