Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. This is an important bill and I hear the comments of my colleagues that it's regrettable—a little bit sad—that it hasn't happened sooner but it's a very important bill.I want to start by just setting the bill in the context of the Government's wider work programme and I want to congratulate the Minister Phil Twyford for the good job that he is doing in some respects when it comes to the issues of urban planning reform and heading in the right direction when it comes to our housing market. He's had a tough time of it in the last couple of days in the House but actually he has the right idea. The implementation is problematic the delivery is not quite there and we all know the problems with KiwiBuild and light rail. But actually I believe the Minister understands what we need to do to make housing more affordable in New Zealand and there are four components: urban planning reform and stopping what he calls urban containment—we support that; Resource Management Act reform—we support that and we wait with bated breath like everyone else the Government's changes; he is advancing legislation that's before the committee I'm the deputy chair of actually which is the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Bill and its connections to transport links which I have the privilege of the being the spokesperson of; and of course making it easier to build and making it easier to get consents for building; and of course looking at productivity improvements and efficiency gains that we can make in the building sector and that's what this bill is all about.Actually there's a fair degree of consensus across the two major parties in Parliament about this work programme to make housing more affordable in New Zealand and actually a lot of the stuff that the Government is doing we would argue should be happening quicker and more effectively but a lot of that work was started under the previous Government. Indeed the genesis for this bill started under the previous Government as well.I want to point out three particular things in the bill that—one of them is a good thing and two of them I've got a couple of concerns about. The first is the creation of a specialist framework for modular components and the language used in the explanatory note is MMC" and I suspect the members of the Environment Committee that are going to be considering this piece of legislation are going to get pretty familiar with that term. But "MMC" refers to modern methods of construction which is buildings that use automation technology and assembly line methodology to efficiently produce building products. That is I believe something that we need to do much more of in New Zealand. We need to be much more interested and developers and builders need to show a lot more interest in prefabrication and off-site manufacturing.The simple reality in New Zealand is that we love the bespoke house. Everyone's got the house that's a little bit different from the person down the road and the neighbour next door—and of course that's fine. But the reality of that is it does raise cost and that cost has to be paid for. So if we can move to a system where there's at least greater use of automation greater use of prefabrication off-site manufacturing slightly away from the bespoke model then I think that will be a good thing. So we're going to have a specialist framework that will be created through the bill and I think the committee will want to invigilate and investigate exactly how that's going to work pretty carefully.Second point I want to look at is about the building levy. So the building levy provides funding for the performance by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment's (MBIE) chief executive of functions under the Act. What this bill does is amend the scope of the levy so the chief executive can use it for wider purposes. Again I think the committee is going to want to have a good look at that. The thing about levies is you have to closely tailor them to what they're being raised for and ultimately levies have to be paid by someone and you have to make sure that the levy that's being raised is closely connected to what it's being spent on. And I for one would be a little bit worried about a wider power for the chief executive to spend it on things that would be extraneous or separate to what the building levy is collected for and so I think the committee's going to want to have a good look at that.I do just pause here to note that the regulatory impact statement for this bill has been prepared under significant time constraints and actually it notes that "This has not allowed [time] for engagement with stakeholders [and] refinement"—I'm quoting—"of the proposals that were part of the public consultation." I think that is regrettable because this has been a work stream to use a bureaucratic phrase part of the work programme for some months now; in fact some years of this time in Government. I do just point out that I think the committee that is going to investigate this bill is going to want to get into the nitty-gritty of the proposals because I do note that some of the proposals in this bill have not been part of the refinement for public consultation and I think that is regrettable.Finally can I make a point around public notification. There is an amendment to the public notification requirements to publish in newspapers various matters that relate to the powers exercised by the chief executive and that may well be a pragmatic change. Moving into the digital age you can publish things online—of course you can; of course that's far easier for departments—but I've got to say having trawled through the MBIE website trying to get to the bottom of where all the Provincial Growth Fund money has gone in a past role that I am now no longer in that MBIE website is pretty big and it is pretty confusing to get your head around. Websites particularly Government department websites tend to grow and they never get smaller—particularly for a department like MBIE which has a multiplicity of functions and very diverse across different parts of the economy.I do worry that if you remove the public notification requirements away from newspapers there will be a diminution in the information actually available to the people who need to see it. The thing about a newspaper is that despite the challenges that newspapers are facing particularly in the community newspaper area they are still widely published and I believe still widely read. I think the committee's going to want to just have a look at that and see whether or not that is a useful change to make and I'll be very interested actually in the feedback from the building sector on that. If it turns out that actually the building sector quite likes the idea of still being able to open the paper and see the exercise of the powers by the chief executive the notices that are published—if it turns out that the sector actually quite likes that I for one would not want to move to a system where we move online just for the sake of it. I think we've just got to be a bit careful about that. So that's in the bill and I'm sure the committee will have a look at it.I'll just end where I started by saying that this is an important bill. It's a shame it has taken so long but I think it will be looked at and addressed in good faith by National members on the committee. They'll do a good job and we look forward to its return to the House presumably sometime after the next election and if we're fortunate enough to be back then we'll be looking to advance it. Thank you Mr Speaker."