Treasury warned the Government that there could be "inconsistencies" in its housing accords legislation currently being considered by a Parliamentary select committee.
Finance Minister Bill English was also advised that the bill would have been better referred to a different committee than the one it is before, and that with this bill the select committee process would be "even more important than usual".
In addition, Treasury advised the Government to change wording in the legislation so that it would no longer have to use "best endeavours" to negotiate a housing accord with a local council but would instead be merely required to negotiate in "good faith", which would be a "lower bar" for the Government. The legislation as currently drafted has the "good faith" wording.
The May 7 "Aide Memoire" to English from Treasury is one of a mass of documents released by Treasury today as part of its annual release of Budget background documents.
The Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill was rushed into Parliament after the May 16 Budget and, following just two weeks of public submissions, was referred to the Social Services Committee. It is due to be reported back on July 26.
The Government's rushing the legislation through to enact the Auckland Housing Accord agreed with the Auckland Council on May 10 through which it is intended that fast-tracked housing developments can be conducted that would enable 39,000 new houses to be built in the Auckland region in the next three years.
However, the council has expressed strong reservations about physically signing up to the accord till details in the legislation are changed.
As currently worded the legislation, which doesn't just target Auckland, but is nationally-focussed, gives the Government far-reaching powers. The Government, if it wished, could use this legislation in its current form to centrally control housing development in many parts of the country if it were unable to negotiate housing accords with local authorities. See here for all our articles relating to the Auckland Housing Accord.
The May 7 Treasury memo to English says that "several matters" Treasury had previously raised with the Government relating to the draft legislation had already been addressed.
"For example, the term 'best endeavours', which described the lengths that the Government would go to in attempting to negotiate a housing accord has been replaced with 'good faith', which is a lower bar for the Government to meet," the memo says.
However, the memo goes on to express concern about the speed with which the legislation was developed.
"Given the speed with which the Bill has been produced and the degree of overlap with the Resource Management Act (RMA) reforms and Unitary Plan processes, we think that the select committee process will be even more important than usual," it says.
Although officials had worked very hard to align the Bill with other areas of work, the policy details underlying the Bill had "been shifting late into the process, which means that some inconsistencies may remain".
"The Cabinet paper proposes referring the [housing accord] Bill to the Social Services Committee.
"We think the Bill would benefit from being considered by the Local Government and Environment Committee, especially in terms of linkages with the RMA reforms.
"There may be good reasons for referring the Bill to another committee (e.g. in terms of managing workloads), but if possible, we think the Local Government and Environment Committee would be a better fit for this Bill."
The bill is being considered by the Social Services Committee.
2 Comments
There you go see...who said Treasury was a waste of money...look at what this mega taxpayer funded folly can come up with...doh
What a shame the headline here was not as follows:
Treasury advised Govt that due to decision to prop up the private banking companies instead of household saving, there could become, a total dependence on cheap easy to get credit....
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