Walker Holly: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWalker Holly: Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10078. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]HOLLY WALKER (Green): The Green Party shares many of the process concerns raised by the previous speaker Grant Robertson with this truncated process referral motion. Firstly we note that it does seem that the Government is making a habit of referring bills to select committees with shortened select committee processes. As has been pointed out by the previous speaker we do have a unique select committee system of scrutiny in New Zealand which we should be very careful not to undermine with routine shortening of the process.Secondly as has also been pointed out the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill is a vital bill. Well perhaps the bill itself is not vital but the issue it addresses is one of the most significant social and economic challenges facing the country—i.e. the housing crisis and the crisis of affordability. There is a high degree of public interest in the outcome of this legislation and measures to improve housing affordability and therefore there will be a high degree of public interest in the submissions process on the bill. There are also a large number of affected stakeholders aside from the general public potential homeowners and existing homeowners. There are a large number of institutional stakeholders who deserve the right and the chance to have a decent say on the bill not least of which are the local councils.As has been pointed out the regulatory impact statement makes clear that there has not yet been consultation with local authorities around the country. This is a really important point because although the Auckland Housing Accord has been negotiated and the Auckland Council is certainly on board with the provisions for that accord this bill actually extends the possibility of similar accords and of special housing areas around the country and yet there has been no conversation and no consultation with other councils that are potentially affected. And given that there is a provision for these special housing areas to be rolled out to other regions and the fact that the Governmentis potentially able to dictate the terms for those special housing areas if an accord cannot be reached with those councils it seems particularly important that those local government stakeholders do have the opportunity to fully engage with the select committee process on this bill.Similarly with insufficient information on land supply problems across New Zealand we need to be clear that the Social Services Committee has the right information and enough time to digest and process that information before we roll out a bill that extends a model across the whole country when we have not yet even analysed whether and how it needs to apply in other parts of the country. So for these reasons we certainly oppose the truncated process of the select committee. We think New Zealanders have the right to have their say at the select committee and that it is a complex and technical piece of legislation addressing a very important social and economic challenge and therefore parliamentarians need to have sufficient time to engage with the material as well.