SpeechDr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I am taking this call to oppose the Urban Development Bill in its second reading. We supported this bill in the first reading and we supported it because we wanted to hear from submitters in the select committee process and we wanted to work on this legislation to make it fit for purpose legislation. But what we saw during the select committee process was that there were several concerns that came through and those concerns matched with the concerns that we have and that's why we have decided to not support this legislation going forward.We fully understand the intention of this legislation and we support the intention of this legislation—that is urban development—and before the last election we started the process of forming an urban development authority and we started a consultation process as well and so that's why we decided to support this legislation in the first reading because this legislation is intending to coordinate the use of land and also infrastructure to maximise its benefits for people. During the select committee process—I'm not a member of the Environment Committee but I've gone through what submitters had to say—I see that there were 134 submissions out of which the select committee had the opportunity to hear from 52 submitters. I was listening to the Minister when he made his speech and the Minister said that most of the submitters supported the direction of this legislation. So yes we also support the intention of this legislation. That doesn't mean we support this legislation because we believe that the mechanism that this legislation is using to deliver what it intends to deliver is not going to work.So because of the statement by the Minister that most submitters supported the direction of this bill I would like to dissect what submitters had to say. So if we break down what submitters had to say and if I just break them down under different headings—that is supported or not supported—then we see only about 20 percent of submitters supported this legislation. Around 29 percent—I'm rounding the percentage up—of submitters didn't support this legislation. So going from one extreme—that is 20 percent supporting—to 29 percent that didn't support this legislation in the middle there are a lot of submitters that have said that they support the intention of this bill but they had some reservations and that number is 27 percent and 21 percent had no clear position on this legislation.So that just shows us that this legislation though the intention is there is not going to deliver what it intends to deliver. There were some common themes that came through on various parts of this legislation from various submitters. Resource Management Act: we have heard from various speakers on this legislation before and yes that came up again and again because submitters thought that it was important that the Resource Management Act was taken along with this legislation. We cannot find a solution without looking at the Resource Management Act because we know that when the Resource Management Act was implemented for those days it was fine but now we have seen this huge population growth—we are over 5 million people. I'm based in Mt Roskill and there are a lot of Housing New Zealand houses being developed—old houses are being demolished and replaced with new houses and I'm a big supporter of the mixed housing model. So we need those houses coming up in Auckland because that's where we are seeing big population growth and we need infrastructure to support that kind of growth. But for that we have to tackle the Resource Management Act and this legislation is trying to find a way to tackle this issue without tackling the Resource Management Act and that's why we don't have confidence that this legislation will be able to deliver what it intends to deliver.The second thing is about partnerships with various organisations. If we look at the submitters most of the submitters were organisations because we know that this legislation is to bring changes at central government level and also local government level. So excluding all the local government submissions if you look at the submissions most of them were from organisations. These organisations are keen to understand how partnerships will work. So partnerships with private organisations are important to deliver this important objective of this legislation and we didn't get enough clarification in the select committee process that that will be possible. Then private property rights were another issue that came up. Private property rights are important for people. We know that yes Government can acquire private property under the Public Works Act but in this legislation the way it is put forward looks like it is going to minimise those rights that people have on their private property. We want to encourage people owning private property—they should feel very proud they should not feel insecure owning a private property.The Green member who spoke before me the Hon Julie Anne Genter talked about an efficient transport system and also providing an enabling environment for communities. Actually that was something that did come up because this legislation doesn't speak enough to affordability of houses and it doesn't speak enough to low-emission transport systems or safer efficient transport systems. It doesn't speak enough about that enabling environment that the member talked about to provide for communities because in communities we have people that are in different age groups there are children and there are seniors and we want to see that there are amenities and things provided in terms of infrastructure to support these different age groups and this legislation doesn't speak enough to provide for all these things. And that's why we have decided not to support this legislation. Thank you Mr Speaker.