Patterson MarkMARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Thank you Madam Chair. It's a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on Part 2 of this Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Bill. Just to reiterate the point just made by the Hon Phil Twyford—he's sat down—about the proud legacy that New Zealand has of supplying social housing. I note that in the bill it's not just Kāinga Ora—Homes"; it is "and Communities" because housing is an important part of communities and we know that to get good social outcomes we need good stable homes and for too many of our citizens that is not their reality. This bill will go some way to addressing that. The laissez-faire model that we have had probably over the last 10 or 20 years has essentially failed us or certainly failed the people of more modest means and has been subject to three-year election cycles. What I like about the Government policy statement (GPS) is this multi-decade horizon and thinking. I've just been sitting in on the zero carbon bill on some of the big issues around mitigation and adaptation and submitter after submitter has been coming in and while commending the bill has also been talking about the need for us at a public level to be looking at adaptation and how public planning facilitates that and this bill does exactly that. I guess that the example before of South Dunedin that Dr Clark brought up in his contribution is a very very good example of that. Of course this is a precursor to a second tranche of legislation that will help with large-scale urban development that builds on that theme. It's almost like we've got in the Hon Phil Twyford a cross between Savage and Muldoon with this "think big" and social housing focus that he's got—a hybrid of that. He's obviously bringing some action and some planning getting rid of some red tape and taking some of these big hairy issues on head-on and putting the power of the State behind that. Also of course it's addressed here and has been discussed about the Infrastructure Commission and how it ties in with that in that forward-looking—so we've got our transport and the like lined up with our housing and that's the benefit of these multi-year time frames that we're looking at. I noticed the question asked by the Hon Stuart Nash was not answered about the three-year intervals for the reviews. I too looked at that. Is that an arbitrary number? As a relatively new member—is that just a standard number that was put in? So I'd be interested in hearing the answer to that. I was also interested in clause 24(2) which says "The GPS may include any other matters the Minister considers relevant." To me that sounds like sweeping powers and maybe the Muldoon analogy had been taken a little bit far and I just wonder whether you were trying to slip a clause in there to put some wide-ranging sweeping powers in there that maybe we're not quite alert to as a Parliament so I would like to get some reassurance from you that there is some control around what that might be. So that was some of the major issues. I also looked at clause 27: "This subpart does not limit other provisions relating to directions in the Crown Entities Act 2004." I'm not familiar with that Act and I just wonder—it's a very general question but I wonder if you could give a summary as to what that actually means in terms of what directions that is not limiting. That sounds pretty wide ranging as well so maybe the Minister would like to give us a summary. He may need his officials. I realise it's probably a reasonably unfair question to expect him to know that off the top of his head although he may well do so. Madam Chair I do thank you for allowing me to ask some of these pressing questions. I think they're important. This is going to be a very significant bill. It's long overdue. It will be again this wellbeing theme that's coming from our Government and we continue to support this bill through this process."