Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2)

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s my pleasure to talk on clause 3 of this bill, a relatively straightforward, one-sentence statement, which says that “This Act”—when passed—“amends the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 (the principal Act).” I would simply ask this one question: why? Why on earth are we here, amending the Residential Tenancies Act, which needs no amendment? Even if the Minister was of a mind to create a regulation-making power, he already has it. It’s already there in the Residential Tenancies Act. He can pass this regulation without the grandstanding, the virtue-signalling of the introduction of what was an Opposition bill, the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill—remember? They’re going to guarantee healthy homes—a lofty goal.

But I want to come back to the comments that the Minister said in his intervention in clause 2. It is revealing on one level but not on another. It was in essence why we are doing this. His argument was that the standards that he intends to promulgate go further because it covers other matters. So that could be illuminating to the degree—he didn’t say it goes further because the standards would be higher; he said it goes further because there would be more of them. Only, they don’t, because every single one of the standards introduced by the amendment of the Residential Tenancies Act is already possible. And that was the advice the select committee in the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill got. That was the advice that was given.

I draw the Minister’s attention to that subsequent advice in a memo to the committee, dated 5 August 2006, at paragraph 26, referencing, actually, the Housing Improvement Regulations 1947. Those regulations place requirements on landlords, and owner/occupiers for that matter. So it’s not just a requirement on rental properties. Every living room shall be fitted with a fireplace or other approved form of heating. Every bathroom should have a means of ventilation. Every habitable room should have windows to allow for adequate lighting and ventilation. Every house must have efficient drainage. Every house must be provided with gutters, downpipes, and drains. Ventilation, dampness, weatherproof—they’re all here, and they were augmented and strengthened by the passage of the Residential Tenancies (Smoke Alarms and Insulation) Regulations that were the consequence of our amendment to the Residential Tenancies Act last year.

So in our efforts to examine clause 3 and to ask what amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act we are passing, I once again implore the Minister to confirm or otherwise whether we are here because the standards go further, because there are more of them—which is not correct—or whether the standards that already exist are going to be strengthened.

The Minister can sit there and smirk and gloat all he likes, but he was the one that ran around Parliament with the insulation material. He was the one that said this bill, the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill, which the previous National Government passed, was not good enough and when he became the Minister he was going to make it better. Only he’s sitting in the chair. We want to analyse the bill. We want to know how the Residential Tenancies Act is going to be amended and what regulation-making power is going to be given to the Minister, so that we can make an assessment of whether that is worthy, cost-effective—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: It’s pretty clear what the power is. It’s in the bill.

It’s not clear, Mr Little.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: It’s very clear. Read it.

If it’s that clear, please answer this one question: will the new regulation that the Minister intends to bring about by the passage of this legislation require houses with insulation under the 1978 and 2001 standards to be upgraded? It’s a reasonable question. It’s not a political question. It’s absolutely crucial to our understanding of what we’re doing here. So the member who had sponsored the bill before his party became Government said, “It’s clear.” I might be a bit slow. Tell me the answer to that.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m happy to rise to take yet another call on this very important and innovative piece of legislation that does new things, as we sit here and speak.

I think this year’s general election will go down in history as the one where the party opposite, the members opposite, not only lost the election but they lost their coalition partners that actually brought some sense to the debate on this piece of legislation. The two coalition partners they had, the Māori Party and United Future, supported this legislation. They were ahead of their big brother because they knew what was good. So let me address the issue about what clause 3 does when it says that this bill, or this Act, amends the Residential Tenancies Act, and it does it in this fundamental way that members opposite clearly have not cottoned on to just yet.

They have focused on the regulation-making power, and, indeed, that is a party that when it was in Government passed legislation that had regulation-making powers that did not specify the content of the regulations, because the reason you legislate for a regulation-making power is so you don’t put in the primary legislation the detail that you want. Instead, you do as my learned colleague, the Hon Phil Twyford, pointed out: you go through a consultation process on this very broad area. Hear from the landlords; don’t just listen to Andrew King from the New Zealand Property Investors’ Federation, according to the honourable member from Clutha-Southland.

We don’t just listen to them; we listen to everybody who’s got a stake in this—not just the landlords and not just the progressive landlords who are up for doing the right thing because they are good Kiwis and good New Zealanders, and, for that matter, not just the slum landlords, but everybody in between. And we talk to the tenants as well, and the tenancy advocates, and we’ve probably talked to some of the Tenancy Tribunal adjudicators as well to look at how this thing can be perfected, because we are all here to achieve perfection in legislation and in regulation.

So you legislate for the regulation, but here’s the kicker. Here’s what this bill does—that you haven’t cottoned on to yet—that is different from National Party legislation. You see, this bill is about making it real.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: How?

It’s about making it meaningful. By requiring—and I know the members are eager to find out, because, clearly, they haven’t read the bill. I can imagine the grief you go through from Government to Opposition. You’re struggling to read this legislation, and it’s been before the House before. But here’s the thing: it requires, in tenancy agreements—and you don’t have to wait five years for this; this will happen from 1 July 2019—to have in them the requirements or have clauses that fulfil the requirements of this legislation.

The members opposite know because the bill says it. The regulations will be in place and enforced by then. So tenancy agreements—the document that is signed between the tenant and the landlord, and mostly lodged with the Tenancy Tribunal, because that’s where bonds are paid—will have written down in these clauses these obligations that will bind the parties. We’re not going to repeat what has happened up to now, the regime that the last Government was happy with, which was: we’ll do a bunch of regulations knowing that no one is ever going to enforce them—the odd exceptional case, perhaps, but no one ever enforces them. That doesn’t work. That’s not real. That’s not how people live their lives. People don’t spend their lives looking at Government regulations and looking at the Gazette notices. Half of New Zealand wouldn’t know what a Gazette notice is. But people do know—those who are renting do know—what’s in their tenancy agreement. This makes it real. This makes the difference.

That’s why when in clause 3 it says, “This Act amends the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 (the principal Act).”, that is one of the key amendments—are we allowed to use “key” any more in this House? I think we are now. It’s safe to use the word. That is one of the principal amendments, that it requires these obligations to appear in the written tenancy agreement. I know the members opposite are stunned into silence when they hear that, because they clearly did not read the bill beforehand to see that that’s what is in it. That’s what makes this unique, and it is great that tonight, in this debate, we take occasion to celebrate the glory of debate and discussion and we get better understanding, and I hope now that the members opposite do better understand exactly what this legislation is doing and why it is doing it.

The first thing that was notable about Mr Little’s contribution is that he could not answer the very simple, good question from my colleague Michael Woodhouse. A simple question, that is: if somebody’s got a house that was insulated to the standard 10 years ago, will this bill require them to upgrade? Fair question; what’s the answer? Andrew Little can’t answer it, and we’ve got no indication from any other member on the Government benches.

Here’s the second point: Mr Little has just argued that the big change in this bill is that when you sign a tenancy agreement, it’s going to have to meet the standards as set out in the regulations that are empowered by this bill—but that’s the law now. I have before me the Housing Improvement Regulations. It covers every single one of the issues: heating—

I’m sorry to interrupt the member; the time has come for me to report progress.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill with amendment, and progress on the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2).

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.