Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Minister for Women): Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I am inspired by this bill because it will enable us to create towns and cities and neighbourhoods that are vastly more livable than what we currently have. I can imagine—in fact I've been to cities overseas population 200000 around the same size as Wellington City situated in a comparable region a city called Freiburg which has five light rail lines—actually I think seven now. They were building two more when I was there. They had two neighbourhoods that had been developed around the year 2000 that were almost car-free. This gave an incredible choice to residents of that city. Whereas in most parts of New Zealand there are very few choices. People have to live in a house that's often not near shops not near where they work not in the centre of town; that's usually too unaffordable for people. The public transport options aren't as good as we would like—of course we're working on that. But where the house is located—whether it's close to amenities shops schools parks—is important and whether it has good public transport links from the beginning that gives people choice.So in this neighbourhood called Vauban in Freiburg you can hear birdsong you can hear children laughing. In this small neighbourhood the highest development is four storeys. Most of the places have been developed as multi-family buildings that were designed by the families themselves. They hired an architect together and they built two three or four storeys. They have five parks in this neighbourhood and the light rail line was built before the housing was. In fact the tradies showed up on the light rail line for work. It's also connected to the central city by very wide walkable and cyclable paths. Families who want to own a car of course can; they just have to park it on the outside of the neighbourhood. And there are car-share cars which every person who owns the public transport pass has access to.Now imagine living in this kind of community. It means that you can walk right down to the shops that houses were built to the highest energy efficiency standard—incredibly warm many with solar panels and all of them surrounded by lush green gardens. This type of living isn't a dream. It exists—[Interruption]ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I'm sorry to interrupt the member. Mr Bennett and Tim van de Molen I'm actually having difficulty hearing the speaker. So if you wouldn't mind going into the lobby for your conversation that would be more respectful. Thank you. Sorry Julie Anne Genter.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Living in this type of neighbourhood is entirely possible and yet it is impossible in New Zealand right now. It's been nearly impossible for the co-housing developments to create these sorts of jointly shared housing developments that weren't required to have a car park in front of every single dwelling or have a garage on the side. So what we want is more choice. I mean people who want to live in a stand-alone house and have two or three or four or five cars they've got that option. It's not particularly affordable but many people are forced into that because there's a lack of affordable housing. There's a lack of quality sufficient developments within the urban area that are connected by fast frequent public transport and those safe walking and cycling routes. So what this bill does in and of itself is just enable that more coordinated development.I could give another example. I was in Copenhagen where a joint initiative between the city and the State was developing new housing around—they were pushing the port out into the harbour and they were able to develop heaps of new housing 25 percent of which was social or public housing some of which was market housing; all of it around a frequent rapid transit route which was being built. The metro was being built out—and with schools. There you get complete neighbourhoods with a variety of different types of people of different ages. But the amenity that exists when you have that option—you have those quiet safe streets for the kids. That's something that I want for my child. I know many other people in New Zealand would want that. What this bill will do is finally enable more of that type of coordinated development that starts with the rapid transit links and the safe walking and cycling routes that provides a range of different housing types. So there isn't just the stand-alone house but there's a whole range for families of different sizes people of different ages and it's far more affordable.Any time I've gone out and talked to New Zealanders and given a presentation of what can be done with very high-quality urban design and smart thinking people say they love it. They want that here. So what this Government is finally doing is getting rid of some of the barriers to this type of development to more affordable housing so that younger people have the opportunity to live within a city. Of course we have to invest in those fast frequent public transport links and we have to make cycling safe but there's such a huge opportunity in that. You know in that town of Freiburg I talked about earlier it's not a huge city. Nearly 50 percent of the trips are walking or cycling trips. People of all ages use their bike to get around in all weather because it's safe and practical. And of course the consequences of that are that transport is more affordable. So it's better for their economy. They have higher productivity—something you would think the National Party would care about but of course they don't. So when you enable safe walking and cycling within the city centre you make it easier for people to get around at lower cost and you reduce pollution through carbon emission and you reduce noise.This bill will enable us to have the coordination to have high-quality development like we did see in Hobsonville Point which was of course started by the last Labour Government and working in conjunction with Waitakere District Council. But ultimately this is all about giving people more choice and it's about creating the types of towns and cities that we would love to live in that we can afford to live in that are going to protect us from climate change and that are going to reduce pollution. All of this is entirely possible and thank goodness we have a Government that is actually committed to taking action on climate change that is committed to solving the housing crisis and that is committed to enabling the type of high-quality towns and cities and neighbourhoods that many New Zealanders have been longing for and this bill is just one step on our plan to deliver that. So the Green Party is supportive of this bill. I commend this bill to the House.