Watts SimonSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Labour's track record on housing is one of incompetence and failure. That last speaker Shanan Halbert—his speech was an absolute disgrace in terms of what is a track record of six years by this Government that has failed at every nail they've attempted to put into a piece of wood to build a house in this country. At every opportunity they've missed the nail—they've missed the nail—with that hammer and they've hit their thumb and they've hit that thumb every time. That last speaker's speech while at times was an eclectic bit of a laugh was a complete waste of time and actually forgot about the bill that's on the Table.So let's have a little chat about the bill on the Table the Housing Infrastructure (GSTsharing) Bill first reading. Brooke van Velden well done on this bill—a sensible piece of pragmatism which is sorely missing in this House. I get the feeling that while on this side of the House National will be supporting this bill because there is a little bit of sensibility left in this House the other side continue to reinforce their incompetence when it comes to housing. So we're going to talk a little bit about this bill and we're going to let it go for a little while but not too long. But I think it is important to recognise that the backdrop in which it is required is that we need some fundamental levers that are actually going to address the underlying problem that we face in regards to encouraging the increase in housing in this country.This bill—while National are supporting it it is fair to say that we do think that there are some areas of improvement but I'm sure that's what the select committee process will go through. One of the challenges of a bill such as this is that it can be challenged around is it targeted enough in regards to what it's trying to achieve?" The reality is that while GST is collected as are all taxes those taxes do fund Government expenditure. So while we use that mechanism to collect the revenue there is a quid pro quo in terms of where that revenue is spent. While this bill articulates that it will be spent on infrastructure the unintended consequence or the consideration around that is what doesn't get funded as a result and I think it is just more around the mechanism to acknowledge this is how this bill will go.The other aspects which I think the select committee—on the basis that this probably isn't going to see the light of day based on what we heard from the other member. Sorry Brooke but it sounds like it isn't. But the other consideration is obviously in regards to some of the definitions around—you know with Statistics New Zealand in terms of determination around some of those numbers. There's also some elements in regards to Kāinga Ora. I think for the record Kāinga Ora's probably in the same basket case as this Government's housing policy and I think we probably agree on that. I mean it is a basket case of an organisation. It's got 60 years of unmanageable debt modelling shows that it's basically insolvent and it's got no hope in hell in terms of being able to repay its $28.9 billion debt within the next 60 years. So the challenge with that organisation when you try and get that part of a mix of a solution is you've got a few issues on the horizon to deal with.But irrespective of that I think the principle is sensible—we need to invest in more infrastructure. We actually need to be able to remove the bottlenecks in bureaucracy to allow growth and to allow us to build more houses—a lot of red tape in that regard and this Government are pretty good at putting more red tape to block that process. But never fear in 202 days from now hope is on the way. On that basis National will be supporting this bill and we wish it all the best."