Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I would like to direct my comments towards some arguments that have been made from the other side of the Chamber about how this particular clause clause 10 is retrospective. We all know in this Committee that retrospective law is bad law. We all know that the Government should seek to make laws that people can actually anticipate and plan their activities around rather than be second-guessed by. If indeed the matter before us in clause 10 was retrospective then we would have to very seriously consider opposing it on those grounds. The great difficulty is that although the effects of clause 10 are retrospective it is clarifying a particular situation which is the Public Works Act and the Housing Act as they stand which are also retrospective. So if we were to ask the question Is clause 10 introducing retrospectivity into the statutes bill?" the honest answer would have to be no because there is already retrospectivity in section 15 of the Housing Act and sections 40 to 42 of the Public Works Act. That is the confusion in the law that clause 10 seeks to resolve. It might help members to actually read what it says. It says "To avoid doubt". The issue is that there is already a doubtful situation where it may not be clear who is able to claim against housing that has been developed turned into housing and bought by people who are now new homeowners and attempting to pay their mortgages—often precisely the sorts of people the Labour Party was set up to stand for but has sadly forgotten. I will take your advice on it being a wide-ranging debate because is it not sad to look across at the Labour Party? I had two people come up to me in the adjournment who said that they had recently spent time with Andrew Little and they were effusive about his boringness. The fact of the matter is that we now have a Labour Party that is completely rudderless—a Labour Party that says that it wants to build 100000 houses through its so-called KiwiBuild but a Labour Party that believes in supporting legislation that is going to mean that any "KiwiBuilt" homes to modify the phrase that are built on land that was Crown land that was at any point in the past ever owned in any kind of private ownership will be subject to opportunistic legal challenge. If the Labour Party members had any coherence in their desire to make housing affordable to more people through a programme of Government construction of housing they would be very concerned to support this initiative because it actually clears the way for precisely the type of public policy that the Labour Party normally stands for. But "Mr Boring" unfortunately the Labour Party does not have a coherent programme. Those members are opposing this today because they think they can stand on principle but it is not a principle that they have ever stood for before. The Labour Party will be back in Government one day perhaps if it is very lucky and those members will have to reverse everything they have said today in order to achieve their underlying principles. The ACT Party by contrast has played a constructive role in this debate. We have introduced an amendment that will ensure that the inherent conflict between the Housing Act 1955 and the Public Works Act 1981 must be resolved by this House very soon. It is not right that people who own private property should have their property rights impaired for a public purpose that is not proper and the Government becoming a property developer is not a proper public purpose. I proudly stand for ACT as a party of principle that plays a constructive role in public policy debates which is far more than could ever be said for the Labour Party which has twisted itself in contortions like a tightly wound pretzel in this debate—one minute standing up for property rights one minute saying that there is a crisis in housing and the next minute saying that it wants to build 100000 houses on Crown land when it is voting for legislation that will make that all the more insecure and all the more difficult. It has been hilarious to listen to the Labour Party. Thank you."