Turei MetiriaMETIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): The Green Party is very pleased to support this bill to the Local Government and Environment Committee. There is a great deal about it that we think is wise most particularly the partnership relationship with Ngāti Paoa and their involvement in housing development as an iwi. We think this is the right kind of approach or at least the right kind of relationship to be taking with iwi around the country as in Auckland where iwi are directly involved in housing.There are some issues that we do have with the bill that I just need to address as part of the Greens' contribution. I am expecting that a number of those concerns will be dealt with effectively at select committee and we are looking forward to engaging in the select committee process over those concerns. One of the major concerns we have is that the special housing areas policy has been a dismal failure. The whole policy actually is crashing and burning. It has not delivered anything like the housing that was promised. When Nick Smith talked today about over 7500"—that is a promise of some housing sometime in the future 10 to 15 years away. The Government has delivered very few actual homes under the special housing areas policy. It keeps making promises based on projections of homes. I do not know how it is making those projections but the fact is that New Zealanders and Aucklanders are certainly seeing very little come out of it.Part of the concern that we have about this bill is its relationship to special housing areas particularly the removal of the Resource Management Act (RMA) from involvement in the decisions and therefore actually the removal of the rest of the community from the decisions that might affect them with this development. It is not particular to the iwi partnership; it is actually just part of our concern that the special housing areas are being used by Government as a means to remove the RMA from planning. The results of that mean that we have often very poor quality housing. We certainly do not have anything like the amount of housing that we need to see and there is no guarantee in that process for the housing to be affordable.The legislation itself is silent on the provisions for affordability and there is no reason that it has to be silent. The special housing areas policy has been silent on that matter as well. There is no reason that this bill has to continue to propagate this idea that the RMA has no place in planning for housing. It does have a place. The communities that live around that area do have a right to be involved and there can be some more engagement under the RMA in this legislation. On top of that it is critical that we continue to have real engagement with communities about the housing that they will be putting up with—that they will be living with. They will be living in the communities that are being formed.There is also some real concern as I said about the affordable housing provisions. In the Riccarton legislation as I understand it there was provision there for a financial payment if the numbers of affordable houses were not built; so there was a performance standard required in the Riccarton legislation and there is no reason why there should not be one in this legislation as well. It is not a sufficient trade-off to have reduced regulatory management of housing developments for no guarantee of social housing. This is the argument right? It is that we need more housing and we need more affordable housing. Therefore there needs to be some give and take around the planning rules and therefore we will remove the RMA from its involvement in these planning processes around this housing development because there will be affordable and social housing. But if there is no guarantee of it then the public is just being asked to give up its right to have a say and to give up the resource management requirements around consultation public engagement and environmental assessment for nothing—essentially for developers to be able to get very cheap and very fast access to public land for the purposes of building homes that they can then sell for a significant profit. There has to be something in the bill that will provide some certainty that there will be affordable housing and that if there is not there will be some kind of penalty for that. The public is entitled to some return for what it is being asked to give up.Finally we understand that there have been a lot of concerns as I understand it from the iwi involved in Ngāti Paoa and also from others around the pollution of the river and that there has been a lot of effort put in to doing clean-up work. There is also a significant nesting area for dotterels and oystercatchers in this area as well. I have spoken to Ngāti Paoa about this—just about our concern to make sure there is an adequate environmental assessment of the effects of this development or any runoff or anything both on the river and also on these nesting sites. As I understand it they are quite happy for that kind of assessment to happen and it should. It is a little bit unclear at the moment as to who should be responsible for that assessment and the bill provides no clarity around who is responsible for that. We will be wanting to have that conversation in the select committee with those who are developing with Ngāti Paoa with the council and with Government. We have to make sure that there are some bottom-line protections for the natural environment there. The overall proposal is very good but there are still some concerns about environmental protection and environmental restoration and as I understand it Ngāti Paoa too is concerned about that and wants to make sure that the development is really good in that area.I will not keep the House any longer. I think that the proposal for the relationship with Ngāti Paoa is by and large very good. The details as we know—especially when Nick Smith is responsible for legislation that involves Māori—require some care—Marama Davidson: Monitoring.METIRIA TUREI: —monitoring yes. Ha ha! Some monitoring of the detail is required because there is a history there. We will be doing that as part of our management of this bill as it goes through select committee and the rest of the House. We will be looking for some changes to make sure the bill goes well. All our best to Ngāti Paoa who I understand are here to hear the debate on the bill. I am looking forward to talking with you more. Kia ora."