Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): We've just had eight minutes of a speech from Fletcher Tabuteau the soon-to-be retired New Zealand First member. It took me all of seven minutes and 45 seconds to find out whether he was actually supporting the bill or not. It was typical of a New Zealand First speech—one that is hard to define and hard to quantify and hard to actually understand what point the member was trying to make; grab bags of bits and pieces from Winston Peters' speeches still ringing in his ear from their modestly attended conference at the weekend.It was very very funny to see that the other side of the House is looking very glum—very glum indeed over there. They've got cause to be very glum over there because we are but 60 days from an election and this has taken them—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): And we're 60 seconds into a speech that has not yet mentioned the bill.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: This legislation has taken them—notwithstanding that we're 60 days from an election—nearly an entire term to get to a second reading point. That's incredible given that this was work that was first started—the conceptual work the initiation of this legislation—by the previous National-led Government in the last Parliament. Why has it taken them so long? It's just bizarre. But it's like so many other things that this Government has done: not much and what has happened has happened at snail's pace at glacial speed.So here we have the report back from the Transport and Infrastructure Committee that I don't sit on but I gather from speaking to colleagues and listening to speeches in this debate and reading in preparation for speaking today in the House that the select committee actually did some very good work. That doesn't surprise me because there were good contributions from across the House. Much of the good work the detailed work of most legislation is done in select committees and here we have a classic example of how that worked and how the select committee worked to improve the legislation that had been developed in concept form by the previous National Government that as put in at first reading needed quite a bit of tweaking I have to say but we've sort of got to a better position now.I listened very carefully to my colleague Christopher Bishop who is the very good and hard-working member for Hutt South. He has made it very clear that on this side of the House we support this legislation we like the concept we understand what it is trying to achieve and we endorse that—we support it and endorse it. So if I think about the examples that he cited from his electorate where there has been rapid growth rapid development and an inability by the local authorities there to fund through any other mechanism than rates the kind of infrastructural development required to support rapid growth then I understand the sorts of issues that he and his communities are confronting.But it's not just in Hutt South and in Lower Hutt where these are issues; it happens all around the countryside. Even in my own electorate of the beautiful Coromandel we have issues where small territorial authorities are having to fund infrastructure and growth because people are moving to the Coromandel—many of them are retirees; people who are moving from the cities and coming to live in a very beautiful part of the country—and they want to have homes and facilities but the council is already stressed and strained in terms of their rating capacity. Mine is a unique area much the same way that parts of Jacqui Dean's electorate has the same problem where you have big influxes of tourists at certain times of the year and that means the local council not only has to provide infrastructure for people who just are living in the districts but they actually have to provide massive infrastructure for the seasonal peaks of visitors and that means a further burden on ratepayers.So this funding mechanism is going to fundamentally transform and change the way that local authorities are able to raise money in what is effectively a mechanism that means that the people who will benefit from the building and installation of this new infrastructure will be the people who effectively fund it through the new special funding vehicle. I think that's a very good and sensible idea.Most local councils in the high-growth areas are already under rating stress. We've seen post-COVID that in fact many councils are already under even greater stress now because there is a call by many ratepayers to actually have rate increases that had been promulgated and budgeted for and set out and publicised for those rate increases to be reduced. So that only adds further pressure on an already stressed funding model and they're unable to invest in the core infrastructure that's required to support high-growth new housing developments.So one of the things that I particularly like about the special purpose vehicle model that is created under this legislation is that it gives a degree of flexibility for councils to be more imaginative at times where they can raise a bit of money through the special vehicle. They can then leverage the balance sheet to take advantage of the very low interest rates that exist at the moment in a way that helps find the funding to build infrastructure that is specifically not the actual housing infrastructure but it's the support infrastructure—so it's the transport the roads the water infrastructure the energy infrastructure the social assets the community halls the parks the reserves and of course in today's modern age the digital infrastructure as well which everybody seems to need as a matter of course these days to provide broadband and mobile coverage in the new housing developments.What this legislation doesn't do is enable the special purpose vehicle to fund the actual housing. It's not going to fund the building and the construction of houses; it's the support infrastructure that provides the funding mechanism here and I think that's a good idea. It's not going to be able to be used to for instance provide solid waste disposal or recycling infrastructure; that needs to be funded elsewhere. And it's not going to be able to be used to provide schools hospitals prisons or social housing. The levy is going to be capped to protect landowners from cost overruns because we all know after years of experiences and many sad instances that too often the budgeted and contracted price for much of this important infrastructural spending when it comes to the end and it's installed and completed there are often significant budget overruns. This legislation means that that debt is going to be ring-fenced that it will be capped so that the people that are contributing to the funding and who are going to benefit know what the quantum is going to be and they know what their liability's going to be and that's a very good degree of certainty that they are provided with.So we support this piece of legislation on this side of the House. We think it's a good piece of legislation. We think it's worthy of support. I want to thank members from across the House who sat on the select committee who did improve it; I think that the work that they did was very worthy and very good. On this side of the House we commend the bill for consideration.