Twyford PhilPHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): Labour is supporting this bill and I want to thank Gareth Hughes and the Greens for approaching the problem of the housing crisis with a constructive problem-solving attitude because it is more than the National Government members can find in themselves after 8 years in Government. They have stood by and watched the dream of affordable homeownership come crashing down around the ears of Generation X and Generation Y.We have the lowest rate of homeownership in the world. We have the most unaffordable housing in the world according to The Economist magazine. That is an absolute disgrace and this National Government has done nothing about it. It has been happy while our country's biggest city turns into a speculator's paradise and only this morning did we see on the front page of the New Zealand Herald the fact that people are flipping houses at a rate of 300 a year making an average of $70000 profit on each one. There was one case in South Auckland last year where someone flicked off a house on the same day it was bought and made a million dollars' profit on the resale. As if we needed any more evidence that National's housing policy has failed. So at least the Greens have come to this House trying to offer some kind of solution.When my wife and I bought our first home in 1989 it cost us the equivalent of three times—three times—our household income. And that was the average at that time in the 1980s in Auckland. For Generation X and Generation Y—for our son who is 27 and his friends' generation—they face a median house price in Auckland that is 10 times the median household income. Housing has become three times less affordable now than it was 30 years ago and this National Government has no interest in doing anything about it.There was a really interesting story actually in the Sydney Morning Herald a couple of days ago. Paul Keating the former Australian Prime Minister gave a stonkingly good response to the announcement by the Australian Federal Government about an increase in homeowner subsidies.Chris Bishop: What a great Prime Minister.PHIL TWYFORD: And he was really having a go. I agree; Paul Keating is one of the giants of our time. And he was ripping into the Liberals in Australia for wanting to crack open superannuation savings basically and for allowing young people to take away their future savings and their future opportunities because the housing market had been allowed to spin so badly out of control. And Australia faces many of the same problems we do.Keating's speech underlined for me the importance of a Government that is willing to tackle the structural causes of a housing crisis and that is not this National Government. It refused to do anything about tackling speculators. It has quite happily fallen—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I have not heard student loan scheme" mentioned in over 2½ minutes. I am not part of Generation X or Y and I would actually like to hear something about what the actual subject is about and the substantive nature of what this bill is about which is the student loan scheme. Tying it into housing is what it is about but how about mentioning the student loan scheme as well?PHIL TWYFORD: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. The Student Loan Scheme (First Home Repayment Diversion) Amendment Bill—although we are supporting it to select committee there is no doubt that it does fall into the category of policies that do not address the structural causes of the housing crisis. We need a Government that is actually willing to build houses that will rewrite and reform the rules around renting and that will actually genuinely reform the restrictive planning rules that choke off the supply of affordable housing. We need those things because without them Generation X and Generation Y will be forever condemned to a life of being tenants in their own land something the former Prime Minister said would never happen.Until we get a Government later this year that will make those reforms that has the political courage to actually bust the monopolies and the rorts and the vested interests and actually fix the housing crisis and restore affordable homeownership—until we have that—then people are always going to be forced into a position where they have to bring these kinds of policy responses to the crisis.We support this bill to select committee because we think it is worth debating these issues. It is not perfect. There are lots of issues that would need proper scrutiny at select committee. But we applaud the Greens for at least making constructive—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. His time has expired."