Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Thank you. I'm pleased to speak in support of the Urban Development Bill from a Green Party perspective. It is interesting that the National Party on the one hand say they are supporting this bill and then they are grumbling about it. The National Party doesn't recognise that it had nine years in Government to do something about housing but instead it failed to recognise that we had a crisis and that's what we have inherited. It doesn't recognise that it was under this Government and the legislation that was passed by Parliament—the Kāinga Ora–Homes and Communities Bill—where we wound back the ability of the Government to sell off State housing which was what the former National Government was doing compounding the housing crisis. National speakers don't recognise either that they had nine years to deal with an urban development authority—to establish one. What we got was a discussion paper from the Hon Dr Nick Smith which had very strong powers in it and which didn't have many of the protections for good process and community involvement that this bill has. That is why it has taken two years here because there has been a lot of work by the Government in thinking carefully through how we expedite housing and how we get effective urban development which integrates with public transport to provide livable communities. That is why there's the detail in this quite thick bill about how we go about doing that. The previous speakers from National have talked about special housing areas. They totally fail to realise that the way in which special housing areas were able to be established without any opportunity for community input have created the situation that we have in places like Ihumātao where there wasn't an opportunity for the community to have a say on whether there should be that sort of housing development. So this bill is a significant piece of legislation. It gives Kāinga Ora the power to act as a single-point developer. It does include the powers of compulsory acquisition of land but unlike the Hon Judith Collins' suggesting that private property rights would be overridden the provisions that apply in the Public Works Act which require compensation if there is compulsory acquisition—those sort of provisions will continue to apply so there will be compensation. It does establish a bespoke planning and consenting process. That enables some of the more cumbersome issues with the Resource Management Act (RMA) to be worked around. Yes it is a separate piece of legislation. It is not just a workaround because as Mr Bidois didn't recognise this Government is engaged in a big reform of the RMA. There's been legislation to fix up the problems that National created by shutting out the opportunity for the public to make submissions in a lot of areas and there is a panel that is actually looking at much more comprehensive reform. But this bill with its bespoke planning process where a special development project is established with that going through an Order in Council process and then there being an independent hearing panel which is set up to look at public submissions and then make a recommendation back to the Minister—that enables public input. The bill has a number of protections including for Māori land including for reserves so that if any reserve land is to be included in a special development project area then the consent of the Minister of Conservation is required. It also provides for local authorities to be involved. It provides for engagement with Māori to ensure that their aspirations for urban development are recognised. So it is creating a good process which will enable houses to be built and liveable cities to become more dense in terms of housing settlement and for that to be integrated with transport to ensure that there is good amenity provided as well through a streamlined process through this independent panel being able to make recommendations to the Minister. We do have areas where there are multiple landowners and that's why the streamlined process is important: the ability to bring those landholdings together through the ability to use compulsory acquisition powers; the ability to steer development in the round so that where infrastructure like three waters needs to be upgraded that can be done; and the ability to levy homeowners who buy into that development to actually meet those infrastructure costs rather than not doing that investment and infrastructure because there's no funding to pay for it. So it does allow the quite complex and the quite transformational development that we need in our cities and towns. It is a solidly worked through piece of legislation. I look forward to the submission process to improve it but the Green Party supports the bill and I commend it to the House. Thank you.