Twyford Phil: Cheque Duty Repeal Bill Climate Change Response (Unit Restriction) Amendment Bill Dumping and Countervailing Duties Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Cheque Duty Repeal Bill Climate Change Response (Unit Restriction) Amendment Bill Dumping and Countervailing Duties Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings[Sitting date: 15 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:18070. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I am conscious that I am standing between the House and the end of the sitting week but I feel that I should put on record at the conclusion of this debate the view of the Labour Opposition on the Dumping and Countervailing Duties Amendment Bill (No 2) which was Part 3 of what was the Budget Measures (Miscellaneous Fiscal Matters) Bill and which contains the centrepiece of this Government’s offering to the public of New Zealand in its rather haphazard and inadequate response to the housing crisis.If you were a Government that wanted to do something about the housing crisis there are a number of options open to you. You could do something about taxing speculators for example with for instance a capital gains tax. You could as Andrew Williams was just saying put a stop to foreign speculators bidding up the price of houses in Auckland. You might like to consider building large numbers of affordablehomes and selling them to first-home buyers. That would address the supply shortage that really lies at the heart of the sky-rocketing house prices. You might like to build more State houses because people right at the bottom end are struggling under this housing crisis. You could master-plan ambitious new urban development projects revitalise town centres and invest in transport infrastructure. You could do all of those things which would make a huge difference to the housing crisis that we have now.But if you are a Government that does not care for those kinds of bold gestures or if you were a Government that prefers to tinker round the edges and you prefer the photo opportunity and the insignificant gesture then there are a number of other options that are open to you. One of those might be trying to do something about building and construction costs. If you were serious about tackling construction costs you might for example hold a Commerce Commission inquiry into the lack of competition in the building supplies industry. You might for instance use a Government-backed building programme to build at scale thereby allowing off-site manufacturing and prefabricated construction to drive down the cost of housing. As a recent industry group estimated doing that could knock $32000 off the cost of a new house.But if you were determined to look at building and construction materials and at what they add to the cost of a new home and you had read the Productivity Commission report that said that New Zealanders are paying an extra $20000 per newly constructed house because of higher prices in this country then what would you do about that? Well if you were serious you would address the anti-competitive practices and the lack of competition in the building and construction industry. But if you wanted to just tinker round the edges and look as if you were doing something then you might look at a measure contained in the third part of this legislation which is to temporarily suspend anti-dumping duties and tariffs for certain building materials.This is the Government of the insignificant gesture. Nick Smith is the “Minister of the Photo Op”. The credibility of the housing initiatives in this Budget really sum up how pathetic this Government’s record has been on housing. It has got nothing. After a year of running around doing photo opportunities talking up the problem blaming councils blaming the banks and blaming the construction industry it has run out of scapegoats and other people to blame. All it has really got is a lame housing accord with the Auckland Council which on its own numbers will deliver only 5500 new houses in the special housing areas over 3 years. That is all it has got and this pathetic little gesture in this legislation which it claims after doing some calculation on the back of a cigarette packet might save $3500 on the cost of a new house—with no evidence brought to this House to justify those calculations and with no assurance that that saving would not be swallowed up by builders and developers. This is all that the Government has got and it is a very sad thing for New Zealand.Cheque Duty Repeal Bill read a third time.