Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2)

Every New Zealander deserves a warm, dry home—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Move the motion. “I move, That the …”.

I move that the bill now be read.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: No, “That the Healthy Homes Guarantee …”.

That the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Be now read a third time.

—now be read a third time. Thank you.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Oh, we’ve been there, don’t worry.

Ha, ha! I move, That the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) be now read a third time.

Every New Zealander deserves a warm, healthy home. The passage of this bill—the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2)—into law today will add the next chapter in what has been an impressive and important piece of work in this country over the last decade, overhauling and upgrading the quality of housing in New Zealand. This bill, once made law, will, I believe, be the most important public health reform that we can currently make in this country. Anyone who’s been following this debate will know that some 42,000 children in this country go to hospital every year with infectious and respiratory diseases that are largely a result of low-quality, cold, damp, and mouldy homes and the inability of their parents to turn on the electricity and heat those homes. Every winter, we have what’s called winter excess mortality, in which some 1,600 mostly older New Zealanders die premature deaths, for the same reason: cold, damp homes and an inability to heat them.

What this bill does is it builds on the work that’s been done by previous Governments over the last decade or so. The story, I think, has to go back to the efforts that were made by Jeanette Fitzsimons and the Green Party, working with the then Labour-led Government to set up an insulation-retrofitting subsidy programme. To give credit to the former National Government, they continued that work through the Warm Up New Zealand programme and insulated approximately 300,000 homes during the last nine years.

Our belief is that even more is needed to be done, and that’s because all of those subsidy programmes hardly put a dent in the very poor quality of rental housing in New Zealand. Most of the subsidies were taken up by owner-occupiers. What this bill does is it actually raises the minimum standards that will apply to rental properties, by putting in place the ability of the Government to set regulations. It’s our intention, over the next 18 months, to set the regulations that will put in place a higher standard of insulation. We have, in the course of this bill going through the House, made it clear that the current standard legislated by the past National Government, which allows approximately 70,000 to 80,000 rental properties in this country that are already insulated to the 1978 insulation standard to remain at that standard and not have to be upgraded, a nearly 40-year-old insulation standard—we don’t think that’s good enough. The regulations that will be promulgated under this piece of law will set a higher standard.

They will also extend beyond insulation and beyond the requirement for smoke alarms, for a whole range of other factors that are critical to preventing homes being cold and damp. We’re talking about moisture control. We’re talking about ventilation and, most importantly, a requirement, in most cases, for a modern, affordable, fixed heating source, which very likely will be a modern heat pump or a modern woodburner. To have an insulation standard without any requirement for heating is a nonsense. It simply makes a cold, damp home insulated.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: There is a requirement for heating, in the Building Act.

Well, the member thinks that the Building Act has a requirement for heating. A power point, Mr Woodhouse, is not a requirement for heating. Under our law, every rental property will require a modern, fixed, affordable heating source. This will ensure that it will be, effectively, illegal for landlords to rent out properties that are a threat to the health of the people living in them. It’s our view, on this side of the House, that it’s past time to modernise and upgrade the quality of our rental housing. It’s not OK for a landlord to be able to make over, let’s say, a 10-year period, hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue on an asset by renting out a property that is a risk to the health of the people living in it. We are better than that as a country, and this bill is going to make a serious step forward in improving the quality of rental housing.

I want to acknowledge the work of a lot of people on this issue that have got us to this stage. The first one I want to mention is the people at Otago University’s Wellington campus and the public health team there, led by Professor Philippa Howden-Chapman. Professor Howden-Chapman and people like Professor Michael Baker, and others, have done groundbreaking, internationally acclaimed public health research that has changed the public conversation on the issue of cold, damp homes and poverty in this country. It’s been a remarkable body of work that has influenced not only public opinion but public policy.

There’s a whole movement of people who have campaigned and worked towards the aim of a warrant of fitness, a set of tough, mandatory, minimum standards for rental properties. I want to give special mention to the Child Poverty Action Group, people like Dr Innes Asher, Dr Nikki Turner, and people like my colleague Dr Liz Craig, who has made a huge contribution to the well-being of children, particularly, in this country in relation to cold, damp homes and preventable deaths.

There’s a whole movement nationwide of people like the Community Energy Network, non-profit community organisations who have been doing fantastic work in communities up and down this country insulating homes, retrofitting, helping people to make their homes warm and dry, and using all of the subsidies available from councils, from central government, and from other places to help people afford those things.

I want to acknowledge the Hon Annette King, who recently retired from politics. She was the architect of our policy in this area that led to the drafting of the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill that first appeared in the House here as a member’s bill in my name but was later taken up by the Hon Andrew Little in its second reincarnation before it was adopted as a Government bill after the election.

There are many, many more people I want to thank: the officials for the work that they have done, helping us to get this bill into shape and ready to be passed, and all of the submitters, the organisations, the private citizens, and the many community and advocacy organisations who came along at select committee and helped shape this bill.

The other key aspect that I want to mention is that, as well as enabling a set of regulations that will put in place the minimum standards on heating, on ventilation, on insulation, and on moisture control, the other thing this bill does is that it beefs up the compliance mechanism in the bill. It’s been very clear to us that a complaints-based system in the rental market is simply not enough, that the very nature of the rental market means that most tenants simply will never complain to the landlord because they’re worried that that will either harm the relationship they have with the landlord or lead to them having their tenancy terminated. What we’ve done is we’re beefing up the capacity of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to be responsible for a programme of risk-based auditing and investigations. So the legislation won’t simply rely on complaints or tenants taking the landlord to the tenancy tribunal if the landlord is believed to be in breach of the regulations but there will be a really significant programme of auditing and investigation to encourage compliance across the whole industry.

The big argument that our political opponents have put up throughout this debate has been that the standards will impose on landlords some kind of insupportable burden that will either drive landlords out of the market or lead to big costs being passed on to tenants. To be honest, this has just been scaremongering by the Opposition, who are looking for an excuse to oppose this. The National Party are opposing the idea of a landlord who has an asset that over the lifetime of the insulation and heating that they’re going to put in place will generate hundreds and thousands of dollars—the National Party is opposing the landlord being required to spend something between $3,000 and $5,000, with the help of substantial public subsidies, to get there. That shows, I think, a terrible kind of lack of vision and compassion. This law will make a huge difference to the people of New Zealand.

I think it’s appropriate to start with the one part of that speech that I think every member of this House will emphatically agree with, and that is the Minister’s first words, which were: “Every New Zealander deserves a warm, healthy home.” We certainly agree on this side of the House that that’s the case. And it isn’t acceptable that 15 or 16 mostly elderly, but from time to time very young, New Zealanders die in homes that are cold and damp, and that there are more than 40,000 preventable diseases contracted by our young in those homes.

In my second reading speech I mentioned a hope that, as we debate this bill, we don’t retrench back to the hyperbole that we had a year ago: that those that were opposed to these goals somehow did not care about those children. The House has been very responsible in that regard. It’s focused on the issues, which I’m very grateful for.

We eventually got to the nub, I think, in the committee of the whole House, of what this bill is going to do. As I mentioned, it wasn’t possible for us to know whether we were opposing it because it was innocuous and did nothing or because it was going to be a crushing and mis-targeted imposition on property owners and the Crown and the tenants. The reason is that despite the fact that the Government in its fiscal plan has $300 million set aside for grants for this initiative, there is a form of mathematical alchemy that would be required to make that enough to fund what we now know are going to be the changes, as a consequence of this legislation.

The Minister, in the committee stage, told us that it will be necessary for landlords to meet a higher standard—a more recent standard. He didn’t say which standard, but it would be ridiculous to require the higher standard but not the current standard, so we have to assume from that that the goal is at the 2008 standard—a more recent standard than the 1978 standard. But “It’s OK”, because there will be a grant process and it will be available to not only landlords but owner-occupiers, according to the Minister, and the $300 million set aside for that purpose is designed to provide that grant for 150,000 homes over four years.

Only, here’s where the alchemy is required. In the rental market alone, there are nearly 600,000 properties. All of them will be required, under the regulation the Minister intends to pass, to be upgraded to this new standard, the current standard—600,000 rental properties. About 80 percent of them are owned by mum and dad landlords, people who support the Labour Party—nurses, police, teachers; that’s their retirement nest egg—and 80 percent of the owners of those properties have two or fewer. They have only one or two. And all of them, if they don’t already comply with the 2008 standard, will need to comply when the tenancy is renewed after 1 July 2019. So the maths cannot possibly stack up if that is the requirement.

If it’s compulsory, there’s no way that even the renters, by a factor of probably two to three, can access that grant under the current appropriation of $300 million, much less the owner-occupiers that the Minister talks about, and the back-of-the-envelope calculations, which, nevertheless, are better than the calculations that the Minister has done, suggest that the total cost of this could be more than a billion dollars.

💬 Hon Louise Upston: A billion?

More than a billion dollars, if we require—as he has just told us—a modern, fixed, affordable source of heating, a firebox, or a heat pump. Well, there’s $2,500, if you’re lucky. We know from last year’s bill, when it was passed, that the average cost of retrofitting insulation under the Residential Tenancies Amendment Act was going to be $3,300. There will be some inflation on that, so we’re already talking about $6,000 minimum per house, times the several hundred thousand—we don’t know how many. But the Minister has this flawed view that somehow if it was built pre-1978, that’s going to be covered. But, in fact, that 1978 standard applied right through until 2001. So, effectively, what we’re saying is that every rental dwelling built prior to 2002 is going to be required to upgrade.

Now, how many of those 600,000 rental dwellings does one think, as a proportion of those 600,000, would have been built prior to 2001? Probably most of them, yeah? Let’s just say for argument’s sake it’s two-thirds of them. That’s 400,000 houses expending $6,000 each—$2.4 billion. But that’s OK, because there’s a grant—only, there won’t be for at least 250,000 of them, much less the owner-occupiers the Minister wants to help, because there’s just not enough money.

So the concerns continue to remain that we are now leading towards this being a crushing imposition on the landlords and on the tenants, because it’s simply naive to suggest that the costs of the housing are not eventually reflected in the rental value. And it might not be just this, but when you add this to ring-fencing, to a capital gains tax, and to the many other things that are going to be imposed on landlords, as has been indicated by the Labour Government, then that will lead to an increase in rents. The $87 million the Minister mentioned for Housing New Zealand to upgrade its stock is, I think, understated by half, and then we haven’t even got to the adjustments to the income-related rents and the accommodation supplement.

But what’s most disappointing about this is that we shouldn’t be having to speculate on what those costs are. It behoves a responsible Government to actually have the answers to these questions, and we don’t.

So I think we’re at the end of a journey—a journey that the National Party supports the sentiment about, but not the method of, and therefore we will continue to oppose this bill—but we’re also at the start of a journey: the start of a journey to better articulate where that effort should be put.

Now, the Residential Tenancies Amendment Act required the 180,000 completely uninsulated homes to be insulated by 1 July 2019, and that’s appropriate, because the very good research done by the public health team at the University of Otago based in Wellington highlights the terrible failures of those houses, but the focus is very much on completely uninsulated houses. Research by James Fricker—which I’m sure the Minister is familiar with—shows a dramatic decreasing benefit in thermal gain from the 1978 standard to the 2008 standard, to the point where the marginal benefits are massively outweighed by the marginal costs of what the Minister proposes.

He has said that he will have a comprehensive consultation process with landlords next year, alongside other stakeholders and the public in designing the new standards. My hope and my wish for the Minister is for him to tone down the rhetoric and turn up the hearing on what will be a very important consultation process, in order that we don’t misalign that investment, because if we are going to invest that much money in warmer, drier, safer homes, let’s do it in the houses that need it the most.

Now, we believe that the previous Government did that emphatically with the passage of the smoke alarms and insulation regulations after the Residential Tenancies Act. The Minister doesn’t agree. That’s fine. He’s now in Government. He has the responsibility to deliver and be judged on that delivery. But I implore him to listen very carefully and to make sure that we target that investment in the areas where the most vulnerable people, who we all want to protect, will benefit the most.

Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker. I stand here today in strong support of the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2).

Herein lies one of the main differences between the National Party and the new coalition-led Government from this side of the House. What we heard in this particular speech from the Hon Michael Woodhouse was a defence of landlords. Can I just remind the honourable member that we now have 50 percent of all people in New Zealand who rent—50 percent of all of our people rent—and one of those folks that is one of the main landlords is the Government.

What this legislation will do is it will ensure that all of the homes in Aotearoa New Zealand are insulated, that they are warm, and that they are healthy. What we know today is that 40,000 admissions into hospitals are for respiratory illnesses. These are preventable admissions to the hospitals. They are for respiratory illnesses for many of our children, on which, when you have warm, healthy homes like the ones that we will have under this particular bill, we will then save money at the other end.

We know from many of our doctors—and I’d like at this time to thank Dr Liz Craig, Dr Teuila Percival, a paediatrician from the Counties Manukau District Health Board, and so many of our doctors, who serve our young people. They are the ones—Dr Innes Asher, another paediatrician—that tell us and keep on telling us that we need to ensure that our children are living in warm, dry, healthy homes. It is not just the fact that we have so many children being admitted, going in and out of hospitals; it is also the fact that we’re told that over 1,600 people—their lives are cut short because they live in houses that are not healthy.

Now, we can actually continue to listen to the opposing side of this House telling us why we should not pass this legislation because they are supporting the landlords. But what about those people whose lives can be changed? It is not every day that we sit here and we talk about legislation that can save people’s lives, legislation that can save taxpayers’ funds. And it is not every day that we can actually look at legislation where we can save money in different parts of the sector—in the health sector. Housing actually has such an effect on our people’s lives.

You know, Madam Assistant Speaker—and I’m sure you have had this experience when you go knocking on doors. [Speaker shakes head] Just last—sorry. Don’t bring you in. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Just last winter, I was knocking on a certain door and a lady—an elderly lady, who had worked all her life—opened the door and she was wearing a really thick jacket. She was also wearing a woollen hat and wearing woollen socks. My question to this lady was “Why is it that you are dressed up as if you’re walking around outside?” And her answer to me was “My house”—which was a Government house—“is not insulated. It is freezing. It is cold.” This legislation will ensure that people like her, who have worked all her life, actually are living in a house that is fit for purpose, a house that is healthy. I stand here in strong support of this legislation. Thank you very much.

I think the speaker before me, Jenny Salesa, has kind of missed an important statement that the Hon Michael Woodhouse made, and that is that we’re not debating the fact that we want New Zealanders to live in warm, dry, healthy homes. We’re not debating the fact that there are serious health implications for those that don’t.

But what we are debating, and why, unfortunately, our side of the House is unable to support this bill, is that the original bill that was introduced to this House has had the guts absolutely stripped out of it. Despite significant questions in the committee stage of this bill, the Minister in charge, Phil Twyford, just hasn’t been able to provide any certainty or any information about what actually this will mean. My colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse went through in significant detail around the costings side of it. What are the implications for homeowners? What are the implications for tenants? We do have a large number of tenants in New Zealand, and, actually, I’d want to make sure that those tenants are protected from significant increases in rent as a result of this bill. Unfortunately, this side of the House doesn’t have the level of assurance or comfort that we would like to have had from a piece of legislation that in terms of the intended or stated outcome is to provide warm, healthy, dry homes.

It’s always uncomfortable on days like today where the legislation before us is miles away from delivering a stated outcome, and that is concerning. When we talk about the Government’s need to sit within fiscal parameters, the fact that there’s no detail available about what this is going to cost the Government in terms of its own collection of houses, to upgrade to the 2008 standard—and, actually, every taxpayer has an interest in that, because they are the ones that pay for it. Any time we talk about the Government’s liability that is for hard-working Kiwis who are the taxpayers who have to fork out to cover those costs—and a responsible Government would actually have that detail available. It is disappointing that they don’t.

Another issue that I think is really important—given the time frame of the implementation being 1 July 2019, given the 600,000 rental properties involved in this—is I haven’t seen any information from the Minister in terms of how this work is going to occur. Who’s going to do it? Along with KiwiBuild—sorry, it’s “KiwiBuy” now—there’s actually labour required to do this. There’s no implication, there’s no suggestion of how that’s going to happen, or maybe they’re going to do a healthy homes special visa as well, to bring more immigrants in and get around their current restrictions—New Zealand First’s current restrictions.

As I say, it is frustrating. We’d like to be able to support legislation that provides warm, healthy, dry homes. Our agreement with the Green Party in 2008, which I think was a fantastic agreement, a really important piece of work—

💬 Simeon Brown: Pragmatic and sensible.

Pragmatic, sensible, as my colleague has said—supporting the very families that many of us come to this House to support. But, unfortunately, this piece of legislation is miles away from that. It doesn’t provide any detail. We’re not sure it’s going to achieve anything, and if it does, at what cost? I’m sorry that I, and this side of the House, won’t be supporting this bill.

This bill will pass despite the stance of denial by our friends across the House, which is reflective of the still early stages of grief that they’re working through. The reason that this bill will pass is that it has a moral purpose, and despite the other side of the House believing that the onset of climate change will solve these particular problems of whānau in poverty, shivering in their houses—owned in many cases by their friends—this bill will pass because we have far too many low-quality rental properties, and in areas where we are experiencing, such as Auckland, huge population pressures. Now, we’ve heard from the other side of the House concerns to do with the expansion of a fiscal burden on property owners. If they were really so concerned about burdens and fiscal costs, why have they allowed red tape to spin out of control? And our senior colleague Mr Twyford is now having to confront that as he expands the number of affordable houses in New Zealand.

Why did they take such a dilatory approach in introducing an Australian model of occupational safety and health (OSH) that is causing all sorts of grief amongst the god-fearing small and medium sized businessmen and businesswomen of Aotearoa? Not a single thing—not a single thing other than make a worm grower suffer the full burdens of the OSH regime and a farmer get off scot-free. More on farmers when we advance our sophisticated thinking in relation to the emissions trading scheme.

Now, the other reason that this bill must pass is that how can we, as a Parliament, sit and watch the next generation being raised in substandard living conditions, at a time when the fastest-growing assets, particularly in Auckland, have been houses? How can we allow those properties and the people that own those properties to not step up to the plate and observe the full obligations of being property owners, especially when many of the people living in those properties are in receipt of handsome Government subsidies?

I’m hoping that the Minister of Housing and Urban Development has time to do something about that into the future. So we are seeing a transfer, via people of limited means, living in substandard housing, into the hands of property owners, where property owners feel no obligation to improve the warmth, either by insulation, either by fireplaces or other forms of heating, including heat pumps. So the morality of the situation is beyond cavil, and we know that this bill will pass.

Now, having been Minister of building myself, in the past, and I’m more than willing to share those experiences with Minister Salesa and Mr Twyford—it is just but a small step up on to the seventh floor of the Beehive where our friends over there will never, ever see again, because the new leader of the National Party is not in this Parliament: either working in a cigarette paper company, or as a lobbyist in some corporate—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Could I just remind the member that we are in a third reading debate and we should actually talk about the debate at hand, thank you.

I thank you for that direction. It’s just that the truth bubbles forth despite obstacles in front of me, but I will observe the direction from the Chair, and for fear of earning the ire of the promoter of the bill, against the appetite of the public, I shall truncate this speech. I know they’ll be disappointed in Eketāhuna, and a host of other places—ahh, there’s Simeon waving. That’s the five-year-old school wave, son—something that you should own with pleasure, given that’s the quality of your maturity in your short time here in Parliament.

So the bill provides a firm regulatory regime, creates a level playing field and, if anyone’s doubting whether or not the improvements to rental housing will require wood, a billion trees will see to that. Kia ora tātou.

It’s an honour to be able to speak on this bill, the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2), in its third reading, and especially to speak after the Hon Shane Jones, who I do agree has building skills and experience. The best advice I remember him giving me in this regard was to always pay with cash and not with credit. And that was the best thing to do whenever purchasing, whenever out there, whatever construction, whatever advice, and you’re standing around, scoping, taking the extracurricular activities around building and construction.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Excuse me. Do I have to remind this member we are talking about the bill at hand?

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. But it is quite interesting. I would have to say that with the previous speaker, the Hon Shane Jones, he should also, too, remind himself of the whakapapa of which he was a part in the Labour Government in previous times, because while they can turn around and talk and have the high road of being able to say “this is what we will do for the poor people, for the cold people, and for the people in our communities with our healthy homes bill,” they need to look a little bit further past the nine years of a National Government, and look a bit further at the nine years under a Labour Government, and previously. When you do that, it gets a bit of a dim reading. That’s right; the lights turn down a little bit low, because that’s actually what happens when you see the record there.

I have to say, I’m probably one of the few people that’s in Parliament that was actually part of a—I was an electrician by trade, a tradie, and I did my apprenticeship with Jim Cato Electrical, who used to have the contract for Housing New Zealand. I had the privilege in many cases of being able to go both in the building of new Housing New Zealand homes but, more importantly, around the repairs and maintenance. So I’ve seen homes that have been cold. I’ve seen Housing New Zealand homes that really have been run down, where there hasn’t been the investment to ensure that they’ve been warm, dry, and healthy. And I can say to this House, as a person who was a tradesman delivering a service at a time in which the people of that community needed it, in those homes, that it was under a Labour Government where the investment was not made. I can, hand on heart, state in this House that I’ve seen that firsthand.

I can also say that being in Glen Innes for 20 years and working in the community there, we had the largest State housing stock in the whole of New Zealand, with roughly, approximately around 2,800 homes. They had the worst State housing stock in the whole of the New Zealand. [Bell rung]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I’m so sorry. I apologise.

Sorry, Madam Assistant Speaker; Am I OK to continue?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise. Carry on.

And I have to say, it was there that I saw—and I can name the streets: it’s Farringdon, it’s Rōpata. These are streets that are well known in Glen Innes because they were streets in which, in those homes where I visited as a family worker, as a community worker, and even as a youth worker, they were cold, they were damp, they were run down, and there was no investment. I can remember lobbying our local member of Parliament. I can remember lobbying the local council. We needed to do something about it.

So I can say, with hand on heart—firsthand experience, where I’ve seen the under-investment; where I’ve seen where the so-called rhetoric of wanting to care for those in need has not been met. And yet, when I look back and I think about this bill and the healthy homes and all that it promises, there are elements of it that I would agree with. I would stand in this House and say insulation is absolutely important. The ability to be able to have that warm and dry home is absolutely important, and then I look back again over our nine years. What was it that we achieved in that period of time? Well, we invested into the State housing stock: 30,000 houses retrofitted so they were warm and dry; 290,000 subsidies that were given out into the general public so that houses were warm and dry. I would have to say that the record of the National Government in its time of nine years stands up very clearly against the record of the previous Labour Government, so I look forward to seeing what achievements will be made in this bill.

I want to raise an issue that was raised by the Minister in regards to insulation, because I remember the debates that we had in the House. In fact, I remember there was the green bit of insulation that was brought in. So we are talking about insulation. The rhetoric on this side, when they were in Opposition, was the fact that you cannot—and I think I heard in the House, the Minister asked: why should we let 39-year-old insulation stay as it is? Well, if he had read the full reports when we were looking at the thermal activity of those points of insulation—so the insulation from the 1978 standard right up to 2001—the R rating, which is the thermo-rating, is 1.9. So when you factor the difference between the new rating from the 2008 standard, it’s 2.9. What we were told by officials is this: the increase in thermal activity is only a 2.5 percent gain—that is all you would have. So they said that, really, by doubling the insulation, you weren’t getting any difference—only 2.5 percent. That’s from the experts themselves. So while we talk about the increase in insulation, we also need to talk about the increase in costs.

So I have to say that when I look at this bill there are elements that are missing. We know their colleagues have talked about the fact that there is the delay in the time period. Yes, there’s going to come into force the aspect of smoke alarms and insulation in 2019, but it’s the five-year period that we get concerned about. It’s the imposition of the costs that will be imposed upon those landlords, and, as my fellow colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse said, we’re talking about 80 percent. I was at the submissions and the hearings when they would come into the select committee and talk about the fact that we knew, at a time when loss attributing qualifying companies were in place, where the investment for your future and your super was actually in a rental property, that’s what many New Zealanders did. So we need to be thinking about the imposition and the cost. As my colleague said, we’re looking at an extra $6,000 per house—$2.4 billion—that will be added to their cost, and we know the imposition and the challenge that that will have.

I have to say that while we agree with the importance of having healthier homes for our whānau and our family, the record of a previous Labour Government doesn’t stack up. The record of a previous National Government does stack up. That’s the record that it has. So I look forward, because this bill will go through because they have the numbers, to holding this coalition Government to account right across the House to see what record they can ensure that they have that will prove that they are making a difference. Actions speak louder than words. We oppose this bill, the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2).

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I am pleased and proud to be standing to speak at what will be the passing of the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2). It is about time that we had a Government that understands what it has meant, over nine years of the previous Government, for things to be getting worse for families, for children, for our elderly community, and for people living in homes in shocking condition, for which there is no darned excuse. For this, in 2017 Aotearoa, there is no darned excuse. What are we doing today with the passing of this bill? We are putting first the livelihoods of children, our elderly, and all New Zealanders and all those people vulnerable to preventable diseases—preventable diseases that the Government has always had the power and the capacity to do something about. We are finally on a significant start to doing that.

So what are we actually dealing with here? The previous speaker from the Opposition benches, the Hon Alfred Ngaro, tried to say that the previous Government had done a good job. It is clear that over nine years, things got worse for New Zealanders, for families, for children, for elderly. We are looking at over 40,000 hospital admissions every year. We are dealing with 1,600 extra winter deaths every year. We are dealing with up to 15 children who die in this country every year, in Aotearoa, from preventable diseases due to unhealthy homes—homes in poor condition. On that, I want to thank the Children’s Commissioner, who, in his submission, reminded us that by keeping the insulation standards at 1978, we were upholding a broken promise to the children and citizens and families of this country—by sticking with those very standards.

So what does this look like on the ground? What does that damage look like on the ground? It looks like families having to choose between paying for healthy food or the rent or a power bill. No one should have to weigh those up. No one should have to trade any of those items off in their household budget. We are looking at families huddling in one room so that they can afford to heat a room to some sort of level that is livable. We are looking at wearing socks and hats and thermals to bed because it’s just unconscionable to go to bed with less. We are looking at the situation in the winters in Aotearoa. We are looking at walking into a room at night where the children are sleeping, where you get hit as if you’ve just walked into a fridge.

I note that the previous speaker referred to his experience in his communities and his neighbourhoods, and named the streets where he had gone to visit those homes as if to align himself with the experiences of New Zealanders roughing it in those very homes. I too am aware of those realities. I wasn’t there as a social worker—I know the streets in Manurewa that I’m talking about—I wasn’t there even as an MP visiting; I was there as a mother. I was there as a mother, dressing up children in those beanies, in those socks, sending kids to bed with five woollen blankets and a hat, walking into their room at night and being hit like I was walking into a fridge. I was there as a mother, and so I welcome this legislation change today because of the conditions that worsened under the nine years of the previous Government. What we are looking at and dealing with and wanting to fix today is that stress, that unnecessary stress, on our communities, the people that we are here to serve and listen to.

I’ve mentioned that the previous Government had nine years—nine good years—of being in power, with all of the officials, with all of the resources, with the very things with which Minister Twyford has managed to put early passing of this legislation into place within only weeks of stepping into his office. They had nine years to suss that out, with all the tools and resources right at their fingertips, and they did not. That’s why things got worse.

The Greens are proud to be working with the Labour Government to fix this, finally. We are proud that my colleague Gareth Hughes helped the Greens to put minimum housing standards on the political agenda when his first rental warrant of fitness bill was brought to Parliament in 2010. Sadly, it didn’t get through that time. Later, when my colleague Metiria Turei also brought a similar bill as a member’s bill, that was voted down by the National Government in 2016. I am proud of the long work that we have done with my Labour colleagues to fix this. I congratulate Minister Twyford and my Labour colleagues for getting this up on the board real fast, real quick. It’s a start, and it’s a significant step in righting the wrongs that have sat here and ruined people’s lives for far too long.

This bill is going to fix the failing insulation standards from 1978. We don’t need 1978 standards. We can do much better than that. This bill is going to ensure that we have moisture controls, ventilation, fixed heating that is modern, safe, and affordable—and affordable. There is no use having a good house if you’re still going to be on the sort of budget that makes you want to weigh up whether you want to turn the heater on—no good. That’s why we’re going to make sure that we’ve got fixed heating sources.

As I said at the start, there is no excuse in 2017 Aotearoa for homes to be anything but safe, warm, healthy, and affordable. This legislation will be welcomed by the landlords, the majority of whom understand what it is to run a good investment and to care for the tenants who are looking after their property. This legislation will be welcomed by those who get it, which is most, and for those who need a hand, well, that’s what this legislation is also going to do—to realise the moral and financial imperative that is a good investment into your rental properties. The Greens will continue to push for standards that make sure that every New Zealander has a warm, dry, affordable, safe whare, and today marks the most significant step in that direction in 10 years. I congratulate Minister Twyford. Thank you.

This is a hollow, shallow bill that achieves absolutely nothing of what the previous member, Marama Davidson, claimed. Let’s just subject it to a little bit of scrutiny. The Green member claimed that the previous Government did nothing in nine years. Let me give her some hard numbers. In the last nine years, 350,000 homes in New Zealand were insulated. Let’s compare that to the previous nine years of a Labour-Green Government, and the number was 35,000. That is, the National Government just past insulated ten times as many homes per year as the left Government that preceded it, which reinforces that we are about action; they are about spin.

Let’s then ask the question: what does this bill actually do? Answer: nothing—absolutely zero. Let me take the issues through. Does the current law, passed two years ago by the previous National Government, not require every single rental home to be insulated by 1 July 2019? Well, yes, it does. At the time it was passed, members opposite said it was far too slow, yet this bill makes absolutely no change in that date for those remaining 180,000 homes to be insulated. And here’s the real irony: for those that were in the Parliament last year, they will have seen Phil Twyford running around the press gallery, running around the House, with two different pieces of insulation. He said if he was in Government he would require the higher standard of insulation. Yet nowhere in this bill does it do that. It’s absolutely silent on that question, again just showing the double standards from this Government.

And then I’ve heard the lofty words that this bill is going to deal with issues like heating, issues like the drainage, issues like the mould. But here’s the problem: every single one of the issues in this bill is already covered by the housing regulations. There are requirements, and I can read them. There is a requirement for all houses to be free of mould. There is a requirement to have proper drainage. There is a requirement for there to be heating. Now, there is the option right now to use those to be able to regulate, but today’s debate is not about the regulations, because we’ve got no idea what the Government is proposing. But the power to regulate exists right now, has been done, and this bill adds absolutely diddly-squat. It is so much in line with that brilliant speech by the Leader of the Opposition that said that this Government is long on intent but actually vacuous on the substance that’s required to deliver the goods. That is, guys opposite, intent is not good enough. It is substance that matters, and having a Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) guarantees absolutely nothing for the homeowners of New Zealand.

Then I also want to challenge the Green Party on some facts. The Building Research Association of New Zealand reviews and reports on the standard of our housing stock every five years, and has done so since the 1960s. In those reports most recently out, just 18 months ago, it showed, actually, that there’d been a 22 percent improvement in the quality of our housing stock. And so when I hear these highly partisan and ill-informed speeches from the Greens claiming that the stock of our housing stock went down, are they, effectively, saying that the Building Research Association of New Zealand cannot be relied upon? Are they saying they’re biased? Where is their proof? Again, we find the huge gaps between the rhetoric of this Government and the reality.

The last point I want to make is that this bill is meaningless unless it is backed up by funding. In our very first Budget, our Government, the National Government—when we faced billions and billions of deficits bequeathed to us by the financial incompetence opposite—committed $500 million to getting homes insulated. Now, this bill might have had some substance if there was some commitment from members opposite to actually fund insulation, but on that they are absolutely silent.

So let me be clear again: the law already requires every rental property in New Zealand to be insulated. That was passed by a National Government. The law already requires every rental property to be free of mould, to be free of dampness, and, actually, the real issue is enforcement, in which we changed the law to allow the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to directly enforce the law, but this bill actually changes the legal requirements on any of those issues associated with our rental properties not one iota. Thirdly, this bill does not put one penny into the exercise of improving the insulation of homes.

You see, this bill just sums up the new Government perfectly, and that is: yes, they’re good on spin. Yes, the intent—the voluminous objectives of this Government—are long and hard, but when you drill down into the substance, bills like this are as shallow as a bird bath and should appropriately be rejected.

💬 Paul Eagle: Thank you, Mr Speaker—

Order! You have to call.

💬 Paul Eagle: Oh, sorry. Mr Speaker?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call Paul Eagle.

It must have been my tie again there, causing confusion. I do want to just acknowledge the Hon Andrew Little and also Ministers Twyford and Salesa for their work, and also just acknowledge—oh, he’s left—the member for Nelson, who obviously needs a new tie, needs to have a decent lunch, or needs something. But what I wanted to tell him, and if he was here what I would be saying, is that in his time—I want to just reflect on his track record, or the Opposition’s track record, as landlord for 68,000 State homes, or “social housing”, as they rebranded them. A small portion of those are in my electorate.

Here we have someone who is saying, “Look, it’s not this, it’s not that, it means diddly-squat.”, but the reality for me is that when I see the State housing in my electorate, I don’t see the evidence of a responsible landlord providing healthy homes. So everything he said, everything he noted or said was wrong with this bill—all I saw was nine years of nothing. Nine years of nothing. When I visited a Tongan family up there recently, and I looked at the respiratory issues of their children, who go to hospital and who come back to a damp, cold, horrible home, I thought: where was the previous Government in all those years?

What I see instead are sales of State housing to Scots College, a decent independent private Presbyterian school in Strathmore. I see homes sold to it. At prize-giving last night, it was commented, “What a shame that when we purchased these houses”—so here we have State housing for the poor going to the wealthiest school in the city, for boarding facilities. They said it was a pity the State housing was so rundown, horrible: “No one could live here. We would never put our boys into these facilities.” But that’s what we saw.

What we also see, when you go down Strathmore Ave, is empty ground. Like, there are rugby field - sized plots, where State housing used to stand, but no longer. You go up on the hill there in Strathmore, and there are rows and rows and rows of State housing that is really unsuitable. I know that thanks to this bill and a programme of build work from Minister Twyford, what we will see are decent, warm, dry homes being built. It doesn’t matter if it’s being called “KiwiBuy” or “KiwiBuild”; the reality is, let’s get these homes built. Let’s build decent homes that deliver for decent Kiwis.

I’m hoping that this family who have lived in this house, who want to complain but the Housing New Zealand Corporation offices have been mandated with reluctance, with not treating people fairly, being told by their Minister, or Ministers—because this is an Opposition that, when in Government, didn’t have a housing minister for quite some time. But they are the victims of why this bill is needed.

I could quote figures, I could say a whole range of things, but what this really is about is giving people hope. If it means that the private sector follows—I’m not hearing this big ruckus of feedback. My in-box and messaging systems aren’t filled by developers—who I know well, who are actually really hoping that we get some consistency and some clarity on what they need to do to deliver to the expectations. At the moment, it’s been confused, it’s been difficult, and it’s been interfered with, but you won’t get that under this bill. You’ll get clarity. You’ll get some hope delivered to the good people of, at least, Wellington.

So no more ideological bets on this stuff, no more desire to sort of run it down and for the Salvation Army to, hopefully, pick it up and somehow make magic where the State couldn’t. What we will see is decent housing. And, look, this will be a Government that has a track record where these—I think it’s 64,000 State homes, because 4,000 have either been transferred out to other mechanisms or other delivery arms, which is part of the process—oh, I’ve finished.

The member’s time has expired.

Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. I’m glad to have an opportunity to speak in opposition to this Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2). National agrees that every New Zealander deserves the opportunity to have a warm, dry, and affordable home. We have made significant investment in home insulation, and we’ve succeeded in insulating every State house capable of being insulated. Our record stands true: we have insulated hundreds of thousands of homes over the last nine years while we were in Government, which compares to 50,000 done under the nine years of the previous Labour Government.

I represent the electorate of Pakuranga in Auckland, an electorate that is almost completely residential. There are people who rent, there are people who own, and there are people who also own rental properties, and the question that they have of this bill is: what will it do? It’s called the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2), but it’s going to do either of two things: it’s going to do nothing, or it’s going to impose significant impositions on them. We have not been given any subordinate legislation or regulations that go alongside this bill. It gives the opportunity for these to be created, but, normally, the process is that they would be signalled as to what they would be, what the standards would be, and there’s been nothing put on the table. This means that there has been no opportunity for what the cost of these regulations will be on landlords and on people who own properties who will be subjected under this legislation.

This Government is full of kind words, but what we’re looking for is action, and this bill, while it may be called the “Guarantee Bill”, as I said, provides no guarantees, and, therefore, will continue to mean that the current legislation, which we’ve already put in place—we’re not sure whether it’s improved, whether it does anything, really. So the National Party can’t support legislation where we don’t know what it’s going to do, we don’t know what the cost of it is going to be. We want certainty from this Government, not more and more of these platitudes and kind words, so we will be opposing this legislation. Thank you very much.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am absolutely delighted and proud to be able to speak at the final reading of this Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2). We have a famous saying in Māoridom. It’s “Ka mate kāinga tahi, ka ora kāinga rua.”, and what that means is that when one house dies, another house opens up. That can be used in lots of contexts, but in this context here, new houses are opening up—healthy homes, with established minimum standards that will be implemented under this bill to give hope to the 50 percent of Kiwis that live in rental properties and the 80 percent of Māori especially, of Māori families, that live in rental accommodation. So I’m delighted to speak in favour of this bill. This bill is going to make a huge difference in the lives of so many people. To those good landlords out there in Aotearoa, thank you. Thank you for providing appropriate accommodation for the many renters out there. But there are many, also, that are totally inadequate.

We’ve heard the waxing and waning from the other side. They had nine years, and they were completely ineffective in this area, and that’s why we’re taking a stand. I’m absolutely proud that we are delivering this afternoon on our hundred-day promises that we are wanting to deliver. We’ve had paid parental leave just before this, and I’m very proud to be here to speak on this Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2).

I won’t prolong my contribution, because I want to get this bill passed as soon as possible. We’re going to put the framework in place that can provide the assurances that will set those minimum standards, that will make sure that those whānau out there that have been longing for appropriate, warm accommodation and housing and rental housing—that will finally be able to be delivered under this Government. So I’m absolutely delighted. Can I acknowledge the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, and I 100 percent tautoko this bill to the House. Kia ora tātou.

Tēnā koe. First of all, I acknowledge the Minister of Housing and Urban Development and the members of your committee for the work and effort that has gone into the formulation of this bill. However, I stand as a new MP and speak in support of the National Party in opposing the proposed legislation. I will speak to the facts of the situation rather than the emotive talk, and I acknowledge the emotion that goes with such a subject and the content around the concern associated for people living in unhealthy homes.

May I just share with you that, looking at the title to this bill—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Sorry to interrupt the member, but if the members across both sides of the House want a conversation, please take it to the lobbies.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. In continuing my view shared with the House, the acknowledgment to the Minister and to the members of your committee is simply to say and share with you that when I look at the title, Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2), the emphasis and focus of this, of course, is the onus that’s placed on landlords and their duties and responsibilities to tenants within the homes. The opening statement that you made, Minister—I listened carefully to your words—was that you said “Every New Zealander”, every New Zealander, “deserves a warm, healthy home.” The emphasis of this bill is focused not on every New Zealander; it’s a select grouping of tenants who live within the property owned by a landlord.

I have represented, for a good part of my professional working life, the most vulnerable—those in deprivation and those in high need. I simply share with you that the expectation this party will hold your Government to account for is that every New Zealander does have that right to a healthy home.

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: Nine long years.

I simply share with you that over those nine long years the National Party did address these issues, and the detail and the facts of those have been spoken to in this House. So, in stating that, you will be well aware that when you were in Opposition—and you are in the position that now this party in Opposition once was in—the Government addressed the importance and significance of healthy homes for every New Zealander by insulating 290,000 homes, through the Warm Up New Zealand: Healthy Homes programme alone, and insulating 30,000 of Housing New Zealand stock. So these were commitments that were undertaken by the Government at the time.

I just simply would like to come back to the purpose of this—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order!

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I would like to come back to the Minister’s statement around the intent that every New Zealander deserves a warm and healthy home. The intent behind this proposed legislation is focusing, in your view, upon those who are vulnerable as tenants. I can share with you my life experience, as can many of us that are in this House. There are many homeowners who cannot afford to insulate. They were the very ones, as well, that National supported with the insulation programme, when it was in Government for those nine long years. Prior to that, it’s also acknowledged that in the time prior to those nine long years, the track record that was there—Labour didn’t quite meet the standard.

So we look forward, now that you’re in Government—because it is acknowledged that the numbers will be there for this proposed legislation, this bill, to be passed into law. But I will come back to the factual basis of the concern that this party has maintained, and that is, effectively, is this proposed legislation really a Clayton’s bill? In other words, the Residential Tenancies Act and the amendment to that, effectively, requires, by law, the insulation, the smoke alarms, and the increased enforcement of housing standards. That’s already in place.

But let’s not forget, coming back to the Minister’s commitment—and I commend the Minister for that—“Every New Zealander deserves a warm, healthy home.” This does not cover every New Zealander. We’ve heard reference that 50 percent of our population lives within a home. Let’s not forget the other 50 percent who are homeowners. I will simply share with you that I have many of my own whānau who are homeowners. They have not been able to afford—and there has not been the standards imposed for them to have—what is talked about as a healthy home. Those subsidies were provided under the last Government, and that was the commitment that National ensured. That was what was put in place when, last year, National passed the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill to require, as I earlier said, those standards. It’s those standards that are proposed under this Clayton’s bill to be met.

So I will simply say that with the introduction of those standards, under the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill, which is more balanced than the Government bill before the House today, this may be a Clayton’s bill and it is entirely not necessary. Time permitting, I will just conclude by saying that I cannot support the passing of this bill into legislation. Thank you.

What an absolute delight to be able to stand and speak in respect of the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2). I am the final speaker on behalf of the Government, which will introduce—this is the third reading of the second piece of legislation from this brand new Government that is going to see improvements for real New Zealanders, everyday New Zealanders, not just the elite few at the top but for the many that need a Labour - New Zealand First - Green Government at the helm.

I am so proud—so proud—to stand in this House. I want to commend the Hon Phil Twyford for your absolute stellar efforts. You’ve been at the front line, championing housing because there’s been an absolute shortage. Every day, all of us out there in our electorates, who know our people, who go into those homes—we see the condensation crawling down the windows, we see the mould up on those walls. I thank you, Phil, because the number of people on the East Coast, up in Gisborne, in Kawerau, in Whakatāne, and all throughout that cape are going to be in a better position because of this bill. I am absolutely so excited to stand on behalf of a compassionate and caring Government.

Now, the member that has just gone before said that we speak kind words. Well, I want to say that, yes, we speak kind words. She commended us to follow through with action. Well, in 10 sitting days we’ve just seen two brand new bills go through this House, under this Government. I want to commend our executive for fast-tracking those expedient bills that are going to make real change for real people—real lives.

I don’t need to go on and on and lament about how excellent this legislation is, because unlike the Opposition we’re just here to do the job and do it blimmin well. So I commend this bill to the House.