McAnulty KieranKIERAN McANULTY (Labour): It's a great honour to stand here and deliver the Government's message on the Appropriation (2016/17 Confirmation and Validation) Bill on this particular theme external. There's one particular area that I was interested in and that is the rhetoric that we hear from the Opposition side around what was the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA). The TPPA that the National Government at the time negotiated was a bad deal for New Zealand. It exposed our housing market. It rung in new investor-State dispute settlement privileges for overseas corporations while excluding many of New Zealand's top exporters from the deal.At the time the Labour Party outlined clear opposition and concern to what was being proposed and what has happened since is this Labour-led Government this Government led by the Labour Party with our coalition partners New Zealand First and our confidence and supply partners the Green Party has demonstrated to New Zealanders that we have stuck to our principles that we have stuck to our clear commitment to free trade and looking after our exporters but also ensuring that New Zealand exporters and New Zealanders do not miss out.What my party the Labour Party was concerned about was fundamental rights that people in this country expect like the right to be able to buy a home without competing against overseas speculators.Hon Member: That's right—a fair deal.KIERAN McANULTY: A fair deal for the average person in this country the ordinary worker that works hard 40 50 60 hours a week and struggles to buy something that their parents' generation and their grandparents' generation almost took as a right in this country—to be able to buy a home for themselves and their families.We were told that there was no way that we could as a Government negotiate provisions within the TPPA to ensure that we can protect New Zealanders from overseas speculators in the housing market. We were told that this was impossible. And then as soon as the Minister was sworn in the Minister for Trade and Export Growth David Parker went overseas and proved the National Party wrong. He proved to New Zealanders that the National Party were more interested in the interests that the average and ordinary New Zealander is not. So the solution to this has now come about in a clearly different deal: the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)—a completely comprehensively different deal that will deliver for this country. What it has demonstrated is that this Labour-led Government is committed to the interests of New Zealanders and as I mentioned earlier it is the homeownership issue in this country that is the most obvious objective that we had and accolade that we have gained leading into this.The Government's ability to control the sale of New Zealand homes is being presented by separate legislation and it will not be affected by the CPTPP despite National's claims but purely down to the quick action of this Government and in particular the Minister for Trade and Export Growth the Hon David Parker who delivered something that is of utmost importance to the people in this country: the capacity to buy a home. Why is it too much for the National Party to grasp that people in this country want to be able to be given a fair deal? Why is it that it is too impossible for the National Party to understand that it is not unreasonable for people who work hard to be able to want to buy a home?It was once a situation that this was just an issue facing Auckland. Now it is an issue facing the whole country including places like where I live in Masterton. It wasn't that long ago that Masterton was projected to drop in population. Now we are growing considerably because of the pressure in places like Auckland and Wellington where people cannot afford to buy a home. They're shifting to the regions and now we're finding in small places like Masterton that homeownership is now an issue. So good on this Government and good on the Minister for actually delivering what people wanted when they went into this election and they elected a change of Government.