Ross Jami-LeeJAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker for the opportunity to speak in this debate.Hon Ruth Dyson: Oh this'll be worth waiting for.JAMI-LEE ROSS: I'm glad you've been waiting for it Ruth Dyson—been waiting since 1993 for a debate like this I'm sure. I'm pleased that we are debating this. It does deserve the attention of the House prior to us actually voting on it the reason being that we are considering—let's break it all down—a truncated select committee process. That is not unusual for the House—it does happen from time to time; I accept that—but we're considering a truncated select committee process that travels over the Christmas break.If we're to ask ourselves How do we make good policy?" and if we're going to ask ourselves "How do we ensure"—as I know Speaker Mallard and the Leader of the House Chris Hipkins believe in—"that a proper MMP parliamentary process goes into the consideration of bills at a select committee?" we have to step back and ask ourselves "What's a decent amount of time for a committee to be considering a piece of legislation?" And a piece of legislation that attacks somewhat the rights of individuals to own property in a country is one that I think deserves both more than two months' select committee process and certainly a process that does not extend over the time in which basically New Zealand shuts down for a month people go on holiday and people are not engaged in what is happening politically. Now most New Zealanders probably stopped engaging in politics on 1 December and they probably don't start engaging again until 1 February. There are others of us who spend a lot more time on these things but New Zealanders average New Zealanders who care about these issues who want to submit—even professionals who are interested in these issues—deserve more time to do so.I want to talk a little bit about the people in my electorate that I think will take an interest in submitting on a piece of legislation like this. I represent the Botany electorate which is number one when you scale all the electorates in individuals living in an electorate that were born outside of New Zealand. My electorate has 51 percent of its population born outside of New Zealand. Many of those individuals that were born outside of New Zealand are what Phil Twyford might call people with Chinese-sounding names. Certainly we're very multicultural and there's a high migration into my electorate. Those are the very people who are affected by this. Those are the very people who have family members that would be impacted by this. I'm offended on their behalf that they will get only two months over the Christmas break over the summer holiday break to submit on a piece of legislation like this.I note that the Standing Orders Committee in 2011 considered this very issue. The Standing Orders Committee in 2011—whilst I was very junior back then and was not involved I'm aware of the report. I'm aware that there was discussion at that committee about the norm for select committees to consider legislation. The norm is six months. The committee of the time decided that if there was going to be a change in the time period by which a committee was to consider a bill a high bar should be set and almost a penalty should be put in place for a Government.We're effectively in the penalty time right now where we are debating this as a Parliament. The committee felt very strongly at the time that there should be some ramifications for a Government that wanted to change the time period. There isn't much sitting in Speakers' Rulings but there are some words about how select committees should have six months or more to consider most bills. There is no intention for the default period for select committee consideration of bills to be shortened and the Government should exercise due restraint when considering the truncation of the select committee process.I submit to you Madam Deputy Speaker that the Government has not exercised due constraint. We are aware of the fact that the Government has not exercised due restraint by looking at the papers that are on the Table prepared by Treasury. What is the urgent legislative need for a committee to consider this bill in such a short time frame? What is the problem that has been defined? Well the problem that's been defined is that the Government has a 100-day commitment to ban overseas speculators from buying existing homes. That is an urgent issue because an election was held where—more New Zealanders voted for the National Party than any other party—the Labour Party had a policy and they arbitrarily decided they wanted to implement something within 100 days.That is the only urgent situation that we have in front of us. That is not an urgent situation that should be one in which we take away the rights of New Zealanders to submit. That is not an urgent reason to remove the rights for New Zealanders to submit to a process. That is not an urgent reason to take away the rights of my constituents most of which are migrants to have the ability to submit on a piece of legislation that is designed to attack them. The problem that is defined in the papers that we are seeing on the Table the problem that the Government has when they've come to the Parliament with a piece of legislation—simply that they want to implement something within their 100-day commitment—is no right to take away the rights of New Zealanders. We also are aware reading this piece of paper that there are some significant issues that need to be addressed. There are significant issues that the committee is going to have to look at. Those are issues that a committee should quite properly put a lot of effort into.We have done a bit of a calculation. We said to the staff "Hey you guys are smart. You've done this before. What is the typical time period by which a committee would need to properly consider a bill? Start at the final point where it delivers the report back and work back from there and tell us how much time we have."We've done a bit of a time line: first reading 19 December; if the Finance and Expenditure Committee (FEC) sits tomorrow and calls for submissions on 20 December; if they truncated that time period that normal time period we give to people to submit. We said "Let's say get submissions back in by mid-January." That's a month's time to get submissions in—actually it's less than a month's time.Hon Steven Joyce: It's mid-January.JAMI-LEE ROSS: It's mid-January; that's right. Most New Zealanders will be experiencing and enjoying Christmas next week and then they'll go and enjoy the beaches enjoy Andrew Bayly's and Stuart Smith's electorates and my electorate. They'll be doing that instead of wading through a poorly written piece of rushed legislation.But if they get their submissions back on 17 January and FEC has some time to consider those submissions—let's just say the Finance and Expenditure Committee has the time to hold a hearing. They're not going to have much time to hold a hearing because they have to instruct the Clerk's Office as to what they need to do. They need to instruct parliamentary counsel. If they hold submissions on 24 January—and the reason we're suggesting they need time between 17 and 24 January is so they can actually process the submissions. Let's remember the staff the very people who have to do the work on this they will be wanting to experience and enjoy a summer holiday as well. If they hold hearings on 24 January for several days if they manage and this will be difficult to get the bill and the submissions all processed in a reasonable period of time they probably could deliberate on 31 January. Then they could go and ask parliamentary counsel to go and consider drafting changes.There's going to be a lot that's required because we know from Treasury's own words about all the problems that are in place. Some of my other colleagues might want to investigate this in more detail. They're going to have to go and instruct the officials as to what they need to do. Probably by 7 February the drafting changes will be back before FEC and that'll be considered. If they are able to approve the drafting changes by 7 February then by 14 February they can probably get to a point where they would be able to approve a final version of the bill.They need to go back to caucuses too. There is a convention I know amongst the National Party and amongst the Labour Party and other parties that these things should go back to party caucuses. If MPs are going to have a reasonable opportunity through the select committee process through their members to contribute towards the bill there needs to be time for it to go through a bit of a caucus process as well. They should be able to look at this on 14 February all so they can get it back into the House on 20 February.That is an unbelievably short time frame especially over the Christmas break. Because the Government has some urgent reason to get their 100-day programme in we're now having to force New Zealanders to go through this process and force a select committee to look at a truncated process for a bill that is rushed which is poorly drafted and for which Treasury has indicated there are substantial risks and unintended impacts that I know that the House should properly consider. Fundamentally this bill is about taking away the rights of individuals to purchase property. If you're going to go and impact on people's lives in such a way then we should be doing it in a thorough process.This side of the House is thoroughly unimpressed with the time frames that are being considered. We expect there to be a longer time frame and we'll be supporting the amendments in Gerry Brownlee's name to have a date in April as a report-back date to consider this bill. Thank you very much."