Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Amendment Bill

The House is resumed. Good morning, everyone. When we finished last night, and I left the Chair, we were considering the third reading of the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Amendment Bill. I’m advised the next speaker is a National call.

Thank you very much—a good chance to stretch one’s legs. It’s always good to be out in front of ACT, but no offence to my ACT colleagues.

We continue to support this bill—we continue to support this bill at third reading. I think the main caveat or aspect we wanted to note is that when this legislation first went through the House before we had to amend it, we noted at the time that the time frames for both Kāinga Ora and the private sector were out of whack, and the fact that Kāinga Ora was given more time than the private sector. And the other aspect too was we knew it would not be enough, the high standards which the Government were intent on pressing upon the industry. So we sort of feel a little bit vindicated, for want of a better word.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: It is a good word.

But, as we say, we are happy. It is a good word for 9 o’clock in the morning—“vindicated”. I won’t give you the etymology; it’s just far too early. But we are happy to support this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’d like to start my brief call by acknowledging all those landlords who have ensured their properties are complying with the healthy homes standards and the huge impact that that’s going to have on people’s lives. But I also acknowledge the impact COVID’s had in terms of supply chain disruptions, workforce shortages, and difficulties getting heat pumps into the country.

I think this bill takes a pragmatic approach by extending the time by a year but also ensuring that healthy homes standards are all in place by 1 July 2025. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s quite remarkable to be standing here on a Thursday morning—but, really, in Parliament time, we’re still on Tuesday evening—and we’ve somehow managed to get through two speeches already within two minutes. But we are proud, as the ACT Party, to truly represent the people of New Zealand and bring their voices to this Chamber to represent them, and that is what we will be doing throughout urgency, because while the Government wishes to pass through 24 laws within one week, which would usually take four weeks—and it appears that many of our National Party colleagues can’t be bothered to do their jobs either and just want to go home—the ACT Party is committed to actually representing the people of New Zealand and making sure that laws don’t get rushed through Parliament without some scrutiny. We want to make sure that these laws have scrutiny and that we don’t just pass them through without looking through them in detail.

On this particular bill, this is about the healthy homes standards. We had a lot of debate last night about the healthy homes standards and we’re continuing it this morning. But for this bill, it really goes to the heart of the divisive nature of this Government, where we’re passing laws that have had one rule for everybody else and one rule for Labour. We see that in a lot of laws that have passed—in particular with housing, we’ve seen it with interest deductibility law changes, where the Government said, “If you’re a private landlord, we’re going to limit your ability to deduct your interest from your residential accommodation, but we are the Government and we believe that we are different and we are better and we should be allowed to provide housing, rather than private landlords.”, and so they had a different rule for themselves.

That goes to the heart of why we’re here today debating this law, because when the healthy homes standards were written, we had a deadline for private landlords that said that by 1 July 2021, all private landlords, within 90 days of a new tenancy or a renewed tenancy, would have to abide by the healthy homes standards. But for the Government, they had another two years. It turns out that even with that extra amount of time, the Government acknowledges that they won’t be able to bring their own homes up to the healthy homes standards. They won’t be able to meet the high standards that they expected of everybody else. So we’re here in the Parliament today to give them another extension.

I think it’s shameful that we constantly hear from this Government that the Government can do better and the Government knows better and if only the Government provided another service and if only the Government took a few more dollars out of your own pocket and provided a service for you, they would do a better job. Well, case in point, they can’t, because they don’t know better and they can’t do better. Even with the economies of scale of the massive Government and all of our money in taxes, they can’t do a better job of getting their own homes up to scratch than a private landlord.

We know that a lot of private landlords have spent a lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of money getting their homes up to the healthy homes standards last year. We heard from statistics last night that 85 percent of private landlords last year had brought their homes up to the healthy homes standards or had actions to do so. Yet it’s only this week that that same number of Kāinga Ora homes have either been brought up to standard or are on track to be brought up to standard. So it’s not a case of the Government knows best and it’s not a case of the Government can do better—in fact, they’re failing on both.

We constantly hear that private landlords are the villains. We hear it in all of the rhetoric that comes from this Government: that the Government can do better, that they know better, and that they should provide this service, and if only the Government were more involved, we’d have better standards for living and better standards for all New Zealanders. Well, unfortunately, the Government looks after the most vulnerable tenants in our country—people living in Kāinga Ora homes—and, unfortunately, they have not taken the steps to get those homes up to the healthy homes standards for the most vulnerable tenants. But, at the same time, they’re happy to paint landlords as slumlords and say that they are the ones who are creating the housing problems and the housing crisis and they’ve got terrible water and they’ve got heating problems, and all the things that you can think about, but it’s really the Government.

I’d like to thank the landlords who have done a really good job of not only meeting the costs that have been associated with this law but by doing everything that they can to provide another home for somebody in their own community. Over the last few years, as housing spokesperson, I have heard from many people—through emails, from going to public meetings, from having one-on-one discussions with landlords and people from the Property Investors Association—that people have been really struggling and doing it tough, especially those landlords who have intentionally held their rents low because they have somebody living in their home that they genuinely care about and want to provide a safe, stable environment for. But with all the changes and all the taxes and regulations that this Government puts on them, they have become stretched to capacity and, in some cases, have needed to end tenancies for some vulnerable members of our communities.

Now, one family comes to mind in Porirua. I had a landlord reach out to me and say that they had wanted their tenants to be able to go all the way through high school at that same house and be able to give that family stability, but because of all the tax changes and all the regulations and all those added costs, it had become unsustainable for them to keep this tenancy. So they had to put their home on the market, and the result is that this family that they’d tried to give stability to had to move out and they couldn’t find a home that was that cheap in the same area and so their kid had to change schools. Isn’t that a tragedy that the Government’s policies have actually made some families’ lives less stable than they would have been?

We’ve heard from some landlords that with these changes, specifically to the healthy homes, they’ve gone into debt to try and bring their homes up to the standard that the Government expects of them. Some landlords have had to pass on that cost, the cost of up to $10,000 per home to bring these homes up to standard.

The ACT Party says that if we truly cared about some of the most vulnerable people in our community, we would make sure that they have a home, rather than an expensive home—any home at all. We see the emergency housing wait-lists skyrocket. We see the number of people in motels increase and continue to grow. We have people still living in cars and garages and living permanently in motels. Yet we’re saying to landlords, “I don’t care if you can provide a stable environment for someone. Unless you meet all of our very high standards that we can’t meet ourselves, you shouldn’t be allowed to give your home to another member of your community, because we don’t believe it’s safe enough for them.” Well, I would say that it’s better for a person to live in a home than not be able to live in one at all and need to move into emergency housing.

We need to see more residential accommodation be built and be developed and be let out to members of our community. We’re not going to see that if we keep saying that landlords are the bad guys and we need to put another cost, another tax, another regulation on them. In fact, if we did the opposite and we allowed for more investment, growth, development, and a stable environment for people to get into the building industry, we would see more housing development, and that can only be good for those most vulnerable of our tenants—the most vulnerable of our tenants—who are now reliant on the Government for emergency housing, for living in a motel, or for living in a Kāinga Ora home that isn’t even up to their own code yet, but not in a private landlord’s residence.

I think we can do better as a society. We need to solve the housing crisis. We need more warm, dry, and affordable housing. But it’s not through more taxes, more regulations, and more costs, but through allowing New Zealanders to get on and provide accommodation in the form that they want it to other New Zealanders. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, te Mana Whakawā. The name of the bill is Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Amendment Bill. Common sense told us in 2017—as a party, as a Government—that healthy homes standards are needed. Common sense is action; we put it into practice in 2017. COVID came along, so common sense was saying, “Give people another year to enable this Act.” I commend the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Amendment Bill to the House. Mālō.

Order! Penny Simmonds—five-minute call.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. If we were an uncharitable lot, we would say that this Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Amendment Bill was a “get out of jail free” card for five years of failure by this Government. However, we are not so uncharitable; we are pragmatic people, and so we support this bill to help our valuable landlords. So I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Making a remote contribution for the Māori Party, Rawiri Waititi.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Well, I take this short call for a third reading speech on the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Amendment Bill that’s being passed under urgency. Like I said last night in the first reading, this is a terrible bill. It is being passed only to let landlords at Kāinga Ora homes off the hook by giving them an extra year to comply with the healthy homes standards.

I want to open with a kōrero by the late Dr Moana Jackson—not the early Willie Jackson but the late Dr Moana Jackson. And I quote, “Māori have been homeless since 1840. Because Māori were deprived of the right to be at peace at home, the problem today is around houselessness. If we can solve the problem of houselessness, then we make it easier for people to feel at home. Part of the solution to houselessness is to remedy homelessness, which colonisation has caused, and the answer lies in Te Tiriti.”

What this bill sets out to do is keep house owners—and in particular Kāinga Ora, formerly known as Housing New Zealand—from ensuring that their tenants do not feel a right to feel at peace at home, to the point where they feel afraid to speak up or out about their Third World living conditions of their situation or run the risk of being kicked out, thus becoming houseless or even homeless. The reality is that more than 50 percent of Māori are renters. If the average house price is $850K and the bank requires a 20 percent deposit and interest rates for repayment of debt at 6 percent, how many Māori will be able to afford their own home? Hence the reason why many of our people are renters, and they have the right to immediately feel peace in a healthy home. But this bill does not do that. What it does is it gives Kāinga Ora and house owners the leeway to delay. This is a terrible bill.

We also know that Māori make up 50 percent of the social housing waiting list. Surely the Minister knows that the State subsidisation of the market rent, of $2.6 billion per annum, distorts the true state of social housing provision. How many private speculator dwellings are subsidised by the market rent subsidy? So it’s leeway and subsidies for the rich and the upper class, and it’s damp, cold, unhealthy homes for the most vulnerable whānau in our society. This bill should be called the “Leeway for the Government and Rich People (Double Standards) Bill”.

Let’s put another spin on this. Over 4,000 vulnerable whānau are living—not staying but living—at emergency addresses in motels; 1,000 of those are in my electorate, Waiariki, alone. Some have been there for over two years, going on three, with no end in sight. What accountability do the motels have, who are making millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money, to ensure their rooms are of a healthy home standard? Or is it money in the pocket and more leeway for the rich?

What this bill lacks is the ability to punish those who don’t get their houses up to healthy homes standard. In particular, the Government is passing under urgency the leeway to allow them another year to get houses to the healthy homes standards. There are no penalties of substance. I agree with the member last night who said it would be like getting slapped with a wet bus ticket whilst 30,000 tamariki will be hospitalised because they are living in unhealthy homes. Cold, damp, and rundown houses are literally killing our people. This is absolutely disgraceful.

Like I said in the first reading, 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. I reiterate that rather than further weakening protections with this bill, the Government should be strengthening the standards, which were watered-down to lobby the property class. We are strongly and wholeheartedly opposed to this legislation, and again call on this Government to withdraw it and do what’s right by renters in Aotearoa. Kia ora tātou.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This bill continues to support the Labour Government’s plan to support people. That includes tenants, that includes landlords, that includes our tradies, that includes our building sector, and that is what this bill does. We acknowledge the global supply chain issues due to COVID, and that’s why this extension’s in place. We want to make sure that everyone has a warm, healthy, dry space and place and whare to be in, and that’s what this Labour Government does. We continue to support the people of New Zealand.

Well, thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ve been listening with intent to the debate on this piece of legislation—both this morning as the House sits in urgency, but also last night, as the midnight hour approached, and the debate has been proceeding at pace. So I just really wanted to confirm that, on this side of the House, we’re supporting this piece of legislation.

Fa’afetai lava, Madam Speaker. It’s a real opportunity to speak on this bill, and I thank the Minister for bringing it to the House and also for her answers to last night’s committee stage as well. I just want to acknowledge the work of our local healthy homes provider, Wati Waru, who represents the Auckland-wide Healthy Homes Initiative providers that do the work and that engage with our whānau, our private landlords and our private owners, and the work they do to provide insulation, ventilations, and so forth.

It is a huge job to try to protect our whānau. Healthy homes, healthy families, healthy tamariki—we lessen the issue of sore throats and rheumatic fever, skin conditions, and respiratory issues as well. That’s why we acknowledge the delay in materials, and that’s why I support this work to the House.