Willis NicolaNICOLA WILLIS (National): New Zealand is facing a housing emergency. Imagine if this Parliament took it as seriously as we have our response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Imagine if this Parliament acted with the urgency and the seriousness with which we have acted in our response to COVID-19. What would that look like? We would address the causes of our housing shortage not just the symptoms. We would work together across this House on the solutions not just resort to petty politics and we would treat New Zealanders with intelligence and respect not try and fool them with half-thought-through hoaxes like KiwiBuild but instead make the serious long-term changes needed to ensure that the next generation of New Zealanders indeed today's young people can afford to buy a house in this country.I am calling sincerely on the members of the Labour Party to hear National's cry to work with us on the urgent measures that are needed in New Zealand to increase housing supply. Need I describe how urgent this problem is for the members opposite? In the past year alone median house prices in this country have increased by $118000. That's more than most New Zealanders will ever earn in a year. And what that means is it is locking an entire generation out of homeownership. In the past year alone those saving for a house deposit have watched that deposit get another $22000 out of reach and you know what that means? It means the only people who can afford to buy houses in this country are those who can get help from the bank of mum and dad. It is locking a generation of New Zealanders out of having a stake in their community out of having a stake in our economy and it is changing the very nature of our society. And we are not giving them hope for the future because there is not serious action happening. It is not just those who might want to keep the homeownership dream alive; it's those who are renting too—because that is out of control. Rents have gone up $110 a week in the past three years alone meaning that even if you are scrimping and saving to get a deposit together it's getting harder and harder every year. Low-income tenants are being squeezed by rents rising faster than incomes and we're seeing the result. More and more New Zealanders can't afford to rent a house in the private market. There are 22000 people waiting for a State house. That is a record. That is the highest it has ever been in New Zealand history. And what that means is that those are people without homes. It is a national disgrace.We have 6000 New Zealanders living in motels. They are living in motels. We have families trying to raise their kids in a motel room next to someone who's just been released from prison on one side and someone on the other side who's got an active drug addiction and we're saying Good luck for the future." That is a recipe for a breakdown in social cohesion and for an ongoing divide between the haves and the have-nots in our country and the members opposite had an opportunity to work with the National Party on actually solving these problems. I am not here in Parliament to describe our problems; I am here to progress their solutions. We actually know what to do here. We need to unlock the constraints which hold back land release which make it too hard to build a house in this country to get consent to develop at scale and at pace and which mean that even those wishing to develop need to spend years in court in hearings in delay. This is not a magical solution. National did this in Canterbury following the earthquakes. We acted with urgency we introduced emergency measures and it worked. [Interruption] Go and look at the graphs Kieran McAnulty. Housing affordability in Canterbury levelled off while it took off around the rest of the country. It's time we took that approach here. We need to act with urgency. The answer was never KiwiBuild. That is a disgrace—the biggest hoax of a public policy that we will see in this Parliament I venture. It's time to act on New Zealand's housing emergency."