Residential Tenancies (Prohibiting Letting Fees) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I’m just going to give a brief summary of what I said last night. I said last night that this is one of the dumbest bills I’ve ever seen come through this House. It has wasted this House’s time, and it has done very little to actually keep people safe who are new tenants or prospective new tenants into the future. It’s the type of bill that takes a blanket sweep to find and weed out the rogue landlords. They forget that not all landlords are rogue landlords; there are some very good landlords out there, and this bill punishes them.

It’s the type of bill that some people from last night, from across the Government, said was a very fair bill. Well, it’s not fair; it’s very unfair to tenants, and it will open up an ability for additional money to be added to the rentals of the new tenants, as landlords and letting agents work to recoup that letting fee loss that they are going to suffer from this particular bill.

So what we’re going to see is that, potentially, families aren’t going to be able to afford to keep up with the increased rent and they’re not going to be able to afford those homes to live in. It’s the type of bill where, because of rogue landlords, it is going to hurt everybody, absolutely everybody. It’s going to hurt the good landlords, it’s going to hurt the tenants, the prospective tenants, and I don’t want to see that happen.

Malo ni, Mr Assistant Speaker. I waited very patiently yesterday for this opportunity to speak on the Residential Tenancies (Prohibiting Letting Fees) Amendment Bill, and I was very disappointed not to get my chance. But you can imagine how delighted I am to speak in favour of this marvellous bill—this bill that will, for once and for all, level the playing field that has been unfair and discriminatory towards tenants in this country.

At a time when tenancies are at an all-time high and homeownership is at an all-time low, we have realised that we have an unfair system that allows people to charge letting fees to tenants—letting fees that are not part of a competitive market. There is no incentive to shop around and get the cheapest fare. It is simply the case that when there is so much competition for rental places, letting fees can be charged on the tenants at pretty much any rate they like. What this bill is going to do is bring it into a competitive market.

The other side of the House believes in market forces. They believe in competitive markets, yet what they have done yesterday and today is stand up and argue for the rights of landlords, completely dismissing those growing numbers of people in this country that have to rent in order to have a home. This is not a fair situation, particularly given the housing crisis that this Government inherited after nine years of National. And what do they do? They sit there and whinge and moan and point fingers and say that this is wrong, yet at not one time in all their speeches did they say that they would reverse this bill if they got back into Government in, say, 15 to 18 years’ time, because they know that once all this blistering noise has settled down, this is a bill that’s fair and that will benefit most people, and then, when they are in Government in a long, long time, they will not reverse this.

But let them whinge. Let them moan. While this Government gets on with helping people and building houses, we’ll leave them to crumble bridges.

The question was put that the amendments recommended by the Social Services and Community Committee by majority be agreed to.