O'Rourke Denis; Lee Melissa; Tisch LindsayDENIS O'ROURKE (NZ First): I want to begin by commenting on the Minister's speech given just a few minutes ago concerning his belief that this is just a clarification of the law and not a law change. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is this: clause 10 does use the words To avoid doubt" but that does not make it true. In fact that term is superfluous and inappropriate because the clause does not just clarify it actually makes a substantial addition and it does so retrospectively. I can prove this because the current section 15 says only this: "Subject as hereafter provided in this Act any State housing land and any buildings and chattels held for State housing purposes may be disposed of by way of sale lease or tenancy by the Corporation." Only the first few words of clause 10 are repeated in section 15 as it now is but the words added are: "if the land is disposed of as 1" of four specified categories of land which are listed. The term "State housing land" means in section 2 of the Housing Act: "land that is for the time being held or set apart for State housing purposes; and includes land that at any material date was held or set apart for the purposes of Part 1 of the Housing Act 1919". The term "State housing purposes" has a very long definition in section 2 of that Act—too long for me to quote here but it has three land categories that are quite different from those that are stated in this bill. Look at them for yourself and you will see that I am right. Yet strangely it is section 15 that is being amended not the definition in section 2 of the Housing Act. What does that mean? It means that that definition still remains. So how will that sit with the new section 15(2)? I say that it creates uncertainty. I say that it needs to go to a select committee because the select committee would sort out these sorts of things and that is exactly what is not happening as a result of this process. So I say to the Minister: you may feel that this is just a clarification but if you look carefully at what the bill actually does you can see without any possible doubt that it is a substantial law change. I want to go on to say this about the title—because that is really what we should be talking about here and we should not be sidetracked by misinformation from the Minister. The short title that I would suggest is one that would be far more descriptive than the one that is there. It cannot be short because this bill covers two completely different things in my opinion so I would suggest the title should be: "Ensuring continuation of failed Government policies in the hope it can find a way to make them work and ensuring that Government panic measures relating to the fast-track sale of State housing land prevail over the rights of people who have rights to offer back." That would actually describe what the bill is about. So why not have something like that? It may be very long but it has to be long if it is actually going to inform people what this bill is about. Of course the Government I think does not really want to inform people what it is about—it should. Let us take that name that I have suggested bit by bit: continuation of special housing areas—they were originally 3 years now to be 6. Have they failed? Yes they have—1300 houses over 3 years and the other statistics that are available show the same thing. So that is the evidence that they have failed and the reason they have failed is that the Government refuses to directly invest in housing land adequately for the purposes of those special housing areas. That is New Zealand First policy and that is what should be done by this Government but it is not doing so. The second part of the suggested title—it is a panic measure because here we are under urgency with no select committee scrutiny and the Government ought to have a good reason to change the law but what we have got is a very loud silence. And in the process what we have is people's rights being trodden on—rights that they should have for offer-back. That is a tragedy for law and order in this country. The Government should actually be protecting people's rights not removing them without any adequate reason being given.MELISSA LEE (National): I move That the question be now put.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No I am going to hear from Iain Lees-Galloway."