Strange JamieJAMIE STRANGE (Labour): Peace and harmony have broken out across the House at a quarter to six—Hon Phil Twyford: It's Christmas.JAMIE STRANGE: —which is really lovely to hear. It is Christmas-time Mr Twyford and I'd like to acknowledge the previous speech there. The member Lawrence Yule spoke quite candidly about his experiences in local government. We certainly appreciate your experience here in the House and in this debate. So thank you very much Mr Yule. We also heard from Chris Bishop there who talked about some of the challenges in his area and how this bill does address some of those issues. And thirdly we heard from the member Andrew Falloon not about the bill but about his pet roading project but that was certainly interesting as well. So anyway we've all got our different flavours in the House here tonight.So turning my attention here to my specific contribution to the bill I'd like to in the first part of my speech outline the current situation as I see it and what's got us into this situation and then secondly some of the solutions to the situation around housing. Just before I do that I would like to acknowledge the Minister Phil Twyford. I'd also like to acknowledge Ministers from the previous National Government who did work on this particularly around the Crown infrastructure work as we link to that.So the current situation as we have heard is that we are a number of houses short in New Zealand. This has happened for a variety of reasons. A little aspect around immigration: New Zealand is a very popular place to live and we have had a lot of people come here. Businesses have had people come over from other countries to support their businesses and that's great. But at the same time it puts pressure on housing health and education.A key aspect here has been around the regulations from councils; some of the challenges particularly around their debt ceilings. And if I could turn my attention a little bit to Hamilton as Mr Bishop did just to put a bit of a local focus on this when I was first elected to Parliament two years ago I met with the previous mayor of Hamilton Andrew King and the CEO Richard Briggs and their first topic of conversation was housing. There was a number of topics they wanted to talk about but housing was their priority. They spoke back then around the special purpose vehicles. They spoke about Crown Infrastructure Partners. They spoke about what was happening in Milldale and they spoke about their desire to have something like that for Hamilton. So I certainly heard those words and fed them through to Minister Twyford. What they told me was that their debt ceiling was effectively maxed out. You know they couldn't afford to pay for the infrastructure and they needed new tools. That was the key point that they said: they needed new tools in their toolkit in order to deliver housing.Hamilton is a number of houses short. There was a recent piece of work done by the Waikato Plan and it analysed the state of housing across the whole Waikato area. Specifically Hamilton is 4000 houses short and I've seen firsthand evidence of that as people are coming into my electorate office—and I'm sure the National MPs based in Hamilton have seen the same thing: people coming into our offices in desperate need of housing desperate need. We talk about homelessness. Sometimes homelessness evidences itself by people living rough on the streets but also homelessness evidences itself by people being crowded into houses. Often two or three families are crowded into a three-bedroom house four-bedroom house. And the social impacts of that are terrible basically. It affects health it affects education and also as Mr Bishop said it lifts up the price of rent because a lot of these people are renting and they basically can't afford to pay the rent. But not even that. I mean the rental properties aren't even there—the properties aren't even available. I was talking to a real estate agent just a couple of days ago and I said Talk to me about what's happening in the rental market." And they said "Look if something gets listed straight away 60 70 people are wanting a house." So look it is a very important issue that we are trying to address here.Moving on to the second part in terms of the solution I'm heartened to see in the House that we have a piece of legislation supported by both parties. Just as Mr Yule was saying I like seeing that as well. I like seeing aspects where the politics is taken out of it where people use their common sense and they say "Look this is a good idea." I'm actually surprised this has taken so long to get to the House. I don't know the history—I mean I don't know the challenges—because it really does seem like a very practical idea. We do have a test case—Andrew Falloon: That's not career enhancing mate.JAMIE STRANGE: I'd like to move on to that. Look I'm not—I don't want to attribute blame because I mean I don't know. Maybe others who were here could—Hon Phil Twyford: It's complicated.JAMIE STRANGE: It's complicated yes. Ha ha! Anyway on a positive note—Hon Phil Twyford: Tauriko West is the big opportunity.JAMIE STRANGE: Big opportunities—big opportunities in the Hamilton to Auckland corridor. I will get on to the Hamilton to Auckland corridor because there are a number of opportunities for this.So the solution: we have heard about Milldale and I'm honoured to be on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee where Crown Infrastructure Partners gave us a briefing just a few months ago. They spoke about Milldale and it's a project that has worked—hands down it has worked. One of the previous speakers Andrew Bayly sort of gave the details; so I won't go into that too much but they have produced 9000 houses for an area of Auckland that certainly needed houses with the targeted rate.There's another point that I like about this bill and that's the aspect of collaboration: so councils collaborating with central government. It's very important that we have that collaboration within our system. At times silos can exist within areas of our society. One of the most dangerous silos is if central government and local government aren't working together because we absolutely must work together. We each have our unique roles but there are certainly great outcomes for people when central and local government do work together and this is an example of that.As the Minister alluded to previously there are a number of opportunities for a special purpose vehicle (SPV) within the Hamilton area and also the Hamilton to Auckland corridor which is—people have heard me speak in the House before—the fastest-growing corridor in New Zealand. There is huge demand within that corridor. We're seeing businesses shift out of Auckland and relocating within that corridor. We're seeing their staff come with them into that corridor whether it's Hamilton whether it's Tauriko whether it's obviously Pōkeno—but all through that corridor. We have those river towns that at times have been doing it tough over recent years. There are opportunities for those river towns: the likes of Huntly Ngāruawāhia Te Kauwhata—huge opportunity for those towns to play a key role in New Zealand's future as we see people from Auckland shift south into the lovely Waikato region.Tim van de Molen: Great region.JAMIE STRANGE: Great region. And I can see why people are starting to shift south. I can see why businesses are starting to relocate. If you've got a business in Auckland—Chris Bishop: The city of the future.JAMIE STRANGE: City of the now Mr Bishop—city of the now. I have been quoted in the media saying Hamilton will be the second-biggest city in New Zealand in 30 years; so let's see what happens there. Someone can quote that back to me when I'm 72 and see if I was accurate.But look I mean it's not just about Hamilton growing; it's about the whole country. It's basically about providing houses for people because housing is a basic human right. In New Zealand we've seen large-scale housing developments. We've seen some in the 1930s we've seen some in the 1960s and 1970s and we're starting to see some happening now. It happens when Government takes an active role within the housing market and that's what's happening here. So lots of opportunities for collaboration for developers obviously for councils. Particularly from a Hamilton point of view I was very pleased to see current mayor Paula Southgate's comments speaking in favour of this. So I look forward to an SPV for Hamilton and I look forward to seeing the great things that this bill will do. Thank you.Bill read a first time. Bill referred to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee."