Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2)

Thank you, Mr Chair. We are back in committee on the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2), where the Opposition has spent several hours in its technical analysis of the bill, trying to understand what it is we are attempting to achieve and asking the Minister to address the simple question: are we asking landlords to insulate houses that were insulated under previous standards and upgrade them to the current standard for insulation, and, if so, what will be the cost of that on both the landlords and the Government? I am disappointed to note that we were unable to get an answer from the Minister of Housing and Urban Development in respect of that fundamental question. So I don’t intend to take up too much more of the committee’s time, frankly. If the Minister is not prepared to answer that fundamental question we are not going to flog a dead horse.

But I would remind the committee and the Minister that in the Speech from the Throne, the Government committed to fostering an open and more democratic society, that it would strengthen transparency around information, and that it’s customary, when primary legislation gives a regulating-making power to the Government, that the intention of that regulation be signalled to the committee in order that we may assess the impact of that and vote for or against it. Indeed, that’s what happened in the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill, which gave rise to the smoke alarms and insulation regulations, which I remind the committee that the Minister in the chair, as the member for Te Atatū, was so opposed to.

He went crusading around the House and the press gallery—I’ll just use this [Shows photo] as an aid for the committee—to remind them that last year the Minister held up two pieces of insulation material: one that was from the 1978 insulation standard, albeit I have to say, Mr Chair, that it wouldn’t have been a residential insulation material because in 1978 they weren’t that colour. That would have been commercial material from a wall space that was far narrower, but that nevertheless had the thermal properties that would reduce heat loss by 82 percent. That wasn’t good enough for the member who is now the Minister. He held up another piece of insulation material much, much thicker, and said that is the standard to which we aspire.

So my question to the Minister is this: will he say in the committee whether it is his intention, if this legislation is passed, to pass a regulation that will require residential properties, including the Government’s own, that were compliant with the standards that were set at the time the insulation was installed to, nevertheless, by 1 July or by the subsequent renewal of the tenancy, upgrade that to the 2008 standard, which is the present one? It’s a simple question. It doesn’t require rocket science to work out. It’s a simple yes or no—

The CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member needs to come back to clause 3.

That’s right, the amendment to—

The CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): When I’m on my feet, you can—thank you. You’re actually talking about clause 4; if you can come back to clause 3.

That’s quite right. This will be my last intervention to the committee, because I think the case has been established. We are amending the Residential Tenancies Act. Clause 3 says so and our question to the Minister is: how—how—are we amending the Residential Tenancies Act, and what powers are we giving the Minister that he doesn’t already have? Also, what is the cost of that power on the tens of thousands of mum and dad rental owners, and the largest landlord in the country, with around 60,000 houses, many of which are not insulated to the standard to which the Minister now appears to aspire, and what is the cost of that on the Crown? These are fundamental questions. There is no point continuing to answer the same question clause by clause. We’d appreciate an answer.