Residential Tenancies (Prohibiting Letting Fees) Amendment Bill

Members, when the House last considered the Residential Tenancies (Prohibiting Letting Fees) Amendment Bill, Jan Tinetti had the call, and she has her full 10 minutes to speak.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I think the other night, when we got to the end of the night, I perhaps had one of the shortest speeches on record, with just three words recorded in Hansard: “It is a—”. And I’ve had lots of suggestions about how to finish that sentence since that time, but I’m going to finish by saying it’s actually a pleasure to stand here and talk on the Residential Tenancies (Prohibiting Letting Fees) Amendment Bill.

I’m honoured to have the last call on this first reading. I’m honoured because this bill starts addressing the renter’s rights. We are a Government that is committed to a review of the Residential Tenancies Act because it is no longer fit for purpose. This is a bill that is beginning to modernise those laws. I speak here this evening as former renter and a former landlord, and I understand, for the people now, how hard it is to rent and have stability in their renting.

I understand, because, as people know, I’ve mentioned my previous work life as a principal quite a lot in this House. I had a school where I only had two of my families who owned properties and the rest rented, and renting became harder and harder and harder as time went on. One of those things that made it harder was actually the letting fees that people were being charged. Now, in the couple of times that we’ve been hearing this already over the last couple of weeks around the renting, we’ve heard and been told of the fact that maybe some of these stories that people have been saying might not be quite accurate, or that this bill would not fix those particular stories.

I want to read the member Chris Penk when just the other night he said, “Some of the examples that have been given from the other side of the House have spoken to examples which, if true, would be distressing.” Was he questioning that those examples that I’ve seen on a day-to-day basis were not true? I can tell that member that the fact that I’ve seen people who have had to leave their houses due to houses being sold, or have struggled getting into rentals, or having to go because rents have been put up—they’re probably leaving three or four times a year; they are changing over. That’s three or four times that they are having to pay letting fees.

Let me just put that into perspective. We heard the other night that people can be expected to pay up to four weeks’ bond, two weeks’ rent in advance, and one week rent plus GST as a letting fee. In Tauranga, in the area that my families came from, the average rentals are currently $456 per week. Now, that doesn’t sound a lot by some standards in some cities, but, remember, these are people that earn very, very little. So four weeks’ bond at $456 per week is $1,824; two weeks’ rent in advance, $912; one week plus GST as a letting fee is $524.40. All up, people are having to pay, just to get into a rental, $3,260.40. No wonder people are really struggling to get into housing and into rentals, and if they’re having to pay three or four times a year, I think we can do something, through this bill, about making life easier for those people.

We can’t just ignore this problem. We have to do something about it, and that is why I am so happy to stand here and say that this bill will make a difference. This will enable letting fees to be subject to market forces. In any other area, it is unheard of for a contract between two parties to charge a third party for that transaction, so, therefore, why would it be acceptable in the rental market? I have been a landlord; I’ve said that. I was a landlord in two different properties when I lived in schoolhouses; I had my own properties and rented those out. At all times, I knew the importance of looking after my tenants. I kept the rent at the same level. I used outside agents, but none of those costs ever went back to my tenant, because I knew the importance of looking after those people, and that is really, really important.

This is what this bill aims to do. It aims to make it easier for people to get into rentals, and it aims for people to not have that ongoing cost. It is the first of many parts of legislation that we will be changing to make things easier for our tenants and for people. It will give them the security that our member Greg O’Connor talked about in his speech two nights ago, when he talked about the overseas examples of people who have greater security. I know those people, I have seen those people, and I can’t understand why we are not aiming—which we will be from now, but in the past why we have not aimed—to ensure that we have greater security for our tenants in this country.

We’ve had great feedback on this. We’ve had feedback that this will be a good bill, and so, on that, I commend this bill to the House.