Sepuloni CarmelCARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): That speech was a little bit disappointing. I just want to point out the fact that firstly I do not understand what he was talking about with regard to saying that my colleague Phil Twyford has flip-flopped. He has not flip-flopped on anything. We have been quite assertive in respect of our housing plans. The same cannot be said for that side of the House. Alfred Ngaro talked about some random fund-raiser that Phil Twyford should have. Well actually the fund-raiser that that member has been involved in is selling our State houses. What kind of a fund-raiser is that Alfred Ngaro? He should be ashamed of himself. I am sure there are a whole lot of people in the electorate of Te Atatū which he is trying to win off the current electorate MP Phil Twyford who do not support the decisions that he has made alongside his Government in respect of selling State housing that has been built up over generations by generations of New Zealanders. He sold out. OK Mr Deputy Speaker back to the bill.Can I just say that one of the really disappointing parts of this given the fact that we have been given the responsibility by the public—we are elected representatives and we are here to scrutinise legislation to make sure that we are giving New Zealanders the best deal possible. It is really concerning that we have only half a regulatory impact statement here.There are two parts to the bill. We have made it really clear that we do not have any major issue with Part 1 apart from the fact that it has not been that effective to date but that does not mean we would necessarily throw it out. But we do have major reservations about Part 2. The only regulatory impact statement we have is for Part 1 of the bill which we on this side of the House would have no problem voting for if it was split off by Part 2 which actually does need further scrutiny.I want to talk a little bit about Part 2 and speak to some of the reservations that we have. Basically with Part 2 we are looking at the Public Works Act and the offer-back changes. Clause 10 of the Housing Legislation Amendment Bill amends section 15 of the Housing Act to state that sections 40 to 42 of the Public Works Act do not apply to the sale of State housing land. A specific subclause states that this change does not affect the right of first refusal under any Treaty of Waitangi claims settlement or collective redress Act or deed. Minister Smith has advised us that the purpose of this is to prevent a situation where the Crown develops housing on land and upon completion a person decides to use their offer-back rights to purchase the completed development. The Minister has given us his assurance—I am not sure how much that counts for—that this provision could be used only for developments and would not be used for the sale of existing State housing stock held by Housing New Zealand. The Minister has argued that this change enhances the rights of Māori as the right of first refusal is protected and the removal of the offer-back provision means that there is greater ability to negotiate agreements with Māori for housing developments.Meka Whaitiri: How many have entered into agreements?CARMEL SEPULONI: My colleague Meka Whaitiri has asked how many Māori how many iwi have entered into agreements. But I also want to say that on that side of the House the Minister is arguing that this enhances the rights of Māori. The Māori members on this side of the House and the Labour Party in general do not think that is the case so we will not be supporting it. But also let us look across the floor. We did notice at the end of the first reading who did not support this bill. Not only did the Labour Party New Zealand First and the Green Party vote against this bill at first reading but the Māori Party did too. That is the political party in partnership with the Government that is supposed to be advocating for Māori. So here they are saying that actually when they vote against it—what that says to us is that they do not believe that that enhances the rights of Māori either. We on this side of the House already knew that was the case but it reinforces that that is the fact.Labour has concerns that this provision will not give Māori the protection that the Minister says it does and that the provision could be used to make it easier for the Government to go through its State house sell-off. The Government's claim that this is merely a clarification is tenuous given the Ngāti Whātua incident. As part of the Government's Auckland surplus Crown land programme the Government sought to use the Housing Act to circumvent Ngāti Whātua's right of first refusal under the Tāmaki Collective deed of settlement. Ngāti Whātua challenged this in court and the Government ended up settling the case in order to stop the legal action. That the Government was willing to settle in that case shows the law is far from certain and this situation could apply to an offer-back provision just as it could for Ngāti Whātua's right of first refusal.We cannot support a provision like this going through under urgency. We need it to be properly scrutinised. It is disgusting that the Government has tried to circumvent the proper process here by not allowing it to go to a select committee and by trying to wrap it up. The Government does have a habit of doing this—putting something that we will not support or that we do not want to support and that it knows we will not want to support alongside something that we would not mind supporting in an attempt to try to get us to sell out and basically agree to the whole thing. In this situation we are not going to do that I say to the National Government.We have been really sensible with our advice and with our proposal on this side of the House by saying to the Government to just split the bill in two. Split the bill in two and then even though we have some reservations about Part 1 we can support Part 1 but we cannot support Part 1 with Part 2 alongside it and with that being part of the deal. It is a dodgy deal and we will not be supporting it.It was disappointing to hear Nick Smith at the beginning of this second reading debate on the Housing Legislation Amendment Bill because he seemed to take his whole 10 minutes or at least 9 minutes and 55 seconds of his 10 minutes just trying to justify his track record. What that says to us on this side of the House is that he is feeling really sensitive right now. I am sure that even some of his colleagues are a little bit critical of the fact that he has done very little to address the housing issues that we face in this country. I am sure that his colleagues are coming under pressure from some of their constituents as well. When looking at some of the developments that have or have not happened under this National Government those members should be a little bit concerned about what is happening in their electorates.Actually it is quite timely that the New Plymouth MP is here because one of those developments is in his electorate. Eight years ago the New Plymouth community was told that it was going to get a redevelopment that Marfell was going to be redeveloped. Over that time it has had houses pulled out it has got houses that have been boarded up and now 8 years later nothing is happening there. Eight years later there is no additional housing. There is less housing than there was 8 years ago. When we put in an Official Information Act request to try to find out where the Government is at in respect of this housing development what we got back was a report that says that actually it has decided there is no real need for any more State housing in this area and also it could not find a partner to partner with so the Government has decided that this probably will not go ahead.Actually in the context of the housing crisis that we face in New Zealand with over 41000 people homeless and in the context locally there or the emergency shelter telling me it has had a 33 percent increase in the last year in people needing emergency shelter because they are homeless I find it really difficult to comprehend that that member for New Plymouth and that National Government can say that there is no need for any further Housing New Zealand development in that area and to leave it empty like a ghost town. If you go there it is so eerie. We know that there are so many families that do need homes in that area but they have been neglected by their local member Jonathan Young. They have been neglected by the National Government which continues to make excuses for not building houses when all it needs to do is build them.So my advice to Nick Smith is to get rid of the pipeline get rid of the consents get rid of the anger that he is clearly carrying and the sensitivities that he is carrying about the poor job that he has done in his role and actually just get on with building some houses. That is what we proposed on this side of the House. The National Government would do itself a service if it just picked up Labour's KiwiBuild policy.