Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2)

I move, That the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) be now read a first time. I nominate the Government Administration Committee to consider the bill.

It sometimes looks from the outside as if much of what we do in this House does not look like it has a lot of significance, or at least you do not get to see the significance of it. And sometimes it feels that way too when you are sitting in this House. But the bill that we are considering now will help thousands of New Zealanders, and most importantly it will help thousands of young New Zealanders.

This bill does some very important things to improve the lives of New Zealanders, many of whom are on low incomes, and many of whom are presently in substandard housing. The principle that sits behind this bill is a pretty simple one: no New Zealander, adult or child, should have to live in a house that makes them or their children sick. It is that simple. Every Kiwi kid deserves to grow up in a home that is warm, safe, and dry. As parents, and as a parent myself, I would not accept anything less for my own child.

This bill does a number of things. It sets standards for private rental housing, and, in fact, for public rental housing too. Standards must be set within 6 months of the bill coming into effect, and then new leases that are in existence 12 months after the legislation comes into effect will have to comply with the standards that have been promulgated. Then, 5 years after the legislation comes into effect, every lease would have to comply. The bill would require the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to set standards for heating and insulation. The standards will have to describe what constitute adequate methods of heating, adequate methods of insulation, adequate indoor temperatures, adequate ventilation, adequate draught-stopping and adequate drainage. The regulations will have to describe suitable measures for each of those points. The legislation will allow for exemptions to be provided for in the regulation.

I make those points to be very clear, because some of the objections that have been registered by the Government—or at least its Minister for Building and Housing—in the last 24 hours have misled New Zealanders about what, in fact, the bill does. However, it is interesting to note the change in position that the Minister has taken. Two days ago, the Minister was concerned that the bill “requires properties to be insulated at a pace that is totally unrealistic”. A day later, he said that the bill was “slow in timing”, and that “it has a timetable four years slower for insulating rental properties than the Government’s Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill.” I am looking forward to the Minister’s contribution tonight because I would like to know the third position that bumbling Nick Smith is going to take on this particular bill.

When the Children’s Commissioner, Russell Wills, was making his submission on the Government’s legislation, which merely requires rental housing to have the 1978 insulation standard complied with in 4 years’ time, he said that right now 42,000 New Zealand children a year are going to hospital for respiratory infections, bronchial problems, asthma, and things associated with unhealthy homes—unhealthy homes that are unhealthy because of dampness and a lack of ventilation that allow mould spores to proliferate. That is the problem that we are trying to fix. It is reasonable to demand in the 21st century that New Zealanders in rental accommodation have a minimum standard that at least keeps them healthy. The idea that we continue to allow 42,000 Kiwi kids to have to go to hospital for avoidable and preventable infections is just totally intolerable. The Children’s Commissioner also said that up to 15 deaths of children a year are at least partly attributable to unhealthy homes. That is a disgrace. We can stop that, and tonight’s vote will be the first step towards doing just that. Every rental property should be insulated, should be weathertight, and should have adequate heating. I do not think it is too much to ask.

I have had a lot of correspondence from a lot of New Zealanders in recent weeks and days. The mother of a child who has been repeatedly unwell because of the house that they live in wrote to me. Her name is Estelle, and she was living in Auckland at the time. She told me in her email that her house had no insulation; it was damp. Mould was growing on her son’s toys. He got asthma and he had to go to hospital. And what she told me was that she carried the guilt of her unwell son with her until she was able to move out of that house. She felt so guilty that she could not keep her child well. She is on a low income; she got the best house that she could afford, but it was an unhealthy home, and she should not have been put in that position. No parent in New Zealand should be made to feel guilty about the conditions in which they are often forced to accommodate their children. And no child in New Zealand should be in a position where they have to get sick like that.

This matters to all of us in New Zealand because we want to be part of communities that are strong and vibrant and where everybody gets a fair chance. You see, when a child lives in a home that makes them constantly sick, that means they have to take days off school, and that means that mum or dad might have to take time off work as well—and that affects the household and it affects that child’s future. And if we are serious about being a country that fulfils our commitment and that basic Kiwi Dream that no matter the circumstances into which you are born we will have a country, an education system, a health system, and housing that means that you can lift yourself up and be the best you can be throughout the rest of your life—when young children live in houses that make them sick they are denied that opportunity. This is about fairness and justice and equality.

It is hardly surprising that we have ongoing problems with housing and accommodation in New Zealand when we see what is happening with houses and home affordability in New Zealand. In the city of Auckland, the average price of an Auckland house is now nine times the average income. We have the lowest homeownership in 64 years—that is a symptom of the fact that more and more people are dependent on rental accommodation. This bill is about standing up for those New Zealanders. This bill gives voice to New Zealanders who have been suffering and struggling in silence for far too long, and this is about doing the right thing and the decent thing. It is about doing the Kiwi thing.

It is sad that the National Party, so far, has expressed its opposition to this bill. My colleague Phil Twyford is going to go through some of those objections. But it is interesting that the Commissioner for Children had this to say in relation to a Budget promise made a few years ago by this Government that undertook to make homes healthy again. He said that the Government’s bill that was currently going through this Parliament failed to meet that promise. He said that the Government made a promise to New Zealand children that it would make their houses healthy, and 3 years on from that Budget promise the Government’s bill will do little for children living in cold, damp, mouldy housing. It is a wasted opportunity, and a broken promise to our children.

I urge Government members to fulfil their promise, vote for this bill, and make a pleasant life, a safe and healthy life, in rental homes in New Zealand a reality for the children of New Zealand and their parents. It is that easy for this House tonight to do that, and I urge the Government to support my bill.

The problems with Mr Little’s bill are, firstly, that it would have New Zealand homes insulated at a far slower rate than the Government’s policy; secondly, that it lacks the details and does not match up to the exaggerated rhetoric that we have just heard from Mr Little; and, thirdly, its impractical provisions will not work in practice. The bill is a poor substitute for the robust and practical measures that this Government is taking to make our homes in New Zealand warmer, drier, and safer.

There is no disagreement in this Parliament that making our homes warmer and drier provides substantive benefits for children’s health, for reducing days lost at school, for workers being able to stay at home, and savings in families’ energy bills. It is for these very reasons that the Government has had such an active programme addressing insulation in homes. Mr Little and Labour are johnny-come-latelys on this issue when you look at the record. We insulated 30,000 State homes in our first 2 years. In our first Budget, we announced a programme, Warm Up New Zealand, to insulate 290,000 homes. The bill we currently have in its final stages would insulate another 189,000 homes—that is half a million homes altogether. That 500,000 figure compares with 50,000 under the last 9 years of the previous Labour Government. It is absolutely true that this Government has done ten times more in respect of getting homes insulated.

Now this debate is over the detail, and I welcome the opportunity to engage and expose the flaws in this bill. The first irony in this bill is that, for all the rhetoric of caring more about healthy homes, it will take 4 years longer than the Government’s approach to getting uninsulated homes upgraded. Let us optimistically assume that this bill would be passed through the House by the end of the year. Clause 2 specifically says that the bill would take 12 months to come into legal effect. The later clause says that beyond that point the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment would have a further 6 months to set the standard. That means the very first home to get insulated under this bill would be in July 2018, and the last home to get insulated would not be until July 2023. That compares—

💬 Andrew Little: You’re making it up.

Read the bill. Read your own bill, because the Government’s approach provides that social housing must be insulated by 1 July this year, and all homes that are rented must be insulated by 1 July 2019. Even if you take into account the provision in this bill to require newly tenanted homes to be insulated, that will provide about 30,000 homes per year. So let us take the numbers: on 1 July 2019 this bill would have only 30,000 homes insulated, and National’s would have 180,000. Those who are supporting this bill are actually saying they will have 150,000 homes that are currently uninsulated still uninsulated by 1 July 2019.

And then we have the exaggerated claims about this bill requiring a better standard of insulation. That is complete rubbish. There is nothing in this bill about the standard of insulation. All clause 6 says is that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment will be required to publish and prepare a standard. I am more than happy to have a debate about the insulation standards the Government is proposing, because they make good sense. We are requiring all uninsulated rental housing to be insulated to the latest 2008 standard by July 2019. The debate is over whether homes insulated under an older standard should be upgraded. This does not make economic sense. Those homes built after 1978 have insulation that reduces heat loss by 84 percent, and those built after 2001 by 87 percent. The cost of upgrading this insulation to the 2008 standard of 92 percent is not justified, because the cost would exceed the benefits. The idea that you are going to have tens of thousands of children not going to hospital because of a few percentage points’ reduction in terms of insulation and heat loss does not withstand scrutiny.

It is true that in setting these standards the Government has been influenced by robust cost-benefit analysis. This is important because every cost that we impose on the rental sector is, ultimately, passed on in rents. Insulating an uninsulated property provides $1.80 of benefit for every $1 that is spent, and it makes good sense. But to gain a few extra percentage points of insulation by requiring those properties that are insulated—but not right up to those last few percentage points of the current standard—to upgrade actually imposes more costs on the very families whom we are trying to help than there are benefits. In our approach, we are requiring that where insulation is no longer in a reasonable state of repair then it has to be upgraded. And we are also requiring that all tenancy agreements disclose the level of insulation so that, over time, tenants are better aware and we get those upgrades.

The second issue that needs scrutiny in this bill is the claim that there is currently no requirement for heating, ventilation, drainage, and draught stopping. That is false. The existing regulations provide for all of these. Let me quote directly from the Housing Improvement Regulations. “Clause 6—Every living room shall be fitted with a fireplace and chimney or other approved form of heating.” And in clauses 14 to 16, it states that every house shall have an efficient drainage, shall be free of dampness, and that it shall have a proper sanitation system. On ventilation, clause 11 requires “Every room … shall be provided with … adequate lighting and ventilation …”. These are the existing regulations. It is just garbage for Labour to claim that these issues in this bill are not addressed in the current law. The only issue not covered in the current regulations but proposed in Mr Little’s bill is the proposal requiring that landlords have to meet a minimum indoor temperature. That is impractical and stupid. A landlord cannot reasonably be expected to maintain a minimum temperature where the tenant controls when the heater is turned on and off—

💬 Hon Member: Whether the windows are open.

—whether wood is put on the fire, whether curtains are opened or closed or, as my member interjects, whether windows are opened or closed. The Government is not saying that there is not a problem over slum properties that are not fit for renting. But what we are saying is that the issue is the enforcement and not the standards. That is why the Government’s bill focuses on strengthening enforcement by giving the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, for the first time, the proper powers to be able to prosecute some landlords directly. This is an important change not covered in this Labour bill that will actually make far more practical difference to the actual issue of standards and slum properties that concerns this House.

My point about this bill is that it is a fake. It does not guarantee healthy homes. It will actually take longer to insulate homes than the Government’s approach. It does not set any standard for insulation, and claims in that respect are just puffery. The Government will oppose this bill. I would actually welcome the fact if it goes to the select committee, because I tell you that when it comes under select committee scrutiny it will be shown for the fraud that it is and it will become an embarrassment for the Leader of the Opposition. This bill is a very poor substitute for the Government’s detailed and practical measures that will do a far better job of making our rental properties warmer, drier, and safer.

This morning’s New Zealand Herald commented in its editorial that Nick Smith’s bill—which is the counterpart to the bill that we are debating tonight—the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill, was a grudging half measure and introduced as a sop to public opinion. Tonight Parliament has the opportunity to do the job properly. New Zealand is ready to bring our rental housing into the 21st century. It is no longer good enough in this country of ours that there are 42,000—in fact, the latest figures indicate 50,000—preventable hospitalisations of children with respiratory and infectious diseases. Most of those are directly attributable to poverty and cold, damp, and mouldy housing.

I want to start by quoting the Children’s Commissioner, Dr Russell Wills, who told Parliament that National’s bill is “shameful” and a “wasted opportunity, a broken promise to our children” that will “do little for children living in cold, damp, mouldy housing.” The Minister should be paying attention to the fact that the Child Poverty Action Group, which has been one of the most dedicated and tireless groups campaigning on this issue, has come out enthusiastically in support of Andrew Little’s bill.

Nick Smith has been going around the country saying that Andrew Little’s bill will add unsupportable costs to landlords and drive up rents. That is absolute rubbish. A heat pump, which Nick Smith’s bill will not require in rental housing but Andrew Little’s bill will, will cost the landlord $2,000. That cost will last a lifetime of, let us say, 15 years for an asset that will generate hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue for that landlord. But more importantly, Dr Smith, for that small investment it will save lives and prevent unnecessary hospitalisations. The Minister knows that when we are talking about a cost-benefit analysis, $1 invested in retrofitting rental properties will save the taxpayer $6 in public health expenditure.

Andrew Little’s bill is comprehensive. It includes heating. Nick Smith’s bill does not. It only includes insulation and smoke alarms. Everybody knows, except the Minister, that if you insulate a cold house it is still a cold house. Andrew Little’s bill will require, under the standards that will be promulgated under regulations, a modern, affordable, and fixed heating source. The other deficiency in Nick Smith’s bill, which Andrew Little’s bill fixed, is that it will mandate legislation standards to the state of the modern building code. Nick Smith’s bill will allow houses that are retrofitted, that are already insulated to the 1978 standard, which is this standard—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: That’s a lie.

Nick Smith’s bill will allow hundreds of—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will resume his seat. Nick Smith will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I stand, withdraw, and apologise.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member will now leave the House. It is the second time. He knows how to withdraw properly. He will leave the House.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Sorry, what did I do wrong?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member knows he makes no further comment, and he did.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I apologise.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Dr Smith, just come back. If it was a genuine mistake on your part and you give me that assurance, the member may stay.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I genuinely apologise.

Andrew Little’s bill is comprehensive. It does not include the giant loophole that Nick Smith’s bill does. Andrew Little’s bill will require modern insulation standards set to the 2002 standard in the building code. Nick Smith’s bill will allow houses that are insulated to the old 1978 standard to continue with this old standard and not have to be upgraded to this newer standard. That is why Andrew Little’s bill is a better bill.

Nick Smith says that his bill will be implemented faster than Andrew Little’s bill. That is rubbish. Andrew Little’s bill has a 12-month grace period for landlords. But when every tenancy turns over it requires the landlord to sign up to the new standards and guarantee that it meets the standards in Andrew Little’s bill. Nick Smith’s bill will allow landlords to have a phase in period of 4 years—Nick Smith allows a 4-year grace period in meeting the insulation standards. So he is quite wrong when he says that his bill will be implemented faster.

We are leaving the children of this country with a terrible legacy. Children who grow up in cold, damp, mouldy homes—many of them end up with permanent lung damage called bronchiectasis. It consigns them to a lifetime of respiratory infections and premature death. Andrew Little’s bill will guarantee that every rental property in this country is warm and dry, and that kids growing up in those houses get a decent start in life. We have diseases in this country that have not been seen in Europe since the Second World War. It has to stop. Andrew Little’s bill will enact the most important public health reform that this country has seen in decades.

I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in opposition to the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2). I would normally like to start by acknowledging the Leader of the Opposition’s good motives—or at least acknowledge the motives that he would like people to think he has when he brings a bill such as this to the House. It is a parade of faux compassion, by bringing a bill that is supposed to help vulnerable children in cold and damp homes, but has none of the mechanisms required to actually do that. You only have to start to ask a few basic questions of Mr Little’s bill to see why that is the case. We might ask Mr Little whether he thinks that people, particularly people with very limited incomes, do not know what proportion of their income to spend on housing. Are they spending too little on housing and not enough on things such as food, transport, clothing, and other necessaries of life?

If he thinks that people have that basic budgeting wrong, then perhaps one thing that would be helpful to them would be to have more income. That might very well be the answer. But there is nothing in this bill that will increase the incomes of the poorest New Zealanders whom he purports to help. So then you might say that it would be helpful to them if the cost of warm, dry housing became more affordable, but, of course, there is nothing in this bill that will make warm, dry housing more affordable. So if it is not going to increase the proportion of people’s income that is spent on housing, if it is not going to increase the amount of income that people have overall, and if it is not going to make housing more affordable, then who is going to pay the costs involved in increasing the quality of housing, the temperatures, the heating facilities, and the amount of insulation that these houses have?

The answer is that Mr Little has no answer, because, unfortunately, this is a bit of vainglorious political showboating, and all the worse for the faux compassion involved in his bringing this bill to the House. But, ultimately, it comes down to confusion between the intentions of the policy and the outcomes. Everybody in this House actually agrees with the intentions—agrees with the idea that people should have healthier environments in which to live. Everybody understands that there are health problems that come from being cold and being damp. But I have argued that there is no answer in Mr Little’s bill to how that will actually be achieved, other than by imposing additional costs on the very people who cannot afford them.

The real problem is that there is no problem definition in Mr Little’s bill. He cannot explain why it is that people are not already purchasing the best possible housing that they can afford, and that landlords are not already providing the best housing that they are able to, given the costs that they face, and there is no explanation of why people who rent houses have their spending priorities wrong. Unless Mr Little can answer those basic questions, then nobody in this House should be voting for this bill.

The fact of the matter is that this is a very real problem facing New Zealand. The shortage of housing is a challenge for New Zealanders from all walks of life right across this country, but, unfortunately, by bringing a bill that does nothing more than parade faux compassion, offers no real solutions, and leaves the very people whom it intends to help actually worse off, then we end up in a situation where people lose faith in the political class, and, hopefully, faith in the Labour Party for bringing such a poor solution to the House. I proudly oppose this bill. Thank you.

I am proud to be in one of the compassionate and responsible political parties in this House that will be supporting the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) tonight. I would just like to suggest to the country that you completely ignore everything that you heard from the little fellow over there, David Seymour. This is a man who has no idea what it means to live in this country with an income where you cannot make sure you pay your rent, buy your food, and pay your power bill. This is a man who has never lived in a house where you have to bring all of your kids and all of your blankets, your socks, and your jumpers and all sleep in the lounge room, because that is the only room in the house where you know you can keep your kids warm and dry. This is a man who has never been in a home with children who have spent months and months and months sick—sick in hospital, at home sick, back in hospital, at home sick. Not a single experience from that young man about what it is really like to live in this country.

I challenge National members to think about what they are doing tonight in refusing to support this bill. You know, National knows that there are 42,000 hospitalisations of children because of cold, damp homes. National knows that there are 1,600 extra winter deaths in this country because of cold, damp homes. National knows that there are 15 children who will die this year because of cold, damp homes. What will it take to convince you to act to save these lives? Why do these lives not matter to the National Party? I know they do not matter to ACT—he is irrelevant. Why do they not matter to National?

What will it take? Do you need to go and have a sleepover in one of those homes? Do you need to sleep in a home where the beds have to be pushed into the middle of the room because the cold, wet walls make the blankets damp and mouldy? Is that what you need to do? Do you need to go to the hospital and see the kids who are sick—the babies—puffing and on ventilators? Is that what you need to see? Do they need to see the toddlers who cannot play in hospital, who are lying listless on their beds, because every single breath is a painful labour? Do you need to see that? Or maybe the only option for the members on the other side, in National, is the invitation to the funerals. Because we are talking about—

💬 Hon Nicky Wagner: For God’s sake!

Do not argue with me, Miss. We are talking about New Zealanders who die because their rental homes are cold and damp.

This is a piece of legislation that will save lives, and National is refusing to allow it to proceed. How could that be? That is what the consequences of National’s actions are. New Zealanders will die—babies will die—because their homes are cold and damp, and National has a chance to save those lives and will not. This is the reality that you must face, because New Zealand families have to face it every single day. These are the New Zealand families who cannot afford to make sure that their homes are warm and dry, who cannot afford the power bills, who cannot afford the flash houses that perhaps National and the ACT Party members can afford, who have to choose every day between decent food and warmth for their kids. These are the realities faced by the people whom you are supposed to support and be here to work for. Some of them will die this winter because you have failed to act.

I am not ashamed for one moment to put this reality on the floor of this House. It is necessary for us as legislators to be confronted by what is really happening with our families, because that is the reality. Here is a solution right in front of us, available to us tonight—to do something real for those families whose kids and whose grandparents, whose grandfathers will suffer over this winter. So I urge members: think first about the people who need us the most. Think first about the most vulnerable, who need us the most, and act for them. We have the privilege, we have the power, we have the opportunity to save lives—so let us take it. Thank you.

E Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou katoa e ngā mema o Te Whare. In following on from that stream of histrionic, emotive invective, which emotionally played on the heartstrings, I suppose, of some viewers of the debate tonight, I say that any rational analysis of the argument of the member Metiria Turei would actually bring, I think, a slightly different response.

On this side of the House we acknowledge that there is a problem with under-insulated homes in New Zealand, and that is why the Hon Dr Nick Smith has advanced a very practical, a very balanced, a sensible, and workable bill, as opposed to the bill advanced by Mr Little. Forty-two thousand hospitalisations—if that is the number, and there can be a debate around the number of people who are going to hospital due to insufficiently insulated, insufficiently warm, and damp homes—that problem can only be made worse by increasing the cost of housing for the most vulnerable in society, and that is exactly what this bill will do.

Once again, and as with Mr Twyford’s bill in the last year, we have a bill that seems to indicate that the Labour Party believes that it can, by fiat, decide what the standard and level of housing will be, with no cost passed on to the tenants. We know that is simply not the case. If a landlord was obligated to undertake the kind of insulation that Dr Smith was referring to, the marginal 2, 3, or 4 percent of insulation standard, to bring it up to the required code—at an unreasonable cost, at a cost that is not reflected in the level of added benefit provided to the tenants as well as to the landlord, then of course there will be a cost passed on to the tenant. In some cases, that cost will be more than that tenant is able to bear.

I am proud to be part of a Government that has a superb track record on the insulation of homes in New Zealand. We have seen 320,000 homes insulated, and I actually want to pay credit to the Green Party—not the current Green Party, but to the Green Party of Jeanette Fitzsimons, where we actually had a memorandum of understanding, backed up by a Government that was prepared to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure that those 320,000 homes insulated under the Warm Up New Zealand: Heat Smart programme went ahead, with a further 180,000 homes to be insulated under the next tranche of improvements put forward by Dr Smith. That gives a total of 500,000—half a million New Zealand homes, compared with the mere 50,000 that were insulated during those 9 long, dark, cold years of Labour Government misrule in New Zealand.

This bill is abhorrent. This bill sets down, with maybe some good intentions, a set of clauses that will have the effect of putting up the price of housing for those in New Zealand who are most vulnerable. On the Government Administration Committee, as Dr Smith has said, we would look forward to having the opportunity of scrutinising this bill because I believe it would, under scrutiny, collapse very, very quickly. But, better still, let us save the time of the committee and of the House and reject it at this first reading stage. For that reason, I will be voting against it.

This Government has made an unutterable mess of every aspect of housing policy in New Zealand, resulting in a dangerous price bubble for Auckland and excessive rent increases—

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: We let you have two letterboxes.

—in the main centres and a continuation of poor quality rental houses. That member’s mouth is more like a letterbox, and he should close it.

Last year I read Shamubeel Eaqub’s book Generation Rent, and I was impressed by the differences it described between New Zealand’s rental market and legislation, and those of other developed countries, which have much better developed rental markets and much better legislation than we do. There were three essential differences that it described. One was fair rents—and this Government does need, actually, to pay attention to that, and there does need to be regulation to ensure that rents are fair, as is the case in other countries and as is not the case in New Zealand. When you look at the situation in both Auckland, where the severe housing crisis there has resulted in unaffordable rents for many people, and Christchurch, where you get the same situation, mainly because of the long-term effects of the earthquakes there—in both of those situations the market actually failed. Rents exploded, people were hurt, and this Government did absolutely nothing whatsoever about it.

Secondly, the other point the book made was that New Zealand does not have secure tenancies—and I am coming to the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2), Mr Assistant Speaker, in the third point. But the second one is that New Zealand does not have secure tenancies. Our tenancies tend to be short term with very little protection against eviction, and it is too easy to get rid of tenants in circumstances where they have nowhere else to go. The third point is one that this bill addresses, and that is the question of the quality of rental properties. There are far too many damp, old dumps in New Zealand that are being let to people on low incomes who cannot afford anything better. Some of those properties should actually be ineligible to be rented altogether. Those who wish to continue to rent them out need to bring them up to standard or just get out of the market.

The Government, again, needs to do much more to improve the quality of rental properties so that people who cannot afford to buy their own homes have a genuine alternative, and we are not seeing that, as a result of Government inaction and its Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill, which Dr Smith is so proud of. It makes only some minor changes, requiring smoke alarms and insulation, but does little else. It actually still uses a 40-year old insulation standard that dates from 1978. There were dozens of submissions on that bill imploring the Government to apply much higher standards, especially than the standard that is regarded as the 2008 insulation standard, which was the one that would be adopted in this bill.

That is an important distinction between the Government’s very poor effort and this bill, which actually goes a hell of a lot further. We are not seeing improvements in heating standards or insulation standards in New Zealand, because the Government has not done anything, and because the Government has not given any signals about that in its proposed legislation. In addition to all of that, we are not seeing improvements in weatherproofing and in damp and draughty homes, and all of that needs to be attended to as well.

This bill makes a valuable contribution by requiring the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to set minimum standards, and that is what is missing in current legislation, and it will have to do that within 5 years, effectively. But that may be too long and New Zealand First will wish to question at the select committee whether that can be reduced to 3 years. We would also like to take a close look at clause 6 to see whether that could be expanded to do other things, such as to require earthquake resistance, fire resistance, and attention paid to minimum sizes of homes for families, single people, and for couples, and so on.

Finally, this bill is a good start. I believe it needs to go the select committee so we can all have a good look at it, make the improvements that are needed, and pass it, because that is what this country really needs.

I rise in opposition to this bill, and what can you say about it? It is a bill that is long on promises, very short on detail, and very, very slow, actually, in any form of delivery at all. If we look at the bill in its substance—if I can stretch the meaning of that term to its fullest possible extent—the bill is going to hang around for 12 months before something has to be done, once it is enacted. Then the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment will take 6 months to create a standard, and then, finally, 18 months after enactment, some houses might be required to have some level of insulation. We do not know yet, because that is another part I will get to. So within 3 years, I think—we have heard of calculations tonight that would suggest that maybe if the House were gracious enough to permit this bill to pass through all stages, about 30,000 homes may have met whatever that standard of insulation is in the 3-year time period. In the same time period, under the changes this Government is currently putting into place, there will be 180,000 homes—

💬 Chris Bishop: How much?

—180,000 rental homes that are not currently insulated that will be. That is six times as many—six times as many. This is a Government that takes real pragmatic action. That is an Opposition that promises a whole lot, has no substance behind the promise but does make a whole lot of promises that we do not know how it is going to back up. So let us get to that, because the substance, such as it is—there is no standard at all in this bill, not one. Not for insulation, not for ventilation—there is not a single standard.

There is a promise that Labour will have the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment create standards. What is more, one only has to read the wording of the bill—the ministry is creating standards. So they are not standards that exist today; the ministry is going to create and publish a standard. There are no minimums. There are no specifications. There is absolutely nothing in this bill that can give anyone any confidence, other than the confidence that we have in the ministry on this side—nothing that can give the public any confidence as to the specifications and the level of those standards.

But on the positive, because there is a positive in this bill—in fact, in the reading of the bill from the Leader of the Opposition tonight, the real positive is that in putting the bill forward with this wording, the Leader of the Opposition has just expressed his utmost confidence in the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to get it right. And that is one thing where we can absolutely agree with him. But he might want to have a chat to his colleague Dr David Clark. I sit on the Commerce Committee with Dr Clark, and Dr Clark has clearly shown that he does not have that confidence in the ministry. So he might want to have a chat to his colleague because the Leader of the Opposition is claiming that he can rely on the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: “I don’t need to set some standards; MBIE will get this right.”

Once again the Labour Government has put up a member’s bill that is long on promises and short on detail. It is asking this House and the public to believe Labour when, at the last count, at the last poll, less than 28 percent of the country were prepared to believe what he says. I oppose this bill.

When we hear the word “home”, we think of belonging, security, warmth, and safety. The Green Party believes that every person in this country has the right to those qualities—the right to a home. We have campaigned on this issue for many years now, and we are proud of the role that we have played, both in partnership with Labour and then subsequently with National, to try to ensure that we could get as close to that as we could. We have done so because we recognise that those qualities are the ones that are necessary, absolutely necessary, if a person is to be able to go on to fulfil their potential as a human being. That is surely the fundamental responsibility of a Government. That is the very first thing that a Government owes its citizens.

I want to quote from someone who wrote to me and said: “For what it’s worth, I have one of the better and more expensive rental properties in Porirua East, and mine would meet just one of the criteria, which is decent ventilation—as in, the kitchen windows don’t shut flush. It has broken toilets, cracked guttering, old wiring with broken power points, and blown light fittings. No internal heating—there’s a broken heat pump that the landlord won’t fix—no underfloor insulation, and mice holes in the walls and ceiling. This was the best I could afford after a month of hunting and applications.” The health consequences of poor housing are manifold—and others have already spoken about them—but they are of two sorts. One is a consequence of a shortage of affordable supply, and that is the consequence of overcrowding, with its consequences of rheumatic heart disease, of respiratory infections, and of skin infections. The other type of consequence is the consequences that come from poor quality housing: cold housing, draughty housing, and mouldy housing.

In the Government’s recently announced health strategy, one of its actions is to support families, especially those with newborn babies, to have healthy housing—warm, dry, and smoke-free—and address crowding issues to reduce transmission of infectious diseases, infant mortality, and family stress. But I do not actually believe it. I do not believe it because that poor quality housing actually serves as a safety valve for National’s complete failure to actually supply affordable housing in sufficient quantity. That is why Nick Smith’s legislation is such a pale facsimile of what is actually required, with its failure to address many of the significant issues and with its inclusion of obsolete insulation standards. His claim to the House this evening that many of the issues, like home heating, are already dealt with by existing law and regulation is disingenuous, because he knows that his Government does not enforce that law and does not enforce those regulations, and he has not taken any of the opportunities that have been available to him to actually change that.

Minister Smith said that he would welcome the opportunity for this bill to be debated in select committee. Paul Foster-Bell has said the same thing. Well, that is a traditional way of dealing with disagreements about some legislation and improvements that could be made to legislation. Why, then, is National not voting for this bill tonight? It is not voting for the bill tonight because, fundamentally, it wants to protect that safety valve for itself. In doing so, it fails that basic test of a Government, that basic duty it owes every person in this country to a warm, safe, healthy, and secure home.

I wish I had more time for this call but I will try to make the most of the time that I do have. I just want to acknowledge the Leader of the Opposition, Andrew Little, because I think that he is genuinely passionate about this issue; it is just that he has been armed with a very poorly written bill.

I do want to address the comments that Metiria Turei made, because she looks across the House at us, and because we are aspirational she somehow feels that she can accuse us of not actually having any feelings for the people who are in these positions. I just want to say that, as a young man growing up, my parents bought our first home at 7 Morton Avenue in Sunnynook. My dad had left the air force and he was working two jobs to try to achieve a Bachelor of Commerce degree, and my mum was working for Mill Valley and doing some seasonal fruit-picking. We were in a small house. I had a brother and two sisters; we shared a room. The house was not insulated, it did not have double glazing, it was cold, and it was draughty during the winter—

💬 David Seymour: This can’t be true. You’re in the National Party.

That is right. Somehow, I do not know how, my mum found a way to keep us healthy and to keep us warm and dry. I remember the condensation forming on the windows, and I also remember clearly when dad had actually saved enough to put our first insulation in. It was the old Pink Batts, and we helped him install them in the roof and the ceiling. My brother and I made a fatal error because, on opening the first pack, we thought they looked like fun to jump around and roll around in. We made a big mistake and mum spent the next 2 or 3 hours hosing us down with cold water for some relief.

I am going to back our Minister for Building and Housing, and the reason for that is that this Government has already insulated 300,000 homes, and he has actually got a very good plan that is going to deliver a further 160,000 homes in a much shorter time frame than what this bill offers. So I want to acknowledge the Minister and the Government, and the work that they have already done. I am the first one to acknowledge and say that we have got an old stock of rental homes, that we live in a golden age in terms of the products that are available now to be able to upgrade them and to be able to insulate them better, and that we must be focused on continuing to do that. But I am going to back our Minister on this one in terms of the plan he has got that is going to deliver that quicker and more efficiently than the bill that the member of the Opposition has put up. Thank you.

I appreciate the contributions of members tonight—well, most of them. This bill is very simple, and, in fact, it is drafted in a very similar format to the Government bill, so the complaints about lack of specificity or substance, if they are going to be levelled at all, need to be levelled at the Government bill too. It provides for regulations to be promulgated for standards in these particular areas, and it goes beyond insulation. As other members have said, there is no point in having a well-insulated house in the depth of winter if there is no source of heating. Nor is there any point in having insulation if the windows do not open, there is no air circulating, and the mould is allowed to build up. It is pretty simple.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Already in the regulations.

These will be the regulations that have led to 42,000 kids being hospitalised every year for respiratory diseases and bronchial infections. If the Minister for Building and Housing has not got it yet, his regulations are not working—they have to change. I think he does accept that, because his own legislation actually calls for a change in the regulations. My bill is no different; it just does a better job than the Minister’s.

I was intrigued by the honourable member David Seymour’s contribution, and I suppose I summarise it by saying this: the latter-day libertarian has a particular principle they live by now, which is: “Do as you wish, be as greedy as you like, because in the end, the State will pay.” That is what his contribution amounts to. It is not about people picking and choosing how much more they want to spend. The truth is that most of the people who have written to me are already struggling to make choices between putting food on the table and meeting the medical costs of their children. If he is concerned about where cost is going to be imposed—Mr Seymour, it is already being imposed on you and me and every other New Zealander, as we see 42,000 children admitted to hospital every year, having their respiratory infections and bronchial conditions attended to. It is very simple.

I want to say this to Mr Foster-Bell too, who was concerned about—or at least tried to trumpet—the great achievements of his Government and its insulation programme. The question he must answer, and, indeed, the Government must answer, is why, on achieving office, did National cancel the $1 billion programme that had been legislated for by the previous Labour Government—

💬 Chris Bishop: Oh, what rubbish. It was not legislated.

—and supported by the Greens, which was about insulating and installing heating devices in the houses that needed them? It is all there in black and white, Mr Bishop. It is all there for you to see. We know it is true. I can tell by the size of your reaction that it must be correct, because you get agitated only when we are right about something, and you have confirmed that.

So we come back to what this bill is about. It is about New Zealanders standing up and saying, in the 21st century, that we want decent minimum standards for rental housing in New Zealand, and we want a standard that is going to protect the kids in those houses from getting sick, from getting unwell, and from getting unhealthy—and actually, at the same time, making sure their parents are OK as well. That is all this is about. Let us do it for New Zealand. Let us do it for those who do not have a voice. It is not about those who sit in Epsom—the leafy suburbs of Epsom—and tell the rest of the world what is good for them; it is about this House now taking this opportunity to say we can do better. We can do better for the children and their families in this country, and have decent, healthy homes—warm, safe, dry homes. It is nothing less than any citizen in a modern country like ours, in the 21st century, should expect. I look forward to the House’s support for the bill.

Can I ask members—I know there is a lot of feeling about this—for the vote to be taken in silence, other than as appropriate.