Hayes John: Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Hayes John: Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:649;Page:18490] 
JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chair— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Here’s Sir Les Patterson. 
JOHN HAYES 
: It is Les Patterson if the member likes but I tell Mr Cosgrove that this bill is theatre. It has no substance whatever. It is theatre. It is absolute arrant childish nonsense. The Minister in the chair the Hon Maryan Street should be ashamed of herself and her officials should be ashamed of themselves for bringing this rubbish to the Committee and expecting us to be sitting here debating it. It will change nothing in this country. It will not deliver one affordable house to one person in New Zealand and the Minister has wasted the cost of building an affordable house with all the costs of putting this rubbish together. 
This bill is in the Minister’s words voluntary. Well it is not as voluntary as she thinks it is and let me explain why. If one develops a piece of land from nothing the first thing one has to do is to go to the council and apply for a resource consent. Then that has to be advertised and huge costs are associated with doing that. Then once one gets through the consultation process and secures the resource consent to subdivide one has to bring in surveyors architects and electricians to provide underground services and lighting. Then one has to provide sewerage curbing and channelling and macadam. All those things amount to a very high cost. On top of that the existing law requires one to pay a contribution to roading and a contribution to the amenities. Now clause 23 in this bill is proposing that developers can have additional costs imposed upon them and the Government is to price all the constructions it is wanting to bring in to reduce the cost of housing. 
All the Government is doing is putting up the price because if it imposes a cost on a developer he will pass it on. So if as this bill provides local authorities can start imposing additional costs upon developers on the basis that they may have to make so many houses in a particular development affordable houses then all that is doing is creating a cost to be passed on. 
The way to make house affordable in this country is first of all to get rid of the Resource Management Act and its Draconian elements. The Resource Management Act is OK to a point but it needs significant changes. 
The second thing that needs to happen is that the Government needs to encourage councils to back off on the requirement for building plans because just to apply for a building consent requires a minimum payment of $7000. Who told me that? Builder Dave Borman told me that in Masterton last week. It costs $7000 to get the proposal to the council. Then the council will get engaged in the process. It will want engineering reports and they cost money and it will also start to engage in a whole lot of other rules and regulations that come from the long-term council community plan. 
Clause 24 “Who may object to what” [ 
Interruption 
]—the member may object to that—states: “(2) A person to whom notice is given under section 22(2)(a) ie a person doing a development—(a) may object to the decision on any ground; and (b) may object to a provision in the territorial authority’s affordable housing policy on any ground.” All the Government is doing is setting up in this legislation more confrontation between people in the community who want reasonably priced houses and the local authorities that the Government is dumping more rules on through this legislation. I can tell members that because I have five district councils in my electorate and they do not want more nonsensical legislation imposed upon them. All the Government is doing is cluttering an already overburdened system that is not working. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: It is not mandatory. 
JOHN HAYES 
: What does the member mean by saying that it is not mandatory? It is voluntary. That means it is worth nothing—absolutely nothing. This legislation means nothing to anybody because one cannot possibly enforce it. What one has to do in this country is enable people to work. Let me explain to members why that works. When I was a bit younger than Mr Cosgrove I had a work ethic. I went out and earned money and I saved a deposit to buy a house. Now we have a system called family support—