Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Amendment Bill. I move, That the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

New Zealand and the world have faced many challenges over the last few years. COVID-19, as well as being a health emergency, has had many issues and impacts on the construction sector. The global supply chain issues have meant it’s been difficult to obtain goods from overseas, and it has caused delays in construction. Lockdowns and isolation measures have also changed spending habits and more money being spent on people’s homes, contributing to shortages of tradespeople in the construction sector.

As a result, this bill proposes an extension to the compliance timetable for both private and public landlords to meet the healthy homes standards. The healthy homes standards are minimum standards for heating, insulation, ventilation, draught stopping, moisture and grease, and drainage in our rental properties. However, some landlords have found it difficult to meet the standards in the current compliance time frames due to factors beyond their control. The original compliance time frames were set in 2019, well before anyone could have imagined what was around the corner and the disruptions that would occur on a global and on a local scale. The extension gives private and public landlords the opportunity to comply without being at risk of breaching their obligations and breaking the law. This is a pragmatic and sensible response to a set of circumstances that were beyond the control of many of the people.

Previously, all Kāinga Ora and community housing provider (CHP) houses were required to have all the properties complying with the healthy homes standards by July 2023. Private landlords had an additional year on this, until 1 July 2024. The changes that we’re introducing today mean that Kāinga Ora and CHPs will now need to comply by July 2024 and private landlords will keep that additional year that was in the original timetable and now have a compliance date of July 2025.

Kāinga Ora, community housing providers, and private landlords are in similar boats. If we have a look at what Kāinga Ora has achieved to date in terms of the insulation and upgrade to the healthy homes standards of its housing stock, 84 percent of Kāinga Ora tenanted housing stock is meeting the standards or is being upgraded right now—those upgrades are already under way. We have scaled up the work that is being done, and we are now completing 600 homes a week in terms of the upgrade.

I think if we have a look at what the private sector has managed to achieve, if we look at the survey data, the most recent survey data—noting that we have another survey in the field that closes this month and that data will be reported back in January to Government—the best estimate is that we have around 84 percent of private landlords who have met their compliance targets. This suggests to me that 84-85 percent is probably about the capacity of the market at the moment.

If we have a look at the CHP sector, some of our community housing providers are really struggling. There are CHPs who are less than 50 percent compliant and haven’t been able to access the supply chain that Kāinga Ora has. This is a necessary and pragmatic response that we need to do.

We’ve heard and we’ve listened to those both in the community housing sector to private landlords and to Kāinga Ora. One community housing provider has said, “COVID-19 has had direct and significant impact on the delivery of our healthy homes standard programme, which could not have been anticipated when the regulations were first put into place.” I don’t think any of us can argue with that. Regulations and time lines that were instituted in 2019 simply did not know what was coming. However, as a Government we consider this incredibly important work. The fact that we do have homes that are healthy for people to live in, homes that will not make people sick, homes that are of a standard that we expect New Zealanders to have a right to live in, that is why as a Government we made it a priority. I think it is a shame that it had to wait until 2017 and a change of Government until this kind of work got under way, but it was one of our priorities when we came into Government, and despite these extensions this remains a priority.

I’ve made it clear to Kāinga Ora that my expectations are not that this extension of the time frame should mean that they take the foot off the pedal at all, that 600 homes a week being completed to the standards is a good number and probably at about capacity, and I want to see that. In reality, I think Kāinga Ora will probably reach somewhere close to 95 percent of compliance by 1 July 2023, the date that it had. It is making up lost time for the constraints, and it is fitting it into its wider build programme, which itself has scaled up considerably in the last 12 months, to a point where we are the Government that is producing the most public houses of any Government since the 1970s.

This is a State house build of a generation. I think it is cause to reflect that of the 10,000 new places that we’ve added while we’ve been in Government. You add that to the 60,000 - odd that were there when we came in—you can see the scale of what this Government has done to the housing stock. But it’s not only quantity; it’s also the quality of the existing stock that remains important to us.

So this bill that we have being introduced tonight amends the Residential Tenancies Act of 1986 as well as the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Regulations of 2019. The final compliance date is in the Act, while the regulations set out the time frames for each type of tenancy. We are debating this bill under urgency so that all landlords can have certainty and clarity on their new time frames as soon as possible. One of the things I heard very clearly, particularly from private landlords, was they wanted to have this legislative change made so that they were crystal clear on what their new time frames were. The bill has a commencement date of 26 November 2022, which is estimated to be the day after the date of Royal assent. We want to introduce these changes as soon as possible to ensure that landlords can use the extension if they need it. So for any private tenancy that started or renewed on or after 28 August 2022, the landlord will now have 120 days to comply with the healthy homes standards.

The bill also makes consequential amendments to the Residential Tenancies (Smoke Alarms and Insulation) Regulations of 2016, and these regulations set out the insulation requirements that do not apply once the tenancy is required to meet the insulation standard in the healthy homes standards. Once all tenancies are required to meet the healthy homes standards, the insulation requirements in these regulations will be revoked. The consequential amendments line up the dates with the new time frames that are contained in the bill.

I think it’s important to note that these extensions do not apply to landlords who have simply missed their obligations under the Act as it currently stands, so that if a tenancy has changed in that time frame and a landlord has failed to comply, then they will not have the benefit of this extension.

The Government is responding to an extraordinary and unprecedented set of disruptions brought about by a global pandemic over the past two years. It has been felt by public landlords and it has been felt by private landlords. This extension gives landlords the opportunity to comply without being at risk of breaching their obligations due to issues outside of their control. It improves regulatory certainty. This amendment shows the Government is willing to be flexible and pragmatic, and I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. The National Opposition will be supporting this bill, the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Amendment Bill, through its very swift and expeditious parliamentary passage, probably this evening. We think it is a sensible approach, and we welcome the extra flexibility for private landlords—and, indeed, the Government’s landlord, Kāinga Ora—to meet their obligations.

I do want to make a few remarks about this issue and some of the things the Minister, the Hon Megan Woods, just said. The first is that she started her speech by saying some landlords have been unable to meet their obligations under the residential tenancies healthy homes standards. And, of course, “some landlords” is an interesting phrase, an interesting terminological phrase, because, actually, this bill is all about Kāinga Ora, the Government’s landlord. As the Minister herself says, the latest survey shows 84 percent of private sector landlords—

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: 85.

85, sorry—85 percent of private landlords are in compliance with the standards. Now, the latest figures for Kāinga Ora, the figures that I’ve got to 30 September—so, what’s that, six, 6½, seven weeks ago?—show that there is only 64 percent of Kāinga Ora homes in compliance with the standards. That’s 23,000 homes. So there is a big disparity there. Word got around last Thursday/Friday that this was coming—another leak out of the Government; a leaky Government—and the word on the street is that this was just an extension for Kāinga Ora, for the Government landlord to make good on its obligations and be compliant—

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: Sources aren’t very good, then, are they?

Sources aren’t very good? Well, they’re usually pretty good.

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: Not this time. You’re completely wrong.

OK—OK. That’s an interesting thing, OK.

💬 Simeon Brown: The Beehive needs a leak test.

The Beehive needs a leak test!

💬 Simeon Brown: That’s why they’re doing all the scaffolding!

Ha, ha! It leaks like a sieve. Anyway, we know what this bill is about. This bill is not so much about private sector landlords—

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: Leaks like MFAT under Murray McCully.

Yes, yes. Well, all Governments have leak issues, but this Government is leakier than most. So we know what this bill is about; it’s about Kāinga Ora. And the extension to all landlords is a fig leaf for the fact that the Government has not been able to bring Kāinga Ora tenancies into line with the standards.

You do have to wonder—COVID is to blame according to the Minister, and there’s no doubt there is some truth to that, but how long and for how many issues is COVID going to be to blame? I make a prediction now: we’re going to get through to election 2023, in September, October, November—whenever it is; whenever the Prime Minister deigns to set the date—and the Government will spend a lot of next year blaming COVID for things. We’re debating this bill tonight in relation to the healthy homes standards. It seems to be the cause of inflation worldwide, and indeed in New Zealand, and many other issues are going to be blamed on COVID. The Government seems to have two responses when it comes to issues that they’ve done a bad job dealing with: one is to blame the National Party, which sort of works for a while, I suppose—sort of worked OK for the first term—but, as one commentator said the other day, the statute of limitations on blaming the National Party has expired. It’s certainly expired after five years, and I’ll tell you for free that it certainly will have expired after six years.

💬 Ingrid Leary: Nine years of neglect. Nine long years.

“Nine long years”—see, there we go again! It’s still there—it’s still there. The “Nine long years” refrain sort of worked when you were coming into Government. It’s a bit less effective when you’ve had five, and next year it will be six, years to sort out problems. But, you know, do continue to talk about it; I don’t think it’s working that well for you, but do keep saying it.

So, firstly, they normally blame National, and then they blame COVID, and, at some point, the Government has to front up and take some responsibility. So here we are on a Wednesday evening, passing this bill through all stages, alongside 20 other bills, to extend the deadline for Kāinga Ora to 1 July 2024, which is an extra year—currently, it’s meant to be 1 July 2023—and, for private landlords, out to 2025. Of course, any new or renewed tenancy has to be compliant straight away.

So we’ll support this; it’s sensible legislation, but New Zealanders should be under no illusions about what has prompted this: the extension for all landlords is a cover—it’s a front—for the fact that Kāinga Ora has been unable to move quickly enough to bring their tenancies up to scratch, and as at six or so weeks ago we’ve got 23,000 tenancies that are not in compliance. I think I heard the Minister say they’re doing about 600 a week. And she says—this is interesting; it’s an interesting prediction. We’ll wait and see if this is true or not. I think I heard her say that she thinks that Kāinga Ora will be 95 percent compliant by 1 July next year.

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: About.

About—about. Yes, OK, a bit of wriggle room there.

💬 Andrew Bayly: We don’t set targets!

We are going to go through a committee stage. I could move an amendment to put some sort of target into the bill, but I probably won’t bother. But I wonder what “about” means. Is 90 percent “about”? I suppose it is. But it is still 5 percent. So that’s a few hundred homes. But, anyway, we’ll wait and see where we get to on that, and no doubt we’ll come back in July next year and see how we’re going. So we support this, but Kiwis need to know exactly what has prompted it. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

E te Māngai, tēnā koe, tēnā koutou e te Whare. Fascinating—given the amount of interest that there appears to be in this legislation—that we seem to be collapsing the debate this evening. I find it fascinating to hear that there is kind of consensus amongst the two larger parties in this Parliament, and perhaps this speaks somewhat to the intention of, or the philosophy behind, the legislation that we are debating tonight.

We don’t live in a game of Monopoly. By the way, the game of Monopoly, the board game, was invented exactly to explain or to illustrate the pitfalls and the dangers of an economy that is premised on property speculation. It was a game made for children to illustrate exactly this point of such a problematic version of thinking about the economy. And we don’t live in a game of Monopoly. We can—and should—change the rules when the rules are not working for us. That’s the point of living in a society; we live by the social contract, and the social contract can, and indeed, should, evolve when the rules need updating. That’s supposed to be the role of this place, of our Parliament. The rules do not work, and when it comes to the healthy homes standards and immense amounts of discussions with renters who have come forward to me, in my constituency office—Auckland Central happens to be the electorate in this country with the highest proportion of renters and the highest proportion of rental transience—that is, renters living in their properties for less than a year at a time.

We are hearing that the healthy homes standards are not working. The Greens supported them in their introduction in 2017 and 2018 because they were far better than the status quo, but we made the point at the time that they did not go far enough. And, in fact, at the beginning of this year, in parliamentary written questions, the Associate Minister of Housing—then, the Hon Poto Williams—showed that one of the many issues with the healthy homes standards, as they currently operate, is not the fact that landlords don’t have enough time to comply, as this legislation seeks to create that extension for; but the fact that the Government does not collect data on that compliance. That’s despite the fact that every new tenancy needs to have the tenancy contract put on the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment website through Tenancy Services—and I’ve asked a number of questions about whether it’s that they need their computers upgraded to simply be able to read those documents and to check for that compliance. But it is the fact that the Government at present does not know how many private rentals are up to scratch when it comes to the healthy homes standards. But worse than that, it doesn’t know how many companies are holding themselves out as capable of verifying compliance with healthy homes standards, and it also doesn’t know how many landlords or property managers are self-verifying their exclusion from the healthy homes standards.

So when we talk about the rules not working and we talk about listening in this Chamber tonight, I do feel aggrieved, and the Greens do feel, actually quite understandably, frustrated by the fact that when the Government’s talking about listening and when it’s pinpointing—through the regulatory impact statement as prepared by officials—that those who it is listening to are those who have always disproportionately held the power in terms of our rental market. Because despite the fact that the regulatory impact statement pinpoints very, very clearly that those who will be disproportionately impacted—or rather, actually, those who will be primarily affected by this proposal, and this is on the regulatory impact statement page 2—are those who rent homes that are not yet compliant with standards because the healthy homes compliance date has not passed. The regulatory impact statement makes it incredibly clear, and I quote from it here, that “the negative effects will disproportionately impact vulnerable populations of tenants who already experience inequitable health outcomes.” You would have thought, when the Government talks about listening, that those who are identified as being primarily impacted by the legislation that it is passing under urgency tonight would have been those who the Government listened to. But, no, if you turn over the page to page 9 on the regulatory impact statement, you’ll find, in fact, that the stakeholders who the Government approached were, in fact, property managers, landlords, and Kāinga Ora. Renters, Renters United—rental organisations were not approached and were not engaged, and I’m really looking forward to the committee of the whole House stage to dig into this because it appears as though Government’s not particularly—and rather, the Opposition is not particularly interested in holding the Government to account on this one, and just passing it on through.

💬 Andrew Bayly: You go for it. Go for it, Chlöe!

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: But what we have here is a Government saying that it’s listening, but listening only to those who are benefiting from the status quo. So I also think that when we’re going to talk about compliance and the amount of lead time that has been available—there has been five years to get up to scratch, Andrew Bayly, with the healthy homes standards, and at the last hurdle, the Government is deciding to restart the clock and provide yet another year. And this brings us back to that really key issue with data—which, again, was identified in the regulatory impact statement. Many of these issues with a lack of data and a lack of evidence could be resolved, by the way, with a warrant of fitness that would reverse the burden of proof instead of it continually falling once again on tenants to prove that their homes are not up to scratch—

💬 Andrew Bayly: It’s David Parker’s fault!

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —to take them through the likes of the Tenancy Tribunal—which I should say, Andrew Bayly, many landlords also report that they do not feel works particularly well for them. So what’s the Government doing in the absence of having that data? It’s polling. And it’s polling, and it’s using, as we can see, reflected here specifically in the regulatory impact statement—page 9, for those who are interested. The data that it’s using to base this decision on and this policy to extend the time frame for compliance to the healthy home standards is not statistically significant. I don’t know how the Government can stand up and say that it is listening and that it is doing the right thing here when it continues to side with those who are profiting from the status quo.

I also, just finally, want to turn to the departmental disclosure statement, where fascinatingly enough—and I can’t find it in front of me—what the departmental disclosure statement makes really clear is that at part 3.1: “what steps have been taken to determine the policy to be given effect by this Bill is consistent with New Zealand’s international obligations?”—well, it turns out that the Ministry for Housing and Urban Development considered the bill’s consistency with New Zealand’s obligations under Article 11.1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. For those following along at home, that is, of course, our international commitment to housing, but more than that, adequate housing is a human right. And somehow, we have here, reflected in the departmental disclosure statement—in black and white—that these proposals are consistent with the obligations of housing; adequate housing as a human right. This legislation, which extends the ability for landlords to comply with the healthy homes standards—housing being warm, dry, safe, and healthy—is somehow consistent with our commitment internationally to treating or, rather, giving effect to the human right to adequate housing.

I’m really looking forward to continuing to canvass this debate and these discussions in the committee of the whole House, because I think that we’ve only just begun to scratch the surface. Again, I’m really gutted by the fact that we’re not having a fulsome debate, as I would hope that all parties in this place would be interested in, the many 1.5 million New Zealanders who live in rental properties—living in healthy homes—but, unfortunately, it appears as though the Opposition is far too keen to get home. The Greens, of course, will be opposing this legislation.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in the first reading of the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Amendment Bill.

You know, every day in this House, we hear an argument from the Government about why they can do a better job at providing services to New Zealanders than other New Zealanders can to each other. We hear it time and time again. We hear the need for the Government to take taxes, to take people’s money so that they can provide a service that nobody else can—it will be so much better!—because they believe that they can spend our money better than we can spend it ourselves. And you see this sloshing around the economy with wasteful spending, but specifically with housing—when we know that there’s been a housing crisis. We’ve seen the Government say, “Don’t worry, we can do it better than the private sector.” And how did KiwiBuild turn out? An absolute tragedy; billions of dollars being wasted in our economy, but, specifically, in housing. We’ve been promised houses that the Government just couldn’t deliver.

Now, when it comes to the healthy homes standards that they passed a few years ago, they said, “Don’t worry, we can bring all of the houses around New Zealand, all of the rental accommodation, up to what we consider to be a healthy homes standard.” They gave one rule for landlords and one rule for the Government. But it turns out, even with a two-year extension on top of what private landlords were given, that the Government couldn’t even do an adequate job, let alone a good job or a better job. We know they’ve done a worse job, but they couldn’t even do an adequate job. We know from some statistics that 85 percent of landlords had either brought their home up to healthy homes standards or had actions to do so last year. This year, the Government has only brought up and has the plans for healthy homes standards compliant houses for 84 percent. So they’re one year behind on what private landlords had already done. So the Government, with our money, with our taxpayer funds, and with the size of themselves as an entity, have not been able to do what private landlords across New Zealand have done.

Knowing this, they’ve decided to come back into this House and pass an extension for themselves so that they have more time. And the remarkable thing is that we’ve heard from the Minister, the Hon Dr Megan Woods, that this is for all landlords, because they’ve been listening that there are problems across the sector because COVID-19 got in the way. But where was the Government listening last year? They are passing this law for themselves, so that Kāinga Ora has an extension for themselves to bring up their homes to the healthy homes standards, not because they’ve listened to private landlords and have decided to give compassion to people who are trying to do the right thing to bring up their homes to the healthy homes standards; it’s because of themselves.

The reason that we know this is because last year I was standing in this very Chamber, advocating that private landlords who were struggling to bring their homes up to the healthy homes standards should be given an extension. And the reason was because there were, at the time, a lot of landlords, specifically in Auckland, who were struggling to make their homes compliant because Auckland was in the middle of a massive lockdown and there was no possible way that they could get tradespeople in and out of their residential accommodation, because we had people living in bubbles. You know, tradespeople couldn’t just enter a flat or a rental home, because they needed the approval of people living in that accommodation. So there were very, very stressed landlords saying, “We need an extension so that we can follow the law.” And what did the Government say? It turned around and pretty much said, “Tough luck. If you’re not compliant, we don’t care. You will break the law.” They said, “It’s OK, maybe the Tenancy Tribunal will just turn the other way and just not even say that people are or aren’t breaking the law. Just don’t worry, the Tenancy Tribunal will just look the other way.”

And when we asked what advice they have had on whether they could give an extension to landlords, a year ago, the Minister said, “I don’t think it’s in the public’s interest to release that information.” Then, when we pressed even further, they said, and I’ve got a quote here: “The advice was that it would not be possible to extend compliance deadlines in a way that assists the vast majority of landlords, and including those whose compliance deadlines have already passed.” So a year ago, when landlords up and down New Zealand were saying, “We have tried our very, very best, but we can’t comply”, the Government said, “Tough luck. We don’t care.” And, now, they’re in this Chamber saying, “We have listened to landlords. We know that they can’t meet the standards. We are going to give them an extension. Aren’t we compassionate?” But, in reality, it’s only because they know they can’t meet the standards that they expect of everyone else.

So the question to the Minister, really, is: why do they have such a high standard for everybody else, but a different one for themselves? Where is the fairness? You know, landlords, knowing that they’ve needed to comply, to do the right thing, to bring their homes up to healthy homes standards, have forked out thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars, knowing that they need to do the right thing to provide that warm, safe, dry home to their tenants. But the Government have the most vulnerable of tenants and they couldn’t do it for those tenants, and she needs to explain why. Why is it that only when they’re getting close to the deadline have they thought about ramping up the efforts to meet their own rules, rather than doing what all other private citizens who are landlords in this country have been doing, which is getting everything up to scratch before they become non-compliant?

The ACT Party, overall, doesn’t agree that we should have these healthy homes standards, because, over time, we want to see more investment, development, and growth in our housing market so that we can have more, newer stock coming on to market that is of a higher quality. And, over time, as we have more growth and development and more homes on the market and more residential accommodation, that would allow for more affordable housing for all New Zealanders. In the meantime, what we’ve ended up with is a Government that’s been fixated on rules and regulations and taxes, and all it’s done is impose huge costs on private landlords who have been trying to put their homes up to a healthy homes standard, some of them forking out tens of thousands of dollars, and that cost is needed to go on to tenants. There are flow-on effects from all of these taxes and regulations.

But the real problem with the housing crisis is that we just don’t have the right rules underpinning us so that we can get more residential accommodation in general. We want to see more development in infrastructure and infrastructure financing and funding so we can actually get to the heart of the problem of why we don’t have enough homes for people to live in and why we don’t have more accommodation that is warmer, drier, and safer for people to live in.

This is just nanny State from the Government, wanting to impose more costs on people wanting to do the right thing, but, in the meantime, having a very, very high standard for other people and a very low standard for themselves, when they believe that they know best and they can do better. It’s not acceptable and New Zealanders deserve better. They should say, straight up, that they wanted to pass this law because they need an exemption for themselves, not trying to say that it was because of anybody else, or private landlords who couldn’t do it, when we know that they were in this Chamber a year ago saying the vast majority of private landlords already comply, and the other ones who can’t—well, tough luck.

Kia ora e te Māngai o te Whare. This is a very important process that we have, with the healthy homes standards. This is a pragmatic response to an international global situation. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. All of us have been impacted by COVID-19 in different ways, and I think it’s no different for landlords trying to comply with the healthy homes standards. This is an important bill because what it makes sure is that we do end up complying with all rental homes by 1 July 2025, but it also takes into account supply chain reductions. It also takes into account difficulties getting heat pumps into the country, and workforce shortages. I commend this bill to the House.

Making a remote contribution and a five-minute call, I call Rawiri Waititi.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka, otirā tēnā tātou e te Whare. First of all, I want to acknowledge the House for supporting our ability to be able to participate remotely; this is not new to us, but Te Paati Māori want to express our thanks and appreciation for allowing us to do this.

I take this call on behalf of Te Paati Māori to speak to the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Amendment Bill that is being passed under urgency. This is a terrible bill. No wonder Labour is moving this amendment, because it relieves Kāinga Ora—who house the most vulnerable people, predominantly Māori—of their obligation to get their homes up to a healthy standard for their tenants. I’m not surprised that National support the terrible bill, because many of their supporters and members are the majority of homeowners here in Aotearoa.

I do support the member for the Greens Chlöe Swarbrick and the very valid contribution and arguments pointed out by her in regards to the desired outcomes the Government want in this bill. Dare I say it, I also agree with some of the sentiments expressed by the ACT Party.

But this is a terrible bill, e hika mā. It is being passed only to let landlords off the hook by giving them an extra year to comply with the healthy homes standard. What’s more, it’s being passed through all stages under urgency—within a week. This is absolutely dangerous and reckless lawmaking. This shocking lack of process is a real threat to our people; it is a threat to democracy.

That threat is clear when we look at this bill. The justification given for the year-long delay is a total cop-out. The reality is that the healthy homes Act was passed in 2017 with the regulations laying out minimum standards to comply and time frames released in 2019. These regulations already provided a lengthy period to allow landlords to comply with the final date set as 1 July 2024—a full five years to enable compliance.

However, this bill extends that to 1 July 2025. These changes speak to the double standards that the State applies to those with power and wealth who don’t comply with the law, and those without, as tangata whenua know too well. These double standards are racist, classist, and are born out of a colonial mind-set. We will not stand for it.

Our tangata whenua landlords complying with these healthy homes standards couldn’t be more important. We know that more than 50 percent of Māori are renters. We know that 30,000 tamariki are hospitalised each year from our unhealthy homes. We know that 33 percent of Māori will shift residencies every three years. Our people can’t afford these delays. Cold, damp, and run-down houses are literally killing our people. Māori are often having to deal with supposedly Third World conditions, like rheumatic fever, due to the disgusting state of the rental market in this country. Rather than further weakening protections with this bill, Government should be strengthening the standards, which were watered down through lobbying from the property class.

We strongly and wholeheartedly oppose this legislation and call on this Government to withdraw and to do what’s right for renters in Aotearoa. Te Paati Māori will be wholeheartedly voting against this bill. Nō reira, kia ora tātou katoa.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a brief call in support of the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Amendment Bill. The Minister has already spoken comprehensively about the need for this bill, which does centre around being realistic about how we manage the supply chain impacts of COVID-19. We do believe it’s very important that people are able to access warm, dry homes, and significant change and development is already happening, including in the private sector, where data suggests that around 85 percent of private landlords are either already compliant or taking action to become compliant. Kāinga Ora has also made good progress, with around 84 percent of Kāinga Ora’s tenanted housing stock meeting the standards or being upgraded right now. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a very short call on this bill. We understand that this is the Government abdicating its responsibility to meet its own deadline, but we do support the fact that landlords have been given an extension of time. We support this bill and I commend it to the House.

It’s quite difficult to sit here and listen to members around the House talk about failure to deliver, when Labour is the only party that has bothered to put in healthy home standards, because we understand the link between health and the quality of housing. What’s happened has been COVID—there have been disruptions to the supply chains. It would be inherently unfair to expect landlords who cannot get heat pumps or construction supplies to comply with regulations when they are actually not able to do it. This is a pragmatic solution, it’s a fair solution, and I commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

💬 David Seymour: Madam Speaker, Point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I’ve started putting the motion.

💬 David Seymour: Point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member will resume his seat. I have started putting the motion.

💬 David Seymour: Well, I raised a point of order, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member will resume his seat. I have started putting the motion.

Brooke van Velden: Point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member will resume her seat. I have started putting the motion. The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Point of order. Madam Speaker, I think it was very clear that I was seeking a call. You had the option of actually encouraging and allowing debate on a motion. Instead, you didn’t even look to see if anyone was seeking a call, immediately moved to say you were putting a motion, and then—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Yep, thank you very much. Thank you.

No, no. Hang on a minute—

No, no. No. I do understand what the member is saying. I had commenced voting, and once that happens, I need to continue.

Point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): As long as it’s a new point of order.

Madam Speaker, until the end of the sentence of the voting motion has taken place, the vote hasn’t actually started.

Yes, thank you very much. The member won’t dispute my ruling. My ruling was final.

💬 David Seymour: Point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): And furthermore—just before the member wants to continue to re-litigate this issue, I will rule it out of order. So I’m warning both members that the matter is closed, I have ruled, and we will be moving on.

Point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Is it a new point of order?

Yes, indeed, Madam Speaker. You seem to be under the impression that the point of order is about whether you are able to—

No. The member will resume his seat. I have ruled and we are moving on. And I will warn the member that if he continues to contest and question my ruling, I will have to take the matter further.

Point of order. Madam Speaker, I want to be perfectly clear that this is a different point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Good.

The point of order does not relate—and I want to be perfectly clear: does not relate—to whether or not you are able to take a point of order after you have begun putting a motion. The point of order relates to whether you sought to check if anyone was seeking a call, and, second to that, whether it is consistent with actually encouraging debate and upholding the rights of members to debate a motion, not to do so. And I would ask you that if there are speaking slots remaining, and if somebody is seeking a call, then you actually make an effort to look up and see if anyone is seeking a call, so that people can come to this House and do their job, which is to debate the motions on the table.

OK. Thank you very much for that. Thank you, you make some good points. At this point, we have moved on from the first reading. But as the member knows, we have a long road to go in this urgency motion. So I take note of your point of order, and thank you for raising it.

Second Reading