Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill

I move, That the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services Committee to consider this bill. This bill is part of this Government’s practical programme to improve the safety and well-being of Kiwi families, particularly those who are the most vulnerable. It builds on our work this year of increasing base benefits for the first time in 30 years, and the extension of free doctors visits for under-13-year-olds. It contains well-targeted measures that will deliver warmer, drier, and safer homes.

We all know the connection between the quality of housing and how this impacts on the social, educational, and health outcomes for our families. The goal of this bill is to maximise the gains in housing quality while minimising the costs we impose on the sector that will ultimately be passed on in increased rents.

The first big change in this bill is around home insulation. It addresses the problem that not until 1978 did we require, nationally, new homes to be insulated. We set out in 2008 with an ambitious programme to warm up these homes. We first needed to get our own house in order, and launched a programme to insulate every State house that could be insulated, completing 40,000 by 2014. We also invested $500 million in grants for retrofitting insulation in private homes, and, to date, we have done 280,000 homes.

The measures in this bill are the next logical step. They will require all tenanted homes to be insulated by 1 July 2019. Those homes receiving the very high Government income-related rent subsidy will be required to comply by 1 July next year. The bill also introduces a new disclosure regime, where landlords will be required, in new tenancy agreements from 1 July next year, to state whether the home has underfloor, ceiling, and wall insulation, and to what level. This is designed to better inform the rental market of the insulation standard of homes—something that is not easy to do via pre-rental inspections—and to help lead the sector in providing warm, healthier homes by the deadline of winter 2019.

We estimate these new requirements will see 180,000 tenanted homes insulated over the next 3 years, on top of the 320,000 we have done to date through our other programmes. This contrasts with just 19,000 done during the 9 years of the last Government, and makes a mockery of Labour’s current claims that the Government’s efforts are insufficient. A lasting, positive legacy of this John Key - Government will be 500,000 insulated homes, providing 1.3 million New Zealanders now and into the future with warmer, drier, and healthier accommodation.

It is important these insulation measures are kept practical. For these reasons, they are constrained to underfloor and ceiling insulation, where the gains are greatest, and because it is not economic to retrofit wall insulation. We are also allowing exceptions in the draft regulations to those homes with raked ceilings or minimum floor clearances.

There are also exceptions for where a property is to be demolished in the next 12 months, and in those situations where it is tenanted by the previous owner for short periods. We welcome feedback on the associated regulations to this bill so we achieve our goal of not requiring insulation where it is not practical, but, equally, not allowing an easy “get out of jail free” card for those landlords just trying to avoid costs.

The second significant measure in this bill is the requirement for smoke alarms in all tenanted properties from 1 July next year. It is estimated that 120,000 rental properties currently do not have a working smoke alarm. We see tragedy after tragedy of home fires and the loss of life because of a lack of this most basic and inexpensive protection. The requirement we are proposing with this bill and the regulations is a minimum of one smoke alarm in the hallway within 3 metres of each bedroom, each self-contained sleep out or caravan, and on each floor of a home. We want to shift to the newer 10-year long-life smoke alarms and so we are requiring that all new and replacement alarms are either this sort or the hardwired type. These new smoke alarm requirements are expected to prevent three fatalities per year and, for every dollar spent, to save over $15.

This bill has been developed in the context of a wider debate about whether we need a broader warrant of fitness regime for housing, like we have for motor vehicles. I came to this debate open minded and have carefully considered the issue over the past 2 years. It is true that we do have tenanted properties that are dives and unfit to be lived in. But, on investigation, apart from these issues of insulation and smoke alarms, I found the problem over the quality of these rentals was one of enforcement. The existing housing regulations already require homes to be free of dampness, to be secure, to not leak, to have safe wiring, and to have proper sanitation. The answer lies not in more regulation, but in strengthening compliance.

This bill makes three important changes in this regard. The first is it would enable my ministry to take enforcement cases to the Tenancy Tribunal. This acknowledges that there are some vulnerable tenants—people with disabilities—who will not realistically take a dodgy landlord on. They either put up with unsafe or unhealthy homes or leave the property for another vulnerable tenant. There is a public interest in the ministry being able to take these cases on, get the houses upgraded, and ensure a better overall standard of housing in New Zealand.

The second change is beefing up the enforcement of work orders from the Tenancy Tribunal to fix a substandard property. The bill removes a landlord’s defence of forgetfulness over an order and ensures that a monetary payment cannot be used as a substitute for getting a home repaired. We also want to strengthen the protection for tenants who take cases to the tribunal over these housing standards issues. A tenant will be able to apply for a retaliatory eviction notice to be quashed up to 28 days after it is given, and the landlord will be able to be fined up to $2,000 for an unlawful retaliatory notice.

The reason we believe these measures are the best way to improve rental housing standards is that they are targeted at those homes that are the real problem. Requiring every one of New Zealand’s 450,000 rental properties to be annually inspected with a warrant of fitness would cost over $100 million a year. This is just the administrative cost and does not physically improve a single home. This cost would inevitably be passed on to tenants and put rents up by over $200 a year, an increase that would squeeze many household budgets.

I am also doubtful of the practicality of some of the draft warrant of fitness proposals I have seen. Requiring staircases to have certain widths and step depths is justifiable for new buildings, but would impose enormous costs on older rentals. I noticed my own home and Beehive office break some of the proposed rules for visibility strips on full-height windows and sliding doors, which are way too nanny State for this Government. The approach taken in this bill of nailing the practical issues like insulation and smoke alarms and strengthening enforcement of the existing regulations is a more effective way forward.

The final change I want to note in this bill is about property abandonment. When this happens landlords lose rent, but the community also loses by a property being left vacant while people are desperate for housing. This bill contains sensible, faster mechanisms for dealing with those situations.

I thank the many organisations, tenant advocates, insulation experts, fire-prevention proponents, and the New Zealand Property Investors Federation for the input into this bill. It will make tens of thousands of homes warmer, drier, and safer, and deserves the support of this House. I commend the bill.

Labour is voting for the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. It is better than nothing, and deals with such an important issue as making New Zealand homes warm and dry, which I will argue is one of the biggest public health challenges that this country faces. We welcome this bill coming to the House—it is a small, incremental initiative—but, sadly, it falls a long way short of the kinds of policies that this Government would be advocating if it was serious about dealing with this problem.

The bill has four big defects, which I will speak about in more detail. The first is that it does not propose any standard for heating of rental properties. It has an excessively long 4-year phase-in period for landlords. There is no provision, thirdly, for setting standards for mould or ventilation. Finally, there is a massive loophole in the proposed regulations that will flow from this bill that will allow houses that are currently insulated with the 1978 standard for insulation to retain that standard. They will not be required, under this bill as it is currently drafted, to meet the 2008—the current Building Act—standards for insulation. So there are four big weaknesses, which I will return to.

This issue is incredibly important. I think that in recent years New Zealanders have come to the view that it is high time we fixed up our rental housing. Around half the children who are growing up below the poverty line in New Zealand are living in private rental housing, which is currently more or less unregulated. Many of them are living in substandard, cold, damp, and mouldy housing that is a threat to their health. In this country we hospitalise about 40,000 children every year from poverty-related diseases—asthma, gastroenteritis, bronchiolitis. It is a blood-curdling list of poverty-related diseases that we simply should not have in significant numbers in this country, but we do. The problem is the toxic cocktail of poverty, overcrowding, and poor quality, cold, damp houses.

The polls show—public opinion tell us—that New Zealanders want this problem fixed. People believe that every child growing up in this country deserves to grow up in a warm, dry home. One of the reasons is that very credible public health research done in this country shows that every dollar you invest in the retrofitting of houses through insulation and heating can save up to $5 in public health expenditure. It is a no-brainer. We should be doing it. The public want to see it done. But this bill that Nick Smith has brought to the House is a classic “Nick Smith special”. It is another—yet another—grudging half measure by a Minister who has been dragged by public opinion, kicking and screaming, to do something about a problem, but who insists yet again on doing the bare minimum to try to convey the impression that the Government is actually doing something about the problem.

I want to quote Professor Philippa Howden-Chapman of Otago University’s Wellington campus, who won the Prime Minister’s Science Prize earlier this year for the work that she and her colleagues have done documenting the public health effects of poor quality housing. She said that houses “get damp and cold and mouldy, but it also damages the people living in them, particularly babies, children and older people. It damages their lungs. If they have heart problems, it’s harder for their circulatory system to work. And so people who live in cold houses, it’s likely to aggravate their heart conditions, but for children, we get this terrible, terrible battery of respiratory infections and close contact infections because people have to crowd together in one room. So it’s pretty shocking in a country that is as wealthy as we are; we can’t make our houses warm enough for people to keep healthy in.” That is a very important part of the New Zealand housing story.

If the National Party members opposite had voted for my Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill in April this year, which would have regulated minimum standards for both heating and insulation, then we would not be here wasting time with this excuse, this half measure of a bill. But the good news is that this House will get the chance to debate and vote on Andrew Little’s Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2), which will achieve the same effect. It will legislate both for modern, efficient fixed heating sources in a house and for insulation standards, because we need homes that are both warm and dry.

The huge gap in Nick Smith’s bill today is that it imposes only insulation standards; it does not impose heating standards. Under Nick Smith’s bill, we will see landlords around the country implementing an insulation standard, but they will insulate cold, damp homes. They will still be cold, damp homes, and children will still be getting sick. This Minister, Nick Smith, is pandering to slum landlords—pandering to the bottom of the market—because he will not do the decent thing and legislate standards for both heating and insulation.

One of the big defects that I mentioned in this bill is that in Nick Smith falling over himself so as not to offend slum landlords, he has designed into this bill a massive loophole that will allow houses that were insulated with the standard that has been required since 1978, which is 70 millimetres of insulation fibre—70 millimetres. This here is the thickness of insulation that is required under the 1978 standard, and, under Nick Smith’s legislation, if a house has this level of insulation in the walls and the roof, that is OK—it can continue. But since 2008 new houses in this country have been required to instead have this thickness of insulation. It is much, much thicker, and more effective. That is why houses that have been insulated with this standard are warmer and drier, because they have this thickness. But Nick Smith, falling over himself to pander to the slum landlords at the bottom of the market, is going to require them to have only this thinner thickness of legislation, if they have already got it in the house.

That is a massive loophole. It is a flaw right at the heart of this bill. Nick Smith is happy for them to have this 70-millimetre insulation, but if houses have been insulated since 2008, they have got this much thicker insulation fibre. Well, I am sorry, Dr Smith, but you are letting down hundreds of thousands of New Zealand kids who are growing up and getting sick in cold, damp houses, because you are not willing to do the right thing and require private landlords to do this. Not only are you not requiring them to have an efficient heating source—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!

Not you, Mr Assistant Speaker—Dr Smith, you are not willing to require this from tens of thousands of private landlords whose properties are already insulated with a patently inadequate level of insulation, set from the 1978 standards. This bill is not going to require them to upgrade their standards.

The question is: why will Nick Smith not do the decent thing? Why does he always bring weak, grudging half measures to this House, no matter what the policy issue is? In this case we are talking about cold, damp homes. The first reason, I submit, is that he is pandering to slum landlords. Most of the good landlords in this country have already insulated their homes. Most of their properties already have this thicker insulation. The Property Investors Federation has been publicly advocating for heating standards and legislation, but Nick Smith has brought a bill to this House that falls short of what the federation has been arguing for. He is pandering to the bottom end of the market, and he will not do the decent thing. The good landlords and the professional landlords in this country are tired of being undercut by the bottom end of the market, which is trying to make a profit at the expense of providing decent, healthy accommodation. Those landlords are willing to put their tenants’ lives and the lives of their children at risk because they will not provide decent standards.

The other reason is that Nick Smith cannot bring himself—he cannot find it in himself—to regulate properly, to make markets work better for ordinary Kiwis, because that is not in the DNA of the National Party. Its members will not do the decent thing. They are pandering to slum landlords. This bill falls a long way short of what it could do.

I rise to take a call on the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. I want to make a couple of remarks. This is a debate, and so I will rebut some of the remarks that have been made by previous speakers. In the closing comments of the previous speaker, Phil Twyford, there was a remark made about pandering to slum landlords. I just need to remind that member that in the 9 years of a Labour Government there were at least 40,000—[Interruption] Let us get some figures, because history does hurt—I know it does. Let us talk about what pandering to the slum landlords did under a Labour Government. In 9 years 19,000 State homes were insulated—19,000. That is an average of 2,000 houses per year. Under the National Government—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I regret having to interrupt the member, but I will remind members that although it is a robust debate, that does not mean that the standards as to what they call members are changed, Carmel Sepuloni.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Let us then remind those members. Under a Labour Government, in 9 years there were only 19,000 houses insulated. Under a National Government so far, in its 7th year, we have insulated 40,000 State houses and 280,000 houses under the Warm Up New Zealand: Healthy Homes programme. That is an average of 50,000 houses per year. In other words, by the time we have completed 9 years—yes, it will be 9 long years for the Opposition; here are the figures, which will hurt—there will be nearly half a million homes that have been insulated to make them warmer, drier, and safer. That is a statistic that you cannot get away from. I know the history hurts, but it is the reality.

We believe that under this Government and under this Minister, the Hon Nick Smith, we are heading towards what we believe is important—a balance towards engaging those who we know are important in the sector. So those who are important and are key include groups of property landlords. The New Zealand Property Investors Federation has been engaged and has been consulted. For tenants there is the Tenants Protection Association. Together they have said that the process and the balance that this bill is taking is appropriate and right.

The other comments, and we are talking about the thickness of the legislation—or the thickness of insulation, which I think is what the member was trying to get to; he made a bit of a Freudian slip there—were that in actual fact we believe that this bill strikes the right balance towards a warrant of fitness. We believe that it will amend the Act to require smoke alarms and insulation for residential properties. It will provide greater enforcement powers in respect of unsafe and unhealthy rental homes. Thirdly, it will reform the law in regard to abandoned residential properties.

The previous speaker talked about what should be enforced, but what the member does not always take into account is who will pay. Where will the costs come from? For this bill there has been consultation with those in the sector who have given us their views about what is right, what is a balance, and what is appropriate for us to step forward. We believe that we are focused on the right area. Those figures again: under this Government half a million homes are being insulated. They are warmer and drier. In 9 years under Labour only 19,000 State houses were insulated. This is a Government that acts. This is a Government that works closely with the sector to consult. This is a Government that wants to have warmer, drier, safer homes for New Zealanders.

I look forward, as chair of the Social Services Committee, to receiving this bill, working with our communities, hearing submissions, and working towards this bill returning to the House. I commend this bill to the House.

I just want to point out that the reason that Government has no problems with pandering to slum landlords is that it is a slum landlord. The Government has been a slum landlord with our Housing New Zealand houses. I want to remind Mr Alfred Ngaro, because I am sure he knows this, that just about every single case that comes through our electorate offices in west Auckland now is a housing case. Four years ago I was a list MP for Waitakere. We never had this number of housing issues like we do now. Just about every single one of them is about people who cannot find a house or they are in homes that are making them sick.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: Thank you, Nick Smith.

Thank you, Nick Smith, for being responsible for all of those people who are coming to us with letters from their GPs, letters from their hospitals, pointing out the fact that they must be provided with healthy housing because their children are getting sick.

I just want to point out to that slum landlord over there that actually I think it is disgusting, following on from the Emma-Lita Bourne case, that that Government is still not keeping a record of the number of people who are putting in for transfers to Housing New Zealand houses because of the fact that their children have health issues due to the conditions that they are living in. We asked how many transfers have been put in for that reason. The Government said, following on from the Emma-Lita Bourne case, that it is not collecting that information. Well, it should be collecting that information.

Today we are talking about private rentals, but looking at this, it really is a reflection of what we have been provided with by the Government. Recently I had a mother contact me whose 4-year-old was in hospital with respiratory problems. She was going to be released because of the fact that at Waitakere Hospital there were too many people in there and the hospital could not provide everyone with a bed. The hospital said: “Look, we would like to keep her in, but we can’t. She is going to have to go home.” That mother was so scared because she knew that as soon as she got her daughter home to their house, which had dampness problems and black mould all over it, her child would get sick again and she would be back in hospital. She went home on the Thursday; she was back in hospital on the Saturday.

I am going to point out to Mr Smith that actually this bill does not go far enough. This is typical of the National Government, as my colleague Phil Twyford has pointed out. The Government does just enough to look like it is doing something, it forces us to have to vote for it, but it is not enough, and it does not address the problem that we are facing in this country.

I have had tenants come to me who are living in leaky buildings. They are living in leaky buildings in west Auckland that have been bought by landlords—bought for cheap because no one wants to buy them. But the landlords buy them, knowing that they can still rent them out for market rentals. It is disgusting. These people living in these houses—I have seen cases of rheumatic fever. I have seen numerous cases of children who had never had asthma or respiratory problems until they were living in these homes. These are the types of landlords whom that Minister should be trying to legislate against. That Minister should be doing something in relation to that, but he is not.

A landlord or a person can purchase a leaky building and rent it out for a market rent because we have such a demand for housing. People are desperate and they will take whatever they can get. Do you know who ends up in these houses? It is our poorest families—our families that are not first in line to be able to get the healthier homes, the nicer homes, the nicer rental homes, Mr Smith. They are the ones who end up in these unhealthy homes. So that Minister and that Government should be ashamed of themselves.

My colleague Phil Twyford, who is working in west Auckland as the Te Atatū MP, like me has seen so many cases come through the door where we have landlords who are not acting in an ethical way and who do need to be held to account by responsible legislation. I am going to share another example of an irresponsible landlord. This one has three houses on the same street and is renting out rooms to people who are on parole and also people who have mental health conditions who find it difficult to get housing elsewhere. But the housing that they are in is not only unhealthy but is causing problems in terms of the number of people who are being squeezed into those homes. It is causing problems for that whole street, that whole neighbourhood, and I wish—I wish—that the National Government had the courage to do something, to go a little bit further than it has gone here.

Sadly, this policy is the kind of grudging half measure that has become the trademark of National’s housing policy, and not just the National party’s housing policy but also its social development policy and its education policy. In relation to its social development policy, I can refer to the so-called Support for Children in Hardship Bill, which really did very little to address the issue we have with 305,000 children living in poverty. Instead, it was an attempt to make it look like the Government was doing something. As I said, this Government has no courage to make bold decisions. National simply has no real commitment to housing reform and standards.

The Government actually should have voted for Phil Twyford’s Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill earlier this year but it did not. Instead of the bill we are debating today, which is a weak half measure, Government members should actually vote for Andrew Little’s Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2), which will be debated in early 2016. That is Labour’s bill that will see standards for both insulation and heating. I do not know how National Government MPs live with themselves on a daily basis, particularly those ones who are electorate MPs, or even list MPs based in poorer areas, knowing the very real reality that our poorer families especially are facing out there and the implications that that is having for their children.

I want to point out that at the moment we are talking predominantly about the health issues in relation to children but actually there is a growing number of New Zealanders not in their own homes. A growing number of New Zealanders are being forced to rent—in particular, I am looking at our senior citizens who are going into retirement without owning homes. This is a very real issue for them too. Respiratory problems amongst our senior citizens are a huge issue. Unless the Government can lift the standards required in private rentals, then we are going to see not only children as the direct victims of these types of housing environments and low living standards but also our senior citizens, who are going to be increasingly visiting our hospitals with respiratory problems because they are living in substandard rental accommodation.

There is a massive need to make rental properties warm and dry. The Building Research Association of New Zealand says that only 22 percent of rental properties are in good condition and 44 percent are in poor condition. Nick Smith justifies his pandering to slum landlords by saying that setting standards for heating and insulation would cost too much and push rents up. But a heat pump and insulation for a three-bedroom home would cost around $5,000 and last 15 years. Over that time a home would bring in more than a quarter of a million dollars in rental income. It really is a small investment in an asset that generates a lot of revenue.

Listening to Mr Smith talking earlier about Labour’s measure, which was a full warrant of fitness for private rentals, he said it could not be considered because it was not considered to be the most cost-effective mechanism for achieving the outcomes required. How can that not be considered cost-effective when every day this low standard of private rentals is costing us lives, is costing us admissions into hospitals, and is costing us the health of New Zealanders—not just our children but also our senior citizens and a whole lot of people who are living in mouldy, damp homes? So actually, Mr Smith, perhaps there should be a conversation that goes on with our Minister of Health because I am sure if they are able to reconcile what is happening in health and what is happening in housing, then they will work out that the most cost-effective thing to do would be to implement a full warrant of fitness for private rentals, like Labour has suggested for a long time and will continue to do so. Thank you.

It is an honour and a pleasure to rise in support of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill in its first reading. I would like to just acknowledge the hard-working Minister for Building and Housing, Nick Smith, and also the Social Services Committee chair, Alfred Ngaro. I am looking forward to this bill passing through the first reading and into the select committee and I just acknowledge the pragmatic response we are getting from across the whole House at the moment.

There are two key areas of minimum standards around here. One is around insulating these houses and, as we have heard from the Opposition members today, I think 19,000 houses in 7 years were insulated, and when you look at this Government’s record of insulating over 300,000 houses, it is well on its way to insulating over half a million. I had members of the Community Energy Action volunteer group in my electorate office just recently, and they were outlining a very clear correlation in Canterbury District Health Board data of people presenting at the accident and emergency department with respiratory illnesses—bronchitis and asthma—and how going into these houses and insulating them can have such a positive effect on these tenants and avoid people accessing hospitals and accident and emergency departments. So I acknowledge the work of the Government in this space, supporting vulnerable New Zealanders.

I had a brief count-up this morning of 118 first readings passed by this Government this year, and when you look at the theme running through all those first readings it is around supporting hard-working New Zealanders. This year, that is what this Government is standing up for: hard-working New Zealanders.

In respect of putting in smoke alarms, I was at the Kaiapoi Volunteer Fire Brigade service awards in my electorate recently and they raised this issue around putting fire alarms in rental accommodation. These are guys who are volunteering. We have still got the alarm out in Rangiora where I live. When it goes off, they all drop what they are doing and head out to face a fire, so it is great that we are putting practices in place that will support them. We have got to realise that over 90 percent of fatalities are in rental accommodation, so it is right that we are putting a minimum standard of a smoke alarm in these rental properties. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

The Green Party will be supporting this legislation to the select committee on its first reading. This is not because we think that it does a good job—there are some things in it that are better than other things—but because it is at least a confession and an admission by Government that rental housing in this country is in a state that is unacceptable and that there needs to be some kind of minimum standard. For many years now the Green Party has been arguing very strongly for insulation, improved insulation standards, improved weathertightness—all of those things.

For many years the Government has simply refused to accept that there is a serious problem. Government members have argued that it is an issue that is between the tenants and the landlords and is borne out in the price of the accommodation, that people who own rental properties are just ordinary people trying to make a little bit of a buck, not professionals engaged in a business and so, therefore, should not have any additional burdens. They have argued that the reason why children are hospitalised for health issues and respiratory illness related to cold, damp homes is really an issue for those families and for the poverty that those families face rather than an issue of housing. On and on, excuse after excuse after excuse.

Finally, we have, after years of campaigning, a very successful home insulation scheme that was developed by the Green Party, which we worked on and proposed, together with Labour, and it was then actually implemented alongside National. It was a very successful Green Party initiative to have 300,000 New Zealand homes insulated. Two-thirds of the funding for that scheme was then taken away by National, so the scheme has not been able to deliver as it should have since then. But after years of being aware of the research that shows that a comprehensive home insulation scheme works both to provide significant benefit to the Government’s coffers and to health of New Zealanders, and in view of the fact that for many years now there has been significant research on the poor quality of New Zealand housing and its impact on health, we finally—finally—have some kind of admission from the Government that something needs to be done.

It is with extreme disappointment, though, that I read the bill, which, essentially, does as little as possible. This is the barest minimum standard for insulation that you can put in place beyond having no standard at all. To have legislation in the House that puts in place, as the minimum standard for rental housing, the 1978 standard for home insulation—having all of the information and research about the poor quality of New Zealand housing and knowing the need to do something real because if we do not, lives are lost, this Government can only bring itself to put in place a 1978 standard.

This is a miserable bill. It means that the 1 million adults who rent in this country and the 400,000 children who live in rental properties in this country are yet again being undermined by a National Government that really is not here for them at all. Those people who rent those properties have no face when it comes to National. National members cannot see them. They do not know their lives. They have no interest in the impact that the National Party decisions are having on their lives and the well-being of their kids.

We have heard some of the statistics already. Each year 40,000 children are hospitalised for respiratory illnesses related to cold, damp housing. There are 1,600 deaths in the winter in New Zealand that are directly related to cold, damp housing. We know the names of some of those people who died. Emma-Lita Bourne, remember—just last year? Emma-Lita died because the house she was living in was so mouldy and cold and damp. Te Ao Marama Wensor’s kids are continually getting sick because she still lives in a cold, damp, and mouldy home.

These names, these people, are real. Their lives are valuable, and we should have a Government that puts their lives and the lives of thousands and thousands of New Zealanders just like them at the forefront of their policy decision-making. If National did that—if it put Emma-Lita Bourne at the forefront of its decision making, if it put Te Ao Marama’s children at the forefront of its decision making—it would mean we would have a bill to discuss today that had a comprehensive warrant of fitness for rental properties, which would demonstrably save lives. If it had been in place then, it would have saved Emma-Lita Bourne’s life. If it had been in place then, it would have protected Te Ao Marama’s children from the hospitalisations and the illnesses they suffered. But we do not have a Government that puts children first. We have a Government that puts industry first, puts making money first, and puts anything and everything else it can think of first and above the needs of our kids. As a result, our children will continue, even if this bill is passed in its current form, to die from entirely preventable illnesses because they live in cold, damp rental homes.

We have looked at this legislation in some detail in the time that we have had. We agree with the smoke alarm proposal in the bill—it is a very practical proposal. But the failure to address seriously the insulation issue means that lives are still at risk, and it is very hard to understand why the Government would spend all this time and this money putting forward legislation that simply does not have any evidence that it will be effective.

The opposite side of that, of course, is that effective legislation is advantageous not only in that lives will be saved—children who might otherwise die will not die, and older New Zealanders who might otherwise die in the winter will not die; that in itself is a good thing and is one of the reasons we are here, to help prevent these kinds of preventable deaths—but also in that there is huge economic value in taking the best route, not the worst.

There is some great information provided in papers by the Child Poverty Action Group, where it sets out some of the economic benefits of taking real action to improve the quality of rental housing. It talks about, over a 20-year period—sort of over the lifetime of a reasonable house—$450 million being able to be saved through safety benefits; that is, the reduction of hazards that lead to injury and death, which are a huge cost to both the health system and to ACC. A comprehensive warrant of fitness for rental properties would save New Zealand—the taxpayer—$450 million in safety benefits. That is nearly half a billion dollars.

A comprehensive warrant of fitness for rental properties would save some $420 million in health benefits for New Zealanders. Health benefits mean reduced costs on a health system that is already creaking under the weight—because we would not have the 40,000 hospitalisations for children and we would not have families continually having to bear the cost of taking their kids to the hospital and to the doctor, and there would not be all the subsequent economic costs that those families have to bear. The sum of $420 million could be saved for the New Zealand taxpayer if we had a comprehensive warrant of fitness, and that is just in health benefits. Just those two elements alone—the safety benefits and the health benefits—mean that New Zealand could save a billion dollars over that 20-year period and countless lives.

I have appreciated the passion and fury around some of the debate that has been had this afternoon, but my own feelings are just of deep, deep disappointment in this Government because of its failure to take the lives of children and New Zealanders seriously. Thank you.

New Zealand First will support the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill even though it makes only a very few improvements in the face of a situation that cries out for much, much more improvement than we see here. But even a little is worth something, so let us hope that more will come in the future. On reading Shamubeel Eaqub’s book Generation Rent earlier this year, I was impressed by the differences it described between New Zealand’s rental market and legislation and those of other countries with much better developed rental markets and much better legislation. There were at least three differences that were pointed out. One was fair rents. It is obvious that New Zealand does not actually have a fair rents regime at all when you compare it with what you see in other countries. Secondly, New Zealand does not have secure tenancies in comparison with what you see in other countries. New Zealand’s tenancies tend to be short term, and tenants have very little protection against eviction. Thirdly, there is the question of quality of rentals, which this bill does something, but not enough, to address. There are far too many old dumps being let in New Zealand to people who cannot afford to buy their own homes and have to rely on the rental market. That is the truth of the situation. So this bill makes a couple of very minor improvements, which are welcome but not nearly enough. Much more needs to be done, and it needs to be done in all three of those areas I mentioned.

The message I want to give to the Government is this: many people are now finding that homeownership is utterly out of reach for them, and that is a result of the lacklustre performance of this Government over 7 years as far as housing is concerned. Just about everybody knows and acknowledges that. The result is that many, many more people now have to accept that they will never own a home of their own and they will need to rely on what is actually an inadequate rental market. There are too few rental properties to rent and too few of them are in anything like adequate condition. So the Government needs to move, firstly, on regulating rentals, especially where landlords have been profiteering, and especially in those situations, for example, in Auckland because of the housing crisis there and also in Christchurch because of the effects of the earthquakes there. In both those situations, the market failed, rents exploded, people were hurt, and the Government did nothing.

The second area in which it has to move is security of tenures. It is too easy to get rid of tenants in this country so that they do not have another home to go to. And more and more long-term tenancies are going to be needed because people will not be able to afford to buy their own home. The Government needs to do a lot more to encourage that, but, again, nothing is being done.

And, thirdly, the bill needs to move much more to improve the quality of rental properties, so that people have a genuine alternative to owning their own home. And we are not seeing that. We are not seeing improvements on heating standards; we are not seeing improvements as far as leakproofing is concerned; and we are not even seeing improvements as far as minimum standards for earthquake resistance, size of accommodation—and the list goes on and on.

Not nearly enough is being done in any of those areas. Not nearly enough is being done in any of those areas. Most of all, the number of quality rentals available is far too little, and this Government’s response to that seems to be: “Let’s sell thousands of State houses—that’s a good idea. Or let’s shove off responsibility for social housing to community organisations—that’s a good idea.” None of that is a good idea. What is a good idea is that this Government needs to invest much, much more in social housing in New Zealand. I have listened to some of the figures being bandied about by the Minister for Building and Housing and others; it is still not nearly enough because the problem is huge and it needs a much greater response from the Government.

This bill does do a couple of good things. It does require smoke alarms and insulation—great. And the cost-benefit ratio of that is excellent—great. And there will be fewer deaths per year resulting from fires—great. And it also improves enforcement powers—powers to regulate on the technical needs for smoke alarms and insulation. It empowers the chief executive to take cases direct to the Tenancy Tribunal for persistent breaches of the legislation, it empowers the chief executive to authorise a search, where needed, to get evidence of a breach, and it empowers the chief executive to require landlords to provide relevant information. All those are good steps forward, but they are very minor compared with the size of the problem. The bill also streamlines the processes for the recovery of possession by landlord where there has been a tenancy that has been abandoned—great. All those things are, again, good, but not enough.

Overall, New Zealand First does support the bill, but we simply say this: we say that a whole lot more is needed if this country is going to provide homes for people, first, by making them more affordable, which is not what this bill is about; and, second, by creating a tenancy market that provides a genuine, good-quality alternative for people who will never be able to afford their own home. We in New Zealand First do not think that a warrant of fitness approach is the right way to go; we think that has got some problems. But we do think that there is a lot more that can be done in all three of those areas that I have already mentioned. Regulating rentals will make a big difference in ensuring that there are better ways as to how rentals should be fixed and ensuring that rentals are fair so that people can afford them, with or without Government assistance. Secondly, security of tenures also needs attention. The Government simply does not seem to have thought about that at all. In fact, that is a very important issue. What New Zealand does need is a situation where people, as an option, choose long-term tenancies—tenancies in which they can feel secure and homes that they feel are permanent for them, even though they are renting them or leasing them. That is a situation that you see in other countries, especially Germany and other European countries, and in the United States, where there is a huge dependence on that end of the market. But in New Zealand we are not seeing enough of that, because the legislative and regulative regime does not support it. So the Government should move on that.

This bill moves only on the quality of tenancies, and only in two very tiny ways. They are good ways, but they are not nearly enough. The result is that there are far too many substandard tenancies, as I have said—old dumps that people are letting instead of a quality service. Those people tend to be amateur landlords just buying a house to let as a way to improve their retirement prospects. But that is not good enough. We need to encourage professional letters of long-term rental properties so that we get a better option for people who will depend on it. There are countries overseas with much more sophisticated rental markets and much better legislation, which this Government could take notice of and do a whole lot more than it is to ensure a better quality rental market for people who will need that in the future. Finally, although we are supporting this bill—we say “Great, we’ll vote for it.”—we do want to see a whole lot more done by this Government, and it has not done much over 7 years. Let us face it. It needs to do a whole lot more in the future to improve New Zealand’s housing market, and especially the rental market in this country. What it is doing to date is actually retrograde and is not improving anything at all. So let us see a bigger effort by the National Government. Let us see some really good ideas. Let it have a look at what happens overseas, borrow some ideas, and do a lot more than we are seeing in this bill.

It is great to take a short call to stand and support the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. What a great bill this is, building on a proud record of investment and activity in the housing portfolio. If I can start by saying that I am not going to stand here and be lectured by the Labour Party—particularly by Phil Twyford and Carmel Sepuloni—a party that invested in 20,000 homes that were insulated over its 9 years. We are on the path to 500,000—20,000 it did in 9 years, and if you listen to it, it decries every one of the half a million we have been doing for New Zealand, and it is a disgrace.

I am not going to stand here and be lectured by a party that insulated 200 homes a month in Auckland, because we are doing 800 now. I am not going to be lectured by a Labour Party that pulled $1 billion out of the maintenance of the Housing New Zealand budget when it was there and directed it to new housing builds because, in the words of the then Labour Minister, “There’s no photo-ops in front of well-maintained houses. Where’s the photo opportunity in that?”. I am not going to be lectured by a Labour Party that has high rhetoric and no action in the housing space. Instead, I take pride in standing and supporting a Government that has a record of achievement and that puts a bill in front of this House that says: “We prioritise warm homes, drier homes, and safer homes, and we will have a bill in this House that will enable it.”

So it is with great pride that I stand and support this bill, which will make all rentals have fire alarms next year; which will, of course, make rentals insulated—the Housing New Zealand ones next year and all rentals by 2019; and which will have greater protection for tenants. Again, this is a party that delivers action as opposed to the hollow rhetoric that continues to come from the other side. I look forward to hearing the various submissions on this bill, and I very much commend it to the House. Thank you.

Kia ora, tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill 2015 in this first reading. The Green Party will be supporting this bill through the first reading, especially because I am really keen to hear from submitters and for them to come and tell their stories. As the member Carmel Sepuloni has already outlined, the stories are, actually, quite grim, and the absolute reason why this bill does not go far enough—and, in contrast to what the previous member, Todd Muller, said when he said that the Government has prioritised warm, dry, and safe homes, that is not at all what this bill does. This bill seeks to get away with the minimum standards, as my colleague Metiria Turei has also already highlighted. I would like to raise again the point that $420 million could be saved with a comprehensive warrant of fitness; that alone would be a smart economic decision, would be a smart moral decision, and would be a smart governance decision.

I would like to take a little bit of time, as fearful as I am, to talk about the rental that I am living in at the moment. I have been quite public about my own rental story, and I always have to say for safety that I love my house and I would like to stay in it. However, searching for this house for my family and me to live in at the beginning of this year brought me absolutely face to face with the issues that we are facing when it comes to renters’ rights and the very reasons why this bill does not go nearly far enough to sort this issue out. I ask: where is our Government’s aspiration for our country to put our children first, to put our families first, and to put our community strength first, as opposed to shoving something up that will mainly keep landlords happy while looking the part and while trying to appease renters that our country is not in a housing chaos?

I mentioned in my maiden speech that I looked at, I think, 30-something houses, applied for 20-something houses, and finally got the house where no one else was lining up. As the ACT member has already pointed out, our supply for renters and our regulations that are missing from the housing market are another area where this Government has failed to look after renters. Also, I stand here as the spokesperson for our Māori affairs portfolio. I think it is very relevant that Māori particularly have high rates of renting. This bill may improve some of the situation for Māori renters but will likely not make a difference for far too many of the homes.

I am thinking right now of a family that I visited in Clendon in Manurewa, South Auckland, earlier this year. They are absolutely one of the hard-working families that the National Party likes to say that it is sticking up for. But the Government is certainly not sticking up for this family who are faced with being unable to have any success on the private market. They are currently in an income-related rental, but they are absolutely shut out of the private market. They are hard-working New Zealanders for whom this bill does not go nearly far enough.

Again, I enforce that the Government could have adopted Metiria’s member’s bill which would have made a real difference and ensured proper standards for all rental properties. I agree with the ACT member who mentioned that we have solutions around the world that we could be looking to: not the 1978 standard contained in this bill but a proper standard of rentals for the 21st century that will keep our babies and our whānau healthy and safe. Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to take a short call on the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. Labour supports this bill. This is a bill that, while making some improvements for many of the tenants, unfortunately for us does not go far enough. Minimum insulation standards and smoke alarms for private rental properties are a step in the right direction, and that is why the Labour Party is supporting this bill. However, the Government could and the Government should do much more.

When you insulate a cold house without requiring modern efficient heating it would still leave the tenants cold, freezing, and at risk of suffering respiratory diseases. Emma-Lita Bourne was a toddler from my electorate, from Ōtara in South Auckland. The coroner earlier this year found, in his report, that one of the contributing factors to the reason why this toddler died was basically the appalling state and the condition of the State house that she lived in. It was cold, it was freezing, it was damp, it was leaking, and it was full of mould. The coroner said that these conditions were one of the main reasons why she suffered. She went to hospital and, unfortunately, passed away.

One of the primary schools in my area in Ōtara—just a few streets down the road from Pearl Baker Drive where Emma-Lita Bourne grew up and lived—took it upon themselves. These are 6 to 11-year-old primary school children in Ōtara, and they took it upon themselves because they cared enough. They wanted to find out why is it that there is mould in houses. They wanted to find out whether or not they themselves were living in houses that were full of mould. These young primary school kids partnered with Landcare Research scientists, and in their research findings that were released a few weeks ago they found out that in their homes—in 18 out of the 22 homes in Ōtara, from this research—they found mould. Not just one type of mould; they found 14 different types of mould in their homes. They also found three types of yeasts, and some of these yeasts were tied to the superbug.

What the Landcare Research scientist Stanley Bellgard told Radio New Zealand when they were releasing their study is that moulds affect healthy people. However, it creates a downward spiral for those who are predisposed to disease, those who are stressed, and those who are malnourished. Unfortunately, he was describing many of the folks who are living in Ōtara and South Auckland.

Labour is supporting this bill because, as I said earlier on, it is a step in the right direction. However, there are many thousands of New Zealanders who are lacking warm, dry homes. This bill unfortunately is a step, but the Government in our opinion should do so much more. Thousands and thousands of New Zealanders do not live in warm, dry homes. This is an issue that is facing far too many New Zealanders. We believe that this particular bill is a policy that is indeed a half measure—an issue that this Government is becoming professional at, in terms of introducing a trademark half measure towards addressing the housing issue that we are facing in Auckland.

This initiative was announced, we believe, because of public opinion, and it will only tinker around the edges. The Government has no courage to take the bold decisions that it should be taking. Ensuring that rental properties are up to scratch is indeed the right thing to do. It is an economic no-brainer that if we spend $1 on retrofitting, then the country will save $5 on public health expenditure. We support this bill to the next stage but we believe that the Government should be doing so much more than this half measure. Thank you.

I am taking a very short call to support the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. This National Government holds a great record in providing for drier and warmer houses, as we have insulated every State house that can be insulated. As the Minister said, this bill is the next step in that direction. This bill aims to provide for warmer, drier, and also safer residential rental properties. This bill will require all social houses to fulfil the requirement for insulation from 1 July 2016, and other residential rental properties from 1 July 2019. Along with insulation, this will also require residential rental properties to be fitted with smoke alarms, and the protection for tenants—those who raise matters related to unfit properties with the Tenancy Tribunal—will also be strengthened through this bill. Finally, this bill will also help landlords to re-tenant their properties once they know that a property has been abandoned and they know that the tenant is not going to come back. This process will be fast-tracked as per this bill. It is a great bill. I support this bill and commend it to the House. Thank you.

I want to say that the speed with which the National Government is actually tackling the catastrophe of housing could be called glacial, much like the temperature in many of the State houses that many of our people occupy. When we look at some of the missed opportunities that this Government has not taken—the special housing areas, which have netted us only hundreds, not the many thousands, of homes that we need; the 700 new builds for Housing New Zealand in Christchurch, which were supposed to have been finished by December of this year and we are not even halfway through. It has taken it 2 years to build not even 350 homes. So the National Government is not on top of its game when it comes to looking at housing.

But we have got to be grateful for the little that the Government is doing. As electorate MPs, we all know the stories: the mouldy houses, the condensation, the poor insulation, and how costly it is to heat—and that is with the State houses. Private landlords have not until this point been required to meet any standards whatsoever—very poor standards—so we know that we are starting from a really low base here. When we think about the Minister saying how well the Housing New Zealand stock, for example, has been repaired, we know that in Christchurch, in Canterbury, the earthquake repairs have only just been completed. It has taken it 5 years—5 years where people have lived in damaged, cold homes. That is how speedy this Government has been around its repair programme.

I want to give you a scenario: a constituent of mine in the suburb of Richmond, who called me out to view her home. She has three small children, mould on the curtains, mould on the wallpaper, and mould on the windowsills and the ceilings. There was only one room that had a heater in it, a heat pump in the lounge. That is where the family gathered. We stood in the kitchen and had a conversation and the condensation was coming out of our mouths, and that was at lunchtime on a sunny afternoon, when it was actually colder inside the house than it was outside the house. If that is the kind of temperature you get inside a house, a Government-owned house, on a sunny afternoon, what is it like in the evenings and at night-time for those small children being put to bed with no heating—with no heating? How can a small child retain its body heat and retain its health and be expected to thrive in conditions like that?

That story is repeated not hundreds of times but thousands of times across the country. We know that, because the health statistics for our children living in rental accommodation are so poor. They are so poor, where we know that decent homes could save this country, in health costs alone, an enormous amount. So why is the Government doing this now? Well, I think public opinion has really forced its hand. It knows the public opinion is against it; it knows that these measures are small but that it needs to start on this journey. It certainly does not go far enough.

We have got, on 1 June 2016, the requirement for State-owned homes and community providers to have underfloor and ceiling insulation, where that is possible, and smoke alarms, but we have got no standards of heating that are also required. Having insulation solves only half of the problem; we have to actually have adequate heating and cost-effective heating as well to heat homes, particularly through the middle of the North Island and the South Island, where it gets extraordinarily cold. We also know that private landlords will not be required to meet these standards until 2019. So the bulk of the homes—if we are talking about people renting, there are 450,000 households that rent and currently only 64,000 Housing New Zealand homes—will not be required to meet any standard for 4 years. This Government should have been signalling to landlords from the start of its term, if it was so concerned about the state of the rental market, that this is what it wanted to do; that it was so concerned about tenants in this country that it wanted to ensure that there were some standards for insulation. But that has not been the case.

So we are going to require smoke alarms to be installed. I have not seen any information, and I am sure that during the course of this bill’s passage through the select committee process people will be asking questions about what types of smoke alarms we are going to install. Having a smoke alarm installed is no good if there are no batteries in it, if it is not tested, or if it is not functioning. It would be really interesting to know how many fires have occurred in New Zealand where there was a smoke alarm but the fact that it was not functioning meant it was just a piece of decoration on the ceiling.

Community Housing Aotearoa’s Scott Figenshow said that insulation is half the answer, but how do we heat the home? It is a very, very important question. The cost of some heat pumps, for example: if we are talking about private landlords, the cost to install good quality heat pumps is somewhere in the region of about $5,000. That is not a huge amount of money when we think about how much rental income a property can actually generate over the life of its use as a rental property. Technically, it should be a small investment for the landlord, but we know that some homeowners are not even considering putting properties into the rental pool because they are making so much money just through house price inflation. In some cases, where properties are selling in less than 30 days, why would you even consider having tenants in your home when you can turn over properties that quickly and make quite a tidy sum? So how are we going to incentivise these landlords to meet these standards when, actually, they are not going to? They are going to look at the bare minimum, as they do currently already, despite the fact that there are queues of families desperate for homes.

If we look at the assessment process that has been implemented through the Ministry of Social Development, where the actual assessment of tenancies for State and community housing has been taken out of the hands of Housing New Zealand Corporation—the people who actually knew housing, and who had relationships with tenants—can we say that that assessment process has actually made it easier for families to get into decent quality homes? Well, the case that happened on the weekend where the mother was in the cockroach-infested caravan park cabin obviously shows that, no, that is not the case, because prior to that story hitting the newspaper and hitting the media she was not assessed as being high priority. As soon as that case hit the media her reassessment was done and, lo and behold, she went to the top of the list. So there is something wrong with this process.

I just want to comment on what has become a dreadful phenomenon in the Canterbury region, and those are the “as is, where is” homes, where people have taken their cash settlement and decided not to repair their home. They have buggered off and bought a home somewhere else, and they have left that house to become a rental—a damaged house left to become a rental. It is well-known, particularly in my electorate, that people are living in homes that are structurally unsound because the homeowners have taken the cash and fled. I can see Matt Doocey thinking very carefully over there. You know of some examples, I am sure, Mr Doocey, in your electorate.

There are some major problems with this bill and I just want to, in conclusion, go over those. There is no standard being set for heating. There is a 4-year transition period for the bulk of the homes, which are privately owned by private landlords, and we know that in that time there will be many children who will continue to be hospitalised due to the poor quality of these homes. There is no provision of standards for mould or ventilation in this bill, and then there is this massive loophole that sees insulation standards for 1978 being the standard to be met, when we know that the current standard from the 2004 Building Act is far more appropriate. Thank you.

I think we could all be forgiven for thinking that this is a very recent problem that has just arisen, given some of the speeches that have gone before. But the first Housing New Zealand house was built in 1937, not that far from here, in Miramar, and it took decades after that before the first Housing New Zealand houses were insulated. So this is not a new issue that has arisen. Those houses were cold and likely damp from 1937 on, and they were until recently, when all the houses in Housing New Zealand’s stock that could be were insulated. We are well on track to insulate 26 times more houses than Labour did in its 9 years in Government, and I think that is a phenomenal achievement. It is really putting our money and our actions where our mouth is, actually, to do a good job for those people in that disadvantaged position.

There has been quite a bit of talk about something like a warrant of fitness for housing stock, but that would add $100 million a year just to do the inspections, or $225 per home. That amount of money is far better going into insulation and into smoke alarms, which will make a real difference to those people. The significant issues such as excessive dampness, faulty wiring, and those sorts of things are, in fact, covered under current legislation, so what is needed is not more rules; it is actually enforcement. That is coming in under this bill, where we are strengthening the legal provisions to allow for that very enforcement that is needed.

So I think this is a fantastic bill. It actually comes from the party that looks after the people at the bottom of the heap and makes their lives better, and that is backed up by lots of legislation put forward by this party. I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Social Services Committee.