Lee Melissa: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLee Melissa: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 05 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13332. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MELISSA LEE (National):Ahnnyung ha seyo. It is a great pleasure to rise in support of the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill at its third reading. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister of Housing the Hon Nick Smith and acknowledge all of the officials submitters Social Services Committee clerks and members of the committee right across the House who have spent many hours considering this bill.We may not necessarily all agree but in my view this bill will make a great deal of difference and I look forward to the changes that it will bring. If we actually take what the Minister has said we see that he hopes there will be 5000 new homes consented. That is a heck of a lot more than the 3600 a year that are currently consented when there are only 1300 sections available and there are 13000 homes a year that are required to be built to keep up with the population growth.Over the course of the passage of this bill members have traversed their views widely. One that had particular resonance with me was the issue members have raised regarding housing affordability and how different our views were. Members have heard my views on why I believe that the Opposition’s idea to build 100000 homes for under $300000 in 10 years is complete hogwash. Can I remind members that if an average section price in Auckland is $325000 how will the Opposition build homes under $300000? I say to members opposite that they should sack whoever did their sums for them.I do not possess a brilliant mathematical mind—I know; most Asian people are brilliant at maths—but even I can figure out that when the average section price is $325000 Opposition members’ promises to deliver affordable homes under $300000 are nothing but lies. I am guessing that land was not actually included in their calculations. If so if they believe that they can build homes for under $300000 and they consider that affordable I say they have got rocks in their heads. We know that we can build houses for half that price—and the Starter Home Design Competition proved that—but it is the land where the houses sit that pumps up the price of homes. They go together actually—houses on land become homes for people.I was also consistently dismayed at members opposite who seem to think that first-home buyers buy brand new homes and at the median price. How many members in this House of Representatives can say that their very first home was a brand new house and it was their dream home? Most people start very very small. They start with a small home that they can afford to buy and then they move to grow with their growing family. They never start with their dream home.This Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill provides for a special housing area under accords between the Government and councils. What happens in special housing areas is that the councils can fast track planning and consenting processes. At the moment the average for greenfield development consents is 3 years while brownfield consents take about a year. With this bill the council can consent greenfield developments within 6 months and brownfield developments within 3 months.The first accord—the Auckland Housing Accord—sets a target of 39000 new homes consented over 3 years. This is a far greater number than the 3600 homes currently being consented a year. This accord is a great example of how the Government can work collaboratively with councils to make housing affordable. The Productivity Commission the IMF and the Reserve Bank all identified that land supply was one of the key factors in making housing affordable. Unlike the Opposition members who cannot even do sums—you cannot pay $300000 for a home when you pay $325000 for land for that home—it is a view of this Government that when five key areas are targeted we will improve and achieve affordability of the homes that Kiwis dream of. These five key areas are land supply material costs infrastructure productivity in the construction sector and compliance costs. Everyone seems to get this apart from the Opposition it seems.Labour also had another solution to housing—a xenophobic solution. It was to ban foreign buyers. Actually Labour members did not mean all foreigners. They did not say boo about Shania Twain buying a farm. They never said anything about James Cameron. [Interruption] That is right. They actually mean Asian people. That is who they object to. If Labour were in Government and God forbid that it be in Government and if Labour were to ban foreign buyers if I turned up to an auction to buy a house I would probably be considered a foreigner to be banned from buying and that is exactly what I object to. This kind of xenophobic scaremongering results in Kiwis who are born overseas and in Auckland that is almost half the population being treated like they do not actually belong in this country that we have chosen to call home.Let me state here that a BNZ survey shows that only about 3 to 4 percent of house sales go to foreign buyers.Barfoot and Thompson has also put the number at around 4 percent. If I could put a personal view a personal migrant’s perspective on this most foreign students who study in New Zealand are supported by their parents who often buy homes to house their children. Once their children have stayed in New Zealand for a number of years the natural progression is for their parents to consider moving to New Zealand to be with their children on a more permanent basis. Preventing thesepeople from buying a home will most probably have a major consequence to our international student numbers as well.This is a sensible bill at the right time and if I can see that 5000 homes are consented before Christmas that would be a wonderful thing. I commend this bill to the House.