Sage EugenieEUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to take a short call on the Riccarton Racecourse Bill and the Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill. These bills have proceeded through Parliament relatively quickly. They were introduced in October last year. They attracted only a few submissions to the Local Government and Environment Committee and we are pleased that the bills are going through their final reading today. But we have a little concern about the Minister for Building and Housing's comments that this is really part of the Government's strategy to help with the Christchurch rebuild and to help provide affordable housing. The 180-odd affordable homes are to be provided as part of the quid pro quo for a quarter of the racecourse having its reserve status uplifted and the trust board for the racecourse being able to sell that land and develop it or have it developed with Ngāi Tahu Property—the quid pro quo is the provision of these affordable homes. But that is not going to be able to tackle the crisis. It is not nearly enough because we have hundreds of people tonight sleeping in their cars in Māngere. So many ordinary Kiwis recognise that we have a homelessness crisis we have a housing crisis and this Government is not doing enough to address that. We have seen that over and over again in the House when questions have been asked of Ministers and we have not seen them acknowledge that there is a crisis. Instead they talk about there being a supply challenge. The first step towards solving the problem is recognising that it exists and the Government has actually failed to do that in terms of the housing crisis. Instead we are seeing denial excuses distractions and now talk that this legislation is a contribution to dealing with that crisis. These homes that will be built in Champions Mile even though some of them will be affordable homes—i.e. they have got a sale price of less than $450000—are not going to be affordable to the people in Christchurch who are sleeping on the streets in their cars in garages or are dossing down on the floor of a family member or friend. We need more emergency accommodation for people like that who are struggling even to provide themselves with basic accommodation and these bills are a solution to that. The Green Party says we need the Government to invest much more in building emergency accommodation and in building more State homes instead of having the Government sell off State houses and allow the waiting lists for them to get longer and longer. I want to live in a country where the Government cares that people are sleeping on the streets and does not just stand by and watch and deny that there is a problem. One of the other things that the Minister said in the second reading was that these bills are unlocking land that is not being well-used at the moment and that is a concern if that is going to be part of the Government's strategy of providing more homes through the National Policy Statement on Urban Development which was released recently. That policy statement has some objectives of enabling people to provide for their social economic and cultural well-being but it fails to mention environmental well-being and we heard from the few submitters on this legislation that they really valued the open space that the racecourse provides as a place to recreate as a place to practise their golf skills and as a place to walk the dog. We cannot see the housing crisis being tackled simply by using reserve land in centres around New Zealand to increase subdivision and residential development. We want healthy cities and those are cities that have got adequate green spaces in them. So it is very disappointing that in this new National Policy Statement on Urban Development there is a reference only to social economic and cultural well-being and not to environmental well-being because we will not have healthy cities and we will not have a healthy economy unless we sustain the environment which is the basis of that. Nevertheless because this legislation does provide for an extra 180 affordable" homes and because the land is actually situated in what is now part of the centre of Christchurch—it is not on the outskirts as it once was; it is close to schools shopping facilities and the industrial area further to the south in Riccarton—it is a good place for development to occur because it is not promoting urban sprawl. But we think that the Riccarton Racecourse trust board will get a substantial financial benefit from these bills. It is well aware of the amenity values of the racecourse. It has said that the revenue that the bills will allow it to generate will be used to promote racing and to enhance the amenity of the racecourse and that is all well and good. It also needs to be cognisant when it is working with Ngāi Tahu to actually ensure that we do not get some of the rabbit hutch developments that we have seen elsewhere in Christchurch where houses are placed cheek by jowl with no consideration of passive solar design limited consideration of energy efficiency and little consideration of how the homes interact with public transport links. One of the problems here is that although there are criteria in the bill that the subdivision has to meet they are quite limited and that is a problem because the district plan in Christchurch is currently being reviewed. The final form of that is not yet known and it is that plan that will determine what conditions the Christchurch City Council can put on the development to ensure that the subdivision does provide for good interaction and links with public transport infrastructure good walking and cycling links and good protection of reserve areas open space and smaller places for children to play and for people to walk. So there is still quite a lot of uncertainty about the actual form that this development will take and quite a lot of responsibility on Christchurch City Council to actually get that right. So we are pleased that the bills are going through but we have some qualifiers on the type of urban development that this Government looks to be promoting if it is keen on using reserve land in other areas for subdivision given that its national policy statement does not recognise the importance of environmental well-being."