Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill

Members, we come now to our final debate: clauses 1 to 3. This is the debate on “Title”, “Commencement”, and “Principal Act”.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thought I would take the first call just to outline the Government’s approach to this, because we have Amendment Paper 213. The aim of this is to give greater certainty to the sector about when the changes come into effect, and I think members will appreciate it.

Currently, the bill provides for the key changes in relation to termination of tenancies—which I know has been an issue in the debate—to come into effect six weeks after the Royal assent. This would see this come into effect in mid to late January 2025, but there’d be no specificity because we don’t exactly know when the bill will pass, obviously, and when it will receive the Royal assent. That would work, but the Government’s view is that a fixed date would be easier for everybody, and so the Amendment Paper amends the bill so that the tenancy termination changes come into effect on 30 January 2025. It gives everyone certainty—from officials to landlords and tenants—and a clear date and expectation to work towards.

Similarly, the bill provides for a range of changes aimed at improving clarity and efficiency to come into effect three months after the Royal assent. The Amendment Paper amends the bill so that these changes come into effect on the fixed date of 20 March, which is in around about three months, and it just makes it really clear exactly what date.

The Amendment Paper does not make any changes to the commencement for the two amendments supporting the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) processes, which come into effect the day after the Royal assent, and amendments relating to pets—as we canvassed in the debate on Part 1—will remain. The commencement will be by Order in Council to allow flexibility and time for the pet bond functionality to be developed.

As I’ve previously advised the House, MBIE is working hard on the update to the Bond 2000 system, which is an old system of tenancy bonds, and the clue’s in the name. It was developed in the year 2000, so it’s a bit out of date, and the previous Government funded a programme of modernisation, which we support, and MBIE is under way on that. It’s going to take a few more months and a bit more time to get the pet bond functionality into the system and get it under way, so the commencement provision just gives us a bit of flex around when that happens, and members will be some of the first to know exactly when we will bring that part of the law into effect.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I acknowledge the contribution of the Minister of Housing there. It is quite extraordinary, though: we’re in urgency rushing through a bill that you are now proposing doesn’t come into effect for a while, and, in part, because something isn’t ready.

I’ll tell you what, I won’t dispute the amendment on the commencement date; I’m going to focus on the title because I believe that the title of the bill doesn’t accurately reflect the guts of this bill. In order to try and find something that did reflect the guts of the bill, I just went to Part 2, which is the substantive part, and took the title of that and put it into the proposed title of this bill so that it becomes the “Residential Tenancies (Termination of Tenancies) Amendment Bill” because, actually, that is an accurate reflection of what’s in this bill.

The Government has spent a lot of time talking about pet bonds—fair enough, that’s in the bill; it’s a new thing—but it’s not the main part. The main part is Part 2, and that talks about the changes to tenancies. If you look at the first page of the bill’s commentary, it talks about what the bill will do—one, two, three, four, five bullet points; and none of them talk about pets. They all talk about the changing of tenancies in relation to the termination of tenancies.

Why do we think that that should be reflected in the name? In part, it’s because that’s the reason why we cannot support this. If this was the “Residential Tenancies (Pet Bonds) Amendment Bill”, it would have our support. If it included the provisions around allowing landlords to be more prescriptive around the conditions under which tenants could or could not smoke in that premises, that makes sense. The stuff around family violence including a dependant—that makes sense. I think we’ve identified a couple of areas where the Minister could have done with a bit more time to tidy it up, but, on the whole, we would have supported that. Despite all of that, we cannot support this bill, because it makes it easier for landlords to dismiss tenants, and in the wider context of the housing situation in this country, we fear that this will lead to higher levels of homelessness, and—more importantly—the termination of tenancies outlined in Part 2 of this bill will not achieve the stated aims of the Government.

This will not lead to more people in tenancies. This will not lead to more people taking on rental accommodation and then taking in tenants. This will not meet the stated aim. If that is the substance of the bill, surely that should be reflected in the name.

Now, I’m well aware of the restrictions on proposed amendments to names. This fits what is required. It is not a criticism of the content and it is certainly not an unserious suggestion, because it is derived from the bill itself, but I think that focusing on the termination of tenancies would accurately reflect what this bill is actually about, and it would actually reflect the likely outcome of the vote.

I think it’s a shame, because if they had split this up rather than included it, we would have had two different outcomes. One would have had broad support from Parliament and the other would not, but because they’re included, they don’t. The reason for that is the provisions to allow for easier termination of tenancies, and that’s why I’m proposing it be in the title of the bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do want to talk about the commencement dates. Because of the staggered nature of sections of this bill, I thought it was very bizarre when I was looking at it. It’s good to get clarity now with regard to the exact dates, but I do want to make the point to the general public who are watching, and also to the Minister that, actually, the most popular part of this bill—the part that has been supported most and favoured by most of the submitters, which is the pet bond—is the actual section that we have no date for in terms of commencement yet.

I would like to get further clarification from the Minister of Housing on what time frame we can hope to have around the commencement of the pet bond. That is the big part of what that side of the House has been talking about in relation to this bill the whole way along, while ignoring the provisions that have actually not been supported by the general public and 97 percent of the submitters. Then I note, of course, that the first part in the staggered commencement of sections of this bill that is going to be implemented is actually that the tenancy terminations would come into force six weeks after Royal assent, which we now hear is 30 January. I want to know from the Minister why that is the priority. Why can that be moved forward so quickly ahead of all the other provisions?

The least popular part of this bill is the part that is being rushed here. Why couldn’t it wait so that sections of this bill could be done together to ensure that, actually, it looked a little bit more coherent, rather than take this staggered approach? Are there cost savings for the Government here by implementing this on 30 January, which stands to win by having that particular measure implemented by 30 January, and why was that a priority for the Government over implementing the other much more popular sections of this policy?

I also want the Minister to clarify for me—because I’m not entirely sure—when do the family violence provisions come into effect here? When will that commence so that our whānau know that that will apply to them at that point? That’s another area, along with the pet bonds, that the Government have been touting that we thought would have been prioritised in terms of commencement over the least popular part, which, again, is the tenancy termination section. I ask if we can get some clarity on why certain parts, including that one, were prioritised over the rest; when we can expect the pet bond work to be done and to have commencement; when will the family violence provision come into effect; and anything else with regard to the staggered nature of the commencement that the Minister thinks will be of interest.

Thank you to the member for the reasonable questions. In relation to family violence, I am advised that it is 20 March. In relation to the pet bonds, the member makes a good point that that’s the most popular part of the bill. That’s probably true; in fact, it’s almost certainly true, and I would like them to start tomorrow, but we can’t, because we’ve got to upgrade the bond system, and without being too political about it, the bond system needs an upgrade and the work only got started a year or so ago.

We’ve been out of Government for six years now, so I know I’m not being political about it, but you need IT systems, and the tenancy bond system is creaking because thousands of New Zealanders rent who would otherwise have liked to be in a home, and there’s an entire system that has got to run on, basically, Microsoft Excel. The investment was made and it’s being rolled through, but these things don’t happen overnight. I’m advised that it will be late 2025, but, rest assured, I say to the member, I’m putting the heat on the good team at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to get on with the job and make sure we get it in as quickly as possible. It’s just the reality; we can’t do it straight away. If we could, I would, but we can’t, so we are where we are. The Order in Council allows for a bit of flex in terms of the commencement.

In relation to the residential tenancies changes around no-cause terminations, reasonable people can disagree around this. Clearly, the Opposition has a different view to the Government. I appreciate that point of view. We want to bring them in. It just reverts the law back to actually what was the law until 2021, from memory—it might have been 2020—so it’s not a radical change in that sense, and rather than just have the six weeks, as I’ve said before, we’ve gone for 30 January so that there’s maximum clarity for everybody.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that Tamatha Paul’s amendments to Amendment Paper 213 set out on Amendment Paper 217 be agreed to.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to clause 2 set out on Amendment Paper 213 be agreed to.