Seymour David: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSeymour David: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 13 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5809. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): It is nice to be here. I want to respond to some of the comments by the previous Labour speaker Phil Twyford. He was correct in identifying that there is a trade-off in the Budget; in fact trade-offs are inherent in Budgets. When that money is spent on housing one of the key parameters that determines how much benefit can be provided to the citizens of New Zealand at the expense of taxpayers is the underlying cost of housing. Housing is the block in the cost structure for the Government’s provision of social housing.We have to accept—and I think it was lost on the previous speaker Metiria Turei—that there is an element of scarcity in this. The question is: how do we expand the overall amount of resource available for New Zealanders to consume? That is why there is no point in simply deciding that a foreign buyers’ register and knowing who owns the homes in some nominal sense is going to increase the overall amount of economic resource available in New Zealand to be consumed.Denis O’Rourke: It’ll help. It’ll help.DAVID SEYMOUR: It is fundamentally flawed to believe that that could help as the member is trying to say.In truth and the really dirty reality of that register is that what it seeks to do is identify the ethnicity and the nationality of the person who owns the beneficial interest in a piece of property. That is the reality of what the New Zealand First members’ register—their dirty little secret—attempts to do. They don’t like it up ’em but that is the truth and it was a disgraceful political move to make.They then say in a related sense that the limit in the availability of housing that we are going to spend on in this Budget is due to so-called speculation. Well the fact is we know that the level of speculation is inversely proportional to the elasticity of supply of housing. It all comes back—Phil Twyford: So do something about it then.DAVID SEYMOUR: —we will come to that Mr Twyford—to the amount of resource available to be spent.Phil Twyford: You’re supporting a Government that’s done nothing.DAVID SEYMOUR: But as Mr Twyford truly knows—he truly knows with all his feigned outrage and anger—that the real issue is the regulatory environment and the supply of buildable land. And he goes on and on with publicity stunts. He goes on and on trying to blame this person that person and the other and saying that a tax will help even though it has not helped in any other jurisdiction and nobody has ever built a house in order to pay more tax. What he is unable to bring himself to do is to reach across the aisle and be constructive.You see people on this side of the Chamber know that the Resource Management Act is one of the greatest constraints on the supply of housing and therefore puts pressure on this Budget. People on this side of the Chamber would like to reform it and increase that elasticity of supply to address the concerns raised by Mr Twyford.Phil Twyford: You’ve had 7 years and you’ve done nothing.DAVID SEYMOUR: If he objects to 7 years what about the previous 9? He could fix this problem. If he had any magnanimity and if he had any maturity he could reach across the aisle and say: “Here is a set of Resource Management Act reforms the Labour Party will support.” But have we seen anything like that in this Chamber ever?Hon Members: Yes we have.DAVID SEYMOUR: No we have not. The problem is that the ones that he would like to support—and he knows it—would be completely impotent and ineffectual because they are asinine.Phil Twyford: Read my press release David.DAVID SEYMOUR: Here we have it: policy making from the Labour Party comes down to a press release. The fact of the matter is that the kind of Resource Management Act reform that would increase the elasticity of supply of housing that would solve the problems with registers being called for and with speculation and that would actually increase the amount of economic resource available to be allocated in this Budget would mean changing the fundamental principles of the Act.It would mean changing the principle sections sections 5 6 and 7. That is what it means. It means taking a Resource Management Act that has 156 mentions of inappropriate subdivision and reducing that number. But will the Labour Party reach across the aisle and support substantial Resource Management Act reform? I think if it was prepared to do that we could actually solve a big problem for all New Zealanders.Phil Twyford: David you’re an idiot. Don’t embarrass yourself.DAVID SEYMOUR: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The member just said that you are an idiot bringing the Chair into the debate. I think that is quite inappropriate.