Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Mr Speaker thank you. It's a pleasure to be talking on this bill the Urban Development Bill. I must admit I'm a bit surprised that Government members are not taking the opportunity to explain and talk about this bill. They seem to be taking very short calls. We're in the middle of urgency this special day when MPs have been held back in Parliament in Wellington to debate what is considered to be highly important bills to be pushed through. I personally find it slightly insulting that many of the members on the Government side are not taking their full calls or even attempting to take anywhere near a full call. But on that note this bill which is an important bill that we are discussing today—this is probably the most important bill that we are going to cover today in Parliament. This is an important bill and as I've said before—SPEAKER: Just making sure the member had the right bill. It's quite a lot fatter than the one he was waving around.ANDREW BAYLY: Yes I have Mr Speaker but thank you. This bill is very important and as the speaker said before we supported the first reading of it. We've seen many fine examples of these urban development authority (UDA) developments around the world. You can think about London dockland—that was a wasteland which is now totally covered in highly desirable commercial buildings—West Sydney Melbourne and all those sort of places. So the concept's proven it can work well and essentially what this bill is about is speeding up the process for first of all after you've done your feasibility consenting it and then putting in place the appropriate structures whether it's infrastructure or urban planning or the transport arrangements that go with it together to make sure it happens much quicker. So obviously we understand that concept and we support it.The issue I think people forget—and I'll just remind that last speaker from New Zealand First Mark Patterson. He's got no sense of history—and when I say you" I'm talking to the previous speaker—because it was New Zealand First that actually stopped the National Government from actually reforming the Resource Management Act (RMA) and it would have been helpful if we could have moved forward. One of the issues that we've got with this bill is that it is about the RMA and the issue with this is that I think the context missing in this conversation—I think there's a view that the Government can solve a lot of the housing issues. The reality is if you look at the analysis of how many houses are built in New Zealand the broad breakdown is that the top largest builders in New Zealand account for about 25 percent of all the builds in New Zealand; the Government normally only accounts for between 1 and 3 percent.SPEAKER: Order! I apologise for interrupting the member. It is lunchtime. The House is suspended until 2 o'clock.Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Tēnā rā tātou katoa. The House has resumed. Members before the lunch break we were debating the second reading of the Urban Development Bill. Andrew Bayly had the call and he has seven minutes and 11 seconds remaining. ANDREW BAYLY: Thank you Mr Speaker. Yes I was sort of cut off part-way through my discussion on this bill. What I was explaining was there's sort of an assumption that Government can play a large role in housing construction in New Zealand and whilst it's important it's not as significant as many of the Government members sort of seemed to imply in their earlier speeches. For instance the top 20 builders in New Zealand basically account for 25 percent of all new house builds. Then we've got the Government sector—that accounts for between 1 and 3 percent. Then the rest the 75 percent - odd is actually made up of one- two- three-person small building firms. So I think this bill's got to be seen in the context of this.These types of urban development authorities are primarily used for urban regeneration large-scale projects where there's contiguous landholdings that can be assembled into a package and from there to make sure townships are regenerated and with close proximity of housing developments. For that reason that's why we support urban development authorities. The issue about this bill though even though it's been substantially worked on by the Environment Committee is a lack of clarity around how it's going to interact with a number of other bills. Obviously people refer to the Resource Management Act (RMA) but it's not just the RMA; there's a whole host of bills that this one seeks to find a pathway through to enable this urban development authority—and then we talk about special development projects—to actually occur. There's some concern whether in fact the bill will actually work and that's one of the issues. But I think the biggest issue and I know my colleagues have discussed it is this issue around the rights and power of this new entity to be able to undertake those new developments. I think one of the most concerning things—and I'm looking at the Minister now. This bill provides for the urban development authority to become a BCA a building consent authority such as Auckland Council such as most 68 councils around the country. One of the issues that is happening right now and I'm sure the Minister is aware of it is that this entity Kāinga Ora is actually in the process of going and nicking all the good staff out of Auckland Council's consenting team and luring them across paying between $10000 and $15000 more than they're currently earning at Auckland Council. So rather than adding to the sum total of new consenting consent people in New Zealand what's happening is this Government agency is nicking staff from another council entity and I think that's a real problem—it's a real problem. It's a problem when you talk to Auckland Council and I know they've had discussions with you but I think one of the issues about this authority—Hon Phil Twyford: Andrew lift your horizons up. Don't get lost in the detail.ANDREW BAYLY: No I'm not lost in the detail because that is what's happening right now and actually what it means for developers—and this is the next thing. The biggest issue I have with this bill personally is that what the Government has done through this bill is solve the RMA and consenting issues for itself and I know for a reason but for developers who undertake most of the work the private sector they will still struggle to operate under the existing framework and that has not been dealt with. If you really want to do a lot of urban regeneration and a lot of urban development around housing that is the core issue. I take your point that this does some improvement for UDAs but we have not dealt with the most crucial issue that all developers have in terms of being able to undertake developments quickly get consent through and often we have a lot of problems with that with all the risk that goes with it and I think that's why this bill is actually—we haven't addressed the central issue and that is one of the reasons why we're opposing this bill."