Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

What we have in front of us is a piece of legislation that is not about whether or not New Zealand should have healthy homes standards. This is a question that we, as a Government, made a priority in our first weeks of Government to progress. We saw that we had an inadequate level of measures in our rental properties to ensure that these were for their benefit of New Zealanders and their health. Whether that be around insulation standards, whether that be around the provision of ventilation, whether that be around the provision of efficient and affordable heat sources. From the very beginning of our Government, this was a cornerstone project that we put into play. I think it’s really important that we understand that that is not what we’re debating.

What we are debating is about the ability of landlords, whether they be from the public sector or the private sector, to comply with deadlines that were set in 2019, before the world had even heard of the global pandemic that was coming. I don’t think it’s fair on landlords to say they should have completed it by the time COVID arrived; this had an end date of 2023 or 2024, so I think that is unreasonable. What landlords, whether they were public or private, were gearing up for was compliance in 2023 or 2024, depending on whether or not they were a public or private landlord. Of course, if they were a public landlord, they were required to have an earlier finish date than landlords in the private sector.

What we are saying, in the face of a global pandemic that caused the world to shut down, that caused our cities and towns and centres around New Zealand to go into lockdown periods, that has caused global supply chain issues, whether or not we should extend out by 12 months the ability for our landlords to comply or whether or not we should just leave the status quo and knowingly put landlords—both community housing providers, Kāinga Ora, and private landlords—in the position of breaking the law. Turning a blind eye to that is not an option for me as a Minister. It is our job to make sure that we are making laws that do not put New Zealanders in the position of knowingly breaking the law.

I think we need to also pause and think about what we have achieved. In the face of a global pandemic, we have our public landlord Kāinga Ora 84 percent compliant or having the builders in the houses doing the job, as at the latest data. We think, by the end date, it will probably be around 95 percent compliant. This is something for us to celebrate. Would I have liked it to have been 100 percent? Of course I would. Would I have liked there to be no COVID, no lockdown, no interruptions to supply chains? I think all of us would wish that for our world, but that has not been the case.

We have 85 percent of private landlords, in the best data that we have, who either have complied or are in the process of complying. I don’t think it’s correct, and we shouldn’t set this up as some kind of Olympic sprint between the public and the private sector, as some members of this House have tried to do. I want to congratulate those private sector landlords who have complied, but to claim that they have done better than the public sector is nonsense and wrong. If you look at that data, 15 percent of our private landlords had complied and 70 percent of those were in the process of starting to comply. It simply isn’t correct to say that, and I don’t think it’s useful.

What we need to do is make sure that we are working towards our rental properties in New Zealand being warm and dry and being something that is for the wellbeing of New Zealanders. We make no apologies for taking a pragmatic approach and saying that when we do see that there is going to be an issue with compliance, given what we’ve all been through in the last 2½ years, that we might have to take some of those pragmatic approaches, we will do that. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I was just wondering whether or not the Minister was going to get to 5 to 12, in which case I’d have to come back tomorrow. But I’m pleased I get to finish my contribution on this debate at 10 minutes to midnight—such is the life of a parliamentarian.

We support this legislation, as we’ve indicated right the way through, because it’s a pragmatic response, but—

💬 Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan: That’s right.

“That’s right.”, she says, straight up. But, of course, we have noted, as indeed others in the House on this side have noted, throughout the debate tonight that this is really about giving Kāinga Ora (KO) a leave pass. It’s not really about the private sector, because, largely, they have been compliant or are in the process of complying, and KO is some way behind—and I acknowledge what the Minister says about how there are thousands of homes in the process. But the simple reality is there’s a disparity between the State landlord and the private sector. So this is about bailing out—well, not bailing it out, but about giving them a leave pass.

Now, in relation to some comments I made earlier through the committee stage of the debate, I raised the issue of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (MHUD) website having the law as being changed before the law had actually been changed, and we are somewhat closer to that change than we were when I raised it. The MHUD website has been updated, so that’s great. I’m sure that the officials are listening—well, they probably aren’t, to be fair, and I don’t blame them, to be honest.

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: They were during the committee stage.

Yeah, I know, but they’re not any more, is my point.

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: No, they wouldn’t be.

Yeah, yeah—well, I’m sure they’re listening now. They were here before. They’re not here any more. So they’ll probably listen tomorrow. But I wanted to say thank you to them for fixing the website. I’m sure the IT guy at the MHUD website did not really appreciate a call from someone on a Wednesday night at 9 o’clock or whatever time it was. But that’s good. These things do make a difference, and they are—well, these things are important, anyway.

I don’t have much more to add. Everything I wanted to say about this bill I have said in the first and second readings. I accept what the Minister said in response to my question in the committee stage around the amendment to the regulations. It’s not ideal, although I have some sympathy for the argument that it’s just cleaner to do everything all at the same time through primary legislation. From a purist point of view, it is better to change regulations via regulation rather than coming over the top with the primary legislation. The Government can, through Order in Council, pass a regulation to amend the dates, but there’s some merit in the simplicity of just having it all in the one spot and saying, “Righty-o, here are all the changes.” Fair enough. As Chris Hipkins rather rudely, I have to say, pointed out in my question, parliaments can do that, obviously, and various Governments have in the past, including ours, although we should always try and avoid it. So with that, I will commend the bill to the House and hope for better days in the future.

Housing is a human right, and more than that, adequate housing is a human right. National members may be interested to learn that this not some new-age “wokeness” or whatever the latest culture war - baiting buzzword is.

We signed up to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Humans Rights, drafted and passed without dissent by the UN General Assembly. The UN was created, of course, after some of the world’s most devastating wars and atrocities, in hope of creating peace by enforcing basic standards for member nations and their people. The succeeding 70 years, though, saw basic tenets of that contract broken, however, as elected representatives sacrificed the goals of our shared security and prosperity in favour of individual greed and gain. We instead saw the gaming of the system to procure untold wealth for a handful of people at the expense of a large transient population around the time that we were signing the Universal Declaration of Humans Rights, around 70 years ago. In Aotearoa New Zealand, that wealth comes in the form of owning houses—in many instances, multiples of them.

Housing, or rather, human rights—and housing, it turns out—is for everyone. You don’t get human rights only if you are good, if you wear a nice suit to an open home, or if you don’t complain about the mouldy bathroom for fear of being kicked out of your rental. You have human rights because you are human. That is kind of the point. Rights are not meant to shift and change with whoever is in power changing the definition of who is worthy and who is not. We all have these rights, regardless of whether we rent or own our home.

The Government has a duty to protect the human rights of all of us to adequate housing. Despite how much less oxygen it’s given than it deserves in our Parliament, and we gave it a real good thrashing attempt tonight, as desperate leaders try to evolve polling numbers with fearmongering and culture wars, our material reality remains the biggest concern for most of us.

The Minister herself, actually spoke in her contributions earlier tonight on how adequate housing and secure housing is the basis of good mental health. Of course, that was reflected in He Ara Oranga, the mental health and addiction inquiry. If we do not have a safe, stable home, it is very difficult to build the basis for a good life.

An off-air chat with a talkback radio host cemented for me that most politicians would prefer to keep dishing out the sugar high of “whataboutism” than play—to continue with the metaphor—the stoic dentist, rectifying generations of neglect and enforcing healthier new behaviours. We don’t need UN Special Rapporteur Leilani Farha’s report, tabled in February 2021 in Geneva, to know that housing in our country has long been treated as a speculative asset instead of a home, the core ingredient to upholding that human right. Along with renters’ rights, rent freezes, and regulation, Farha suggested courageous tax changes to transform our economy from “A housing market with a few bits [tacked] on”, as defined in a 2011 tweet from a former Labour backbencher MP, now of course, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern.

In 1997, the UN Committee on the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights defined “adequate housing”, that human right, by breaking it down into seven standards. Of course, this was referred to in the departmental disclosure statements. We are so obviously failing on the first basic four—that is, security of tenure; habitability; accessibility; and affordability—that even paying heed to the final three—services, materials, and infrastructure; location; and cultural adequacy—feels farcical, as has been kind of demonstrated in this debate tonight.

All of us agree that we’ve got to build more homes, and in this thematic space in this debate—in the many debates that we’ve had in this Chamber over the past five years that I’ve been here—we have seen consensus on that, although not necessarily on where those homes should be built. However, what it seems that we are most unwilling to civilly discuss—again, perhaps reflected in this debate tonight—is whether we are comfortable to continue treating housing in Aotearoa as a game of Monopoly.

We have to acknowledge that this crisis of adequate housing, this human rights crisis, didn’t come from nowhere, but from a series of decisions made by successive Governments. We can’t continue to side with and consult only with those who profit from the status quo and somehow expect that that is going to result in representation of the needs of those who are not currently benefiting from it.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: One of the needs of this House is for you to talk about the bill at some stage. You’ve had five minutes now, so could you just start to steer towards the actual bill itself.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Mr Speaker, if I may, this legislation is about the healthy homes standards.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: We’re also talking about the bill tonight, too. So at least have some reference to it, please.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Mr Speaker, the bill—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is not a general debate speech. Let’s just talk about how it relates to the bill, please.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: The departmental disclosure statement makes explicit that there is consideration of international treaties—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: The bill—the bill.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —with regard to the legislation and the bill that we are debating tonight, and that is core to housing or adequate housing as a human right.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Relatively narrow bill—let’s just talk about the bill.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: All right, Mr Speaker. My written questions from earlier this year show that the Government has no idea how many private rentals are currently up to scratch when it comes to healthy homes standards, nor does it know how many landlords have excluded themselves from verifying or reaching those healthy homes standards, nor does it know how many companies are holding themselves out as capable of verifying those healthy homes standards. This is not a recipe for a system that works for anyone.

The Greens have continued to call for a warrant of fitness, and that is, of course, reflected in the Cabinet minutes and documents that have been released proactively throughout this debate. We have seen that these, effectively, voluntary healthy homes standards are not working for far too many people. The Government now seems intent on restarting the clock.

So the question that we’ll leave with the House tonight is: who does that benefit? It’s not the 1.5 million New Zealanders who rent in this country that Statistics New Zealand show are more likely to spend more of their income on inadequate, mouldy housing. In fact, it is only the landlords and Kāinga Ora and the property managers who the Government chose to consult with throughout this process.

The Greens oppose this legislation because we have well-canvassed throughout this debate tonight that it delays the human rights that all New Zealanders are entitled to.

The time has come for me to leave the Chair. The House is suspended, and I will resume the Chair at 9 a.m. tomorrow. Good night, everyone.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 12 midnight to 9 a.m. (Thursday)