Turei MetiriaMETIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I just want to briefly describe the provision in this part of the bill for those members of the public who may be listening because we talk in a language here that is not always entirely understandable outside. This is a provision that removes the obligation of the Government to offer back to a person the land that they previously gifted or sold—gifted generally—to the Government or land that was taken from them. The offer back is for land that was taken from or gifted by an owner under the Public Works Act. When the Crown does not need that land any more it has a legal obligation to offer it back to the previous owner or their descendants at a market price or below the market price. That is the property right that is being talked about here and that will be taken away by this provision in this bill. If the previous owners or the descendants of the previous owners do not want the property then the Government is entitled to be able to sell that land on the open market. The offer back is a right that the previous owners and their descendants will have when their land has been gifted or taken from them by the State for a particular purpose.There are lots of concerns about the Māori issues that are related to that and we will get to those shortly but just on the general legal point the provision in Part 2 of this bill is designed to enable the Government to be able to sell the land it has been gifted or that it took and provide it to developers to build houses on for those developers to be able to on-sell that land with those houses on it to anyone they choose. So the offer back is prevented at both the beginning and at the end of the process under this provision.This provision is very broad. This provision does not apply only to special housing areas (SHAs); it is actually much much broader than that. This provision applies to any development of land for a number of purposes: land that could have housing sites on it land that does have housing on it land for motorways land for roads land for access ways and land for flood and river protection. The criteria in this legislation mean that the Government will be able to stop its obligation to offer back land that it was given for a wide variety of purposes so this is not just a provision about housing. It is not just a provision about special housing areas. It will affect hundreds if not thousands of New Zealanders who have an offer-back right.It is much much broader than the narrow provisions that the rest of this bill was designed for and we are being told is supposed to be about. The rest of this bill is supposed to be about just the special housing areas whether you like them or not—the protection of the existing developments on special housing areas and the extension of special housing areas. But Part 2 is much much broader than that and it is being sneaked through under urgency. It will give the Government the right to take from hundreds if not thousands of New Zealanders their property right to have that land offered back to them. That is a very serious incursion by the Government on the legal rights of New Zealanders—New Zealanders who do not know that the right is being taken from them because we are dealing with this bill under urgency. So most if not all of those who have this offer-back right for land that was gifted by them to the Crown or taken from them do not know that this right is being taken from them.When we talked with the Minister and the officials there was no evidence given to us that the people who have this offer-back right have been told about this legislation that they know that this provision is in this bill or that they have been advised of the potential risk of their property rights being taken. Not only that but it is pretty clear that the Government has actually got no idea about the extent to which this bill might affect New Zealanders. When we asked Nick Smith about this he said he did not think that there were any issues with it. He did not know whether there were Māori interests for example in the offer-back provision. He did not know the extent to which this provision would affect New Zealanders' rights. He has got no idea of the names of those people. They have done no work to make sure that the people whose rights they are taking away by law have been informed about this.I have Supplementary Order Paper 211 on the Table to delete this provision from the bill. It needs to go. Either the provision goes to a select committee so that we can at least show those New Zealanders who have gifted land to the Crown—I mean many of these people would have gifted land to the Crown for public works. We need to at least send this provision back to a select committee so that we can tell and talk to those New Zealanders about the gift that they made and about the potential of taking their offer-back rights from them or we need to get rid of it completely because there is no justification for this provision in this bill.If my colleague Grant Robertson is correct that this is a broad provision designed to hide a specific legal threat to the Government because Nick Smith has allowed developers to spend hundreds of millions of dollars building homes on land that he could not guarantee the legal authority over—right then we need to know that. Because if that is the case then Nick Smith has been grossly irresponsible as housing Minister in allowing the SHAs to continue—in allowing developers including community organisations to invest huge amounts of money in the building of homes while still not having legal certainty over their right to on-sell those homes. That is a massive failing by a housing Minister responsible for the special housing areas. He has allowed—David Seymour: So he failed to violate property rights?METIRIA TUREI: Well this is the problem Mr Seymour. It is that Nick Smith has allowed this legal uncertainty to continue and allowed those developers to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into homes without having legal certainty. Is it now right that many thousands of New Zealanders should have their property rights taken from them because Nick Smith failed to get the legal settings for the use of this land right at the first instance?Denis O'Rourke: With the ACT Party vote.METIRIA TUREI: That is right with the ACT Party vote. Is that what our job is now—to clean up the mess that Nick Smith has made in creating a potentially serious legal problem and serious financial risk for at least one and possibly a handful of developers? He is trying to sneak through a provision to clean up his mess relying on this Parliament to do it doing it in urgency and doing it without telling New Zealanders what the real consequences of this bill will be—that they will lose their property rights because Nick Smith has a potential legal challenge chasing him right now. Is that what is going on? Is that what is going on?Denis O'Rourke: Of course it is.METIRIA TUREI: Well of course we do not know what is going on because Nick Smith will not give us the full information about the potential risk that this provision is supposed to cover.Tracey Martin: More than a probability he stuffed up.METIRIA TUREI: So Nick Smith has stuffed up. He has allowed all this development to continue and all this money to be spent. Those who have spent the money have no legal certainty about their ability to sell the land that they have built on and now Nick Smith wants us to cover it up for him. He wants us to cover it up by taking away the property rights of thousands of other New Zealanders who have got no idea that this is happening.David Seymour: How does the member know it is thousands?METIRIA TUREI: Well it could be hundreds Mr Seymour. Do hundreds of people have to lose their property rights in order to cover up a mistake made by Nick Smith?David Seymour: Oh I just wonder whether the member knows what she is talking about.METIRIA TUREI: Mr Seymour if you want to support the cover-up of Nick Smith's financial and legal mistakes you are entitled to do that. The Green Party will not put its name to the mix-up to the muck-up of Nick Smith in potentially leaving developers and community organisations at genuine financial risk because he did not clarify the legal status of that land from the beginning. This is why we have this Supplementary Order Paper on the Table—to delete the provision to make sure that we will protect New Zealanders' rights to their offer-back provision. Thank you Mr Chair.