Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to this Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. This bill was described by Nicola Willis of the National Party as coming from an unusual bipartisan process". Well that is entirely accurate. Neither Labour nor National has any credibility on the issue of housing. That's why they've decided to abandon attacking each other. Like tired boxers at the end of a fight they've gone into a clinch. It's boring for the spectators but much safer for them. The problem with this extremely unusual bipartisan process is that the secrecy between Labour and National meant they couldn't tell anyone else they were doing it and the result of that is that people like say Chris Darby the chair of the planning committee at Auckland Council wasn't asked wasn't consulted and wasn't even given a pre-announcement briefing before it went out contrary to the Government's memorandum of understanding with councils. This total lack of consultation has meant that the policy is going to fail. Because if they'd asked they would have been told some very basic things. It's a shame the policy's going to fail because the problem they're trying to tackle is a worthwhile one to try and tackle.I've lived this policy issue in two countries for over a decade. For years I was the face of the Demographia housing affordability study—the international study that appears in New Zealand too. From sea to sea across Canada I got up and appeared on Canadian screens and said "Zoning is the big problem. If only we got rid of zoning." I even wrote a book at the time. It's got a chapter saying about as much as that. I returned to New Zealand and I talked to people day after day about housing policy. I talked to homeowners. I talked to people who want to be homeowners. I talked to people about the impact of not having good housing in New Zealand. I talked to principals of schools where they have different sets of kids every term because those kids are passed from auntie to uncle without secure housing and spend half the time living in motels—on Great South Road going to Newmarket School right now; or they would be if not for COVID restrictions.I've also talked to people on councils. I've also talked to people in Government. I've talked to people who are developers who actually build houses and I've done all of that just in the last few days about this Labour-National policy. They say things like "It's hare-brained it won't work it's a political stunt it's hollow it's going to ruin neighbourhoods and it won't deliver the houses that a whole generation of millennials have been promised." Here are some other things that they say and I want to quote one of them: "The biggest barrier to increasing housing supply in urban growth areas and beyond is the cost in provision of infrastructure e.g. three waters transport and community infrastructure."Now does anyone who's been very vocal on the National Party benches want to tell me who said that? Can we listen? Oh well that was ironically the Minister of Housing in December 2020 and that's what the developers are saying. That's what people on councils are saying. That's what the planning experts I consulted said—actually simply adding more zoned land to solve a shortage of infrastructure is like buying more cars to end a shortage of fuel. So that's the first reason that it's not going to work. You hear them say "Well just a second. We've had some modelling done by an accounting firm that says that it's going to work out." Well here's how that modelling actually worked. It said "You know what? When the Auckland Unitary Plan came in in 2016 people built more homes in areas that were zoned for higher intensity in mixed housing urban and mixed housing suburban; ergo logically if we zone more areas as this new medium-density residential standard people will build even more homes." Now if you were doing any kind of rational problem definition and policy formation the first question you'd ask is "Is it still true that the reason more homes don't get built is a lack of zoned land? Because that's not what all the developers and people in councils and the planning experts say. They say the opposite." That's not what the Minister of Housing says. She says that actually it's a shortage of infrastructure. So the analysis is wrong. But the problem is that this medium-density residential standard is not actually like the zones that the modelling used when they tried to establish that intensifying would lead to more home building.This medium-density residential standard (MDRS) is going to be in every residential area in the five largest cities. It says that you can have an 8-metre wall 1 metre from the boundary. I don't think that people have actually recognised what this MDRS means. It says there can't be any more building standards other than what is in this legislation. So it's much taller much bulkier much closer to the boundary with much less outlooks. There's so many fewer restrictions than the very stones and standards that were used in the study that they've used to try and justify this policy and that is just completely nuts.So there you are with a policy that won't lead to the outcomes that a whole generation have been promised. They think that this is somehow going to fix the problem except the problem is not the zones; the problem is the infrastructure. Then they're going to irritate beyond belief a whole group of people who actually generally are happy with intensification by the way. When I was a local MP I studied what people think and I asked them. They're happy with intensification but they actually have concerns about what it looks like and how it happens.So they've introduced this new medium-density residential zone. It's far more radical that the mixed housing urban zone and far more radical than the mixed housing suburban zone that the Government's modelling said would deliver more housing. I don't know if they've done it as something they can sacrifice in the policy process or if they really believe that it's necessary but what I do know is that it's highly divisive. You see one of the things that I hear constantly from New Zealanders is "There's too much division. The Government rushes things through under cover of COVID. They rush the laws through. They don't ask us. They don't consult us and they call us names." Well this Government and the National Party are now trying to aggravate a battle between people who want homes and people that they call "self-interested nimbies". That's what it's got to—rushing through laws and sneaking them through and name-calling. I don't think that that's going to help especially when if you don't fund the infrastructure you haven't solved the problem.Here's the final problem: they are rushing it through. So the councils weren't told even though this severely affects where they're going to have to build infrastructure and do planning and follow the rules for a very long time. And the next question that happens is that they get three weeks in order to make submissions to the select committee. It would be more honest to tell councils like Auckland and Hamilton which are operating under COVID conditions that they don't want to hear from them because realistically they won't be able to make proper submissions.The ACT Party has written to Megan Woods and Judith Collins who hatched this hare-brained scheme in our view and we've said "Here's a couple of things that could be done if you really want to make it work. Number one: fund the infrastructure." Last year central government got $2 billion in GST collected on residential construction of new homes and they kept it all. Councils have to do all the infrastructure but central government gets all the money. We say split it 50:50. A billion dollars to councils that issue resource consents and building consents for new residential homes would fix and fill the infrastructure gap so they could actually afford to make this policy work. The second thing we'd say is that "If the modelling relied on using Auckland's mixed housing urban and mixed housing suburban zones to increase housing why not just use those zones?" Dump this new radical medium-density residential standard that allows an 8-metre wall 1 metre from your boundary and there's nothing you can do about it and actually use familiar zones already in place.If they were to make those two policy changes this policy would actually probably work—that's the tragedy. But instead they're going to rush the policy through. And that's the final thing ACT says "Do a proper select committee process actually listen to people actually work together to solve the problem for the next generation without needlessly antagonising current homeowners—and then we'd have a deal." But sadly this hollow political stunt does not deserve any party support."