Twyford PhilPHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I want to set out Labour's position on this bill but before I begin my comments I want to acknowledge the presence in the gallery of Mr Hauāuru Rāwiri who is the head man of Ngāti Paoa and someone who has been right in the middle of this whole debate. Labour opposes this bill because the Government has deliberately ignored a better alternative that would have offered Ngāti Paoa a marae and co-governance of the Point England recreational reserve as well as an adjacent housing development without taking precious city parkland from a community that needs that parkland for future generations.Labour supported this bill at first reading and we did so with goodwill because we believed that it deserved serious scrutiny and on the face of it it deserved to be taken seriously. But after meeting with all of the groups involved including repeatedly with Ngāti Paoa with Auckland Council with the local board—the Tāmaki-Maungakiekie local board—and a plethora of different community groups who live in the Point England and Tāmaki area and listening to 104 submissions at the Local Government and Environment Committee of which about 90 percent were against this bill we changed our view. We weighed up the evidence we listened to people and we decided that this bill is not in the best interests of not just the community at Point England but the whole community and I will spell out why we think that.The Minister for Building and Construction has tried to say that this bill is an attempt to fix Auckland's housing crisis. Well there are so many things that this National Government should be doing about the Auckland housing crisis that if I listed them all I would not have any time left to talk about the Point England bill so I will not. But there are many many things the Government should be doing. Building houses on city parkland is simply not one of those things. It is not a credible response to the Auckland housing crisis.The communities at Point England Glen Innes and Tāmaki are going to get another 20000 residents living in those communities in the next 10 years as a result of the intensification that is under way led by the Tāmaki Regeneration Company. The community and future generations need this parkland—another 20000 people living in a medium-density community. They need the Point England Reserve which is one of the most precious open expanses of urban parkland in the Auckland region.The bill as Auckland Council has said and as the Tāmaki-Maungakiekie local board has said sets a dangerous precedent. It is central government overriding the provisions of the Reserves Act and the Resource Management Act to confiscate a piece of public parkland and turn it over to private housing.Hon Dr Nick Smith: To Ngāti Paoa.PHIL TWYFORD: To private housing. Auckland is set to get another million people in the next generation—another million people—and many of those people are going to be living in medium-density and high-density communities. They need parkland. If we take away the parkland for future generations where will the children play?Labour has set out over the last few weeks an alternative plan that we believe is better than this bill and I want to set that plan out for you. The Government is the major shareholder in the Tāmaki Regeneration Company—the TRC. The TRC owns 2800 homes just over the fence from the Point England Reserve. We propose that the Government stops this bill in its tracks and instead offers Ngāti Paoa 11 hectares of land that is currently owned by the TRC for the commercial redress component of Ngāti Paoa's Treaty settlement. Co-governance of Point England Reserve could be offered as part of the package with the opportunity for Ngāti Paoa to build the marae that they want to have established on the Point England Reserve. The Government has already accepted in principle the idea that the proceeds of the sale of the 11 hectares should go to enhancing parks in the local community. Well let the Government put its money where its mouth is and get Auckland Council to match that funding and use that to enhance the whole reserve—not only for Ngāti Paoa but for the Glen Innes and Tāmaki communities and for future generations.Nick Smith has tried to make this debate an issue of cows versus houses—cows versus houses. Apparently the basis of the National Party's housing policy is now that any land where there are cows grazing is going to be turned over to housing. I say watch out Cornwall Park—watch out Cornwall Park—and half a dozen other regional parks in the Auckland area that have livestock grazing on them because that is the new National Party housing policy. Any park that has livestock grazing is fair game for housing development.Nick Smith has said that the Point England Reserve is underutilised but as the local community group Save Our Reserves said in today's New Zealand Herald: Anyone who knows anything about the area will know that the reserve is a much-loved and much-needed public space that is enjoyed by the community year round. Only a minority of the open rural landscape is grazed and this is to support the funding of the general maintenance of the reserve. These playing fields three of which will be lost when the land is turned over to housing under this bill are used by local schools and communities for cricket kilikiti football and rugby league. This is in addition to family and social gatherings. Many people will have seen large public events that have taken place in recent weeks that attracted thousands of members of the Auckland public to the Point England Reserve including Music in Parks Movies in Parks and the hugely popular Weet-Bix Tryathlon."It is no coincidence that this bill has been brought to the House by Nick Smith. He is the Minister who two Budgets ago brought a list to the Parliament of 500 hectares of land that he was going to build 10000 houses on as part of his Crown Land Programme. He is the Minister who promised 500 hectares of Crown land 2 years ago; the best his officials can scrape together now is 30 hectares and not a single house has been built on that land. Secondly this Minister is the architect of the special housing areas policy that drew lines on the map all over Auckland and promised 39000 houses. How many have been built 3 years later? Fewer than 3000. This is the Minister who has made the National Government's housing policy a joke. He became a figure of fun. That is why he was replaced by Amy Adams—because 5 months out from an election he was an electoral liability.This bill is typical of this Minister's style. This is the way he rolls. He is trying to make the confiscation of a precious piece of public parkland into a Treaty issue. That is what he is doing. He is trying to make the confiscation of public parkland to build 300 private houses—he is trying to make that some kind of solution to the housing crisis. It is the ultimate in playing politics because it is neither of those things. It is not a serious response to the housing crisis—a housing crisis that has seen a shortfall of 40000 homes build up on that Minister's watch. It is getting worse by 7000 houses a year. Auckland Council said the other day that only 7000 homes had been built in the last year in Auckland; we need at least 14000 just to stand still and keep up with population growth. That is the legacy of this Minister: a massive shortfall of housing. Our city has some of the most expensive housing in the world. It has become a speculator's paradise and he thinks that confiscating 11 hectares of public parkland that is needed for future generations—he thinks that is some kind of solution to the housing crisis.Nick Smith is obsessed by the fact that there are some cows grazing 10 kilometres from the Sky Tower—that is the basis of the National Party's housing policy. But Minister we need parkland for future generations. What about in 30 years' time? What about in 50 years' time? The fact that there are cows grazing on a small part of the Point England Reserve is being used in the justification by this Minister for confiscating about 25 percent of the reserve. It is a nonsense—it is a total nonsense. It has no credibility as any kind of solution to the housing crisis in Auckland."