Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Nonsense. Nonsense from that member in this House. Labour is supporting this bill because it is a smart step forward. It is one step forward which is useful. But there are so many other measures which have delivered housing—particularly for vulnerable communities—like Māori housing which has been cut by this Government. So we have a Minister who is aspirational for Māori housing come down to this House and deliver a speech where he says Look over here—look over here and don't pay attention to my record of cutting those very initiatives which when I was in Government I was a champion of." Nonsense.This is a well-intentioned bill and it will do some things which are useful. It will make sure that those providers of build-to-rent housing are ready to go when this Government enacts those changes which it proposes will make a difference to the housing supply in this country. And though these aren't the measures that we would have chosen to do these are the measures which the Government believes in. So yeah let's give it a go. Let's see if this is something which will fundamentally increase the supply of housing and will help the demand for rentals in New Zealand. That is a useful measure and it's useful for this House to be able to be open-minded when it comes to these solutions which don't fit with the values necessarily of the Labour Party. But look it's a useful thing that we should try because we all agree fundamentally that we must build more houses in New Zealand. It is pretty well understood around the spectrum here that we do not have enough houses in New Zealand for not only our growing population here but also for the number of migrants coming into New Zealand.So in a place like Manurewa that I represent and am very proud to call home we have a situation where people are in overcrowded housing where rentals are prohibitively expensive for people and they're essentially now based on not only the income of one family but of two because that is the norm for many Manurewa families who live in say a three-bedroom house amongst two families or intergenerational families who are choosing to live together but are also in very cramped conditions.So we need to make sure that we are making interventions in the housing market from both the supply side and the demand side. I heard the Minister of Housing stand earlier when he gave his contribution and talk about how this was an essential measure and you know it wasn't the be-all and end-all. I think a number of those kinds of interventions are really good. But we also need to see proper investment in the demand side because this Minister is too focused in my view on the supply side measures which he has signed up to ideologically.The demand side of the equation is really important too. We need to make sure that the Government is putting aside allocation to make sure that the most vulnerable New Zealanders who have trouble getting into housing are supported to do so. One of those housing initiatives is He Kūkū Ki Te Kāinga which is an initiative which has been cut by this Government for kaumātua housing. I raise that initiative particularly because this kind of build-to-rent measure will not address those housing needs faced by these vulnerable people. They're over 65 and they are Māori. They face intergenerational barriers to getting into housing because not only did they not own a home but their parents did not own a home and their parents before them did not own a home.When we look at the history of Māori housing in Aotearoa in the 1930s homeownership for Māori was higher than other groups. But because of successive decisions made by Governments and because of the kind of economy that we have designed and the kind of economic development that we have pursued in New Zealand we have seen that not only rural Māori have lost their connection to their whenua but also Māori in urban environments. So we have this structural problem where some of the most vulnerable New Zealanders and Māori are being locked out of the housing market and measures like these don't go far enough to address that in my view.But being able to provide a larger number of houses in the market and being able to provide for people who choose to rent or are renting because they are saving to afford a home is a really good idea. We need to make sure that we're also doing everything we can to do that. We also need to make sure that community housing providers and those large institutional investors who are interested in building large numbers of homes are ready to go too. So this kind of investment is a good mechanism to allow for that. I'm happy to be able to support this initiative. While it's not what I would have chosen to have done let's give it a go. I commend this bill."