Uffindell SamSAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you Mr Speaker. Happy birthday Angie good on you; that's very exciting and I'm very proud to hear that you support the bill as well! Thank you for that! We also support the bill on this side of the House. It's good to see National and ACT in this case bringing sensible solutions to the infrastructure crisis to this House—in this case GST sharing. David Seymour: Smartest thing a King's boy's ever said!SAM UFFINDELL: We recognise that councils do not have enough money—I missed the quip; I don't know who it was directed at—so this bill is a good step in that direction to allow more revenue sharing focused very strongly in this case on Kāinga Ora (KO).Angie Warren-Clark: Tell us how it's going to work.SAM UFFINDELL: As we look at that—how it's going to work well councils don't have the money at the moment Angie and it's a real shame because this Government expects them to do all of the heavy lifting without giving them the necessary funding. The National Party did have mechanisms in place when we were last in power; it's a shame a lot of those haven't been continued through. It's a real shame as well that this Government has embarked on a bit of a war against landlords and we've seen that with interest deductibility being removed and the brightline test. The recommendations to the Minister was that it was going to increase rents. Have they increased rents? Yes they have indeed—up $175 a week under this Government; the largest contributor to the cost of living crisis.When I go around and talk to people in the fine electorate of Tauranga they tell me that they are suffering under this Government they don't have enough money to make ends meet and accommodation costs are the number one contributor to that. So what we need to do—DEPUTY SPEAKER: But they'll be wanting to hear about the bill though. So let's talk about the bill shall we?SAM UFFINDELL: I know they are tuning in wanting to hear about this bill and I acknowledge the member Brooke van Velden who has brought this very sensible bill forward.We've got a few questions to ask around how councils actually get encouraged to develop more infrastructure because at the moment I think they see it as a bit of a burden. So this bill through the GST sharing arrangement from KO will help to deliver that. I mean we would have wanted to see it if they'd built over and above what their target was—which was what National took to the last election. We don't have that here but we are very open to suggesting those generous amendments in the select committee stage. I see the wise members of the ACT Party looking up for wisdom from the member of Tauranga which I am happy to continue to deliver! A few smiles in the Labour Party as well as they realise that if only the rest of the speakers had also supported the bill like the previous speaker then this House would be in a better position.We do note that there are a lot of families doing it tough so it is important that we do develop more housing infrastructure. It's the number one cost that families face. We have seen a significant rise in the number of families homeless under this Government or living in motels or emergency accommodation and I think that's a real blight on our society. We're currently spending a lot of money in this space and we really need to make sure that we are delivering the infrastructure because that's important. Because if we don't have houses then people aren't going to move to where the jobs are and if they don't have houses they're not going to have dignity. So it's really important that we address this.We do think the bill could be better targeted. We have noted how it would be better for just paying above the target builds. We do raise serious concerns with Kāinga Ora and the way they've gone about doing stuff. We note that their debt obligations are going to be absolutely—Shanan Halbert: Only because they've built more houses than you ever did.SAM UFFINDELL: —significant. I hear the member from Northcote barking at me from the other side of the Chamber. I did note in the Budget that KO had been allocated $3 billion to build—what was it?—3000 houses on land they already owned. It doesn't take a mathematician to work out that that's about a million dollars for a house where they already hold the land.So the current system of this Labour Government empowering KO to go out there buy the land well above market rates take all of the people from the local councils to do the approvals drive up the price of consents and ultimately drive up the price of houses certainly is not delivering for New Zealanders. We would be much better off giving local councils through a member's bill such as this one more money to fund the infrastructure and then letting the parties who actually build houses—such as the many property developers out there—the opportunity to come into a market that hasn't been ruined by KO being able to overbid any time they want and then they could deliver quality affordable houses for New Zealanders. I support this bill.