Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:664;Page:12192] 
Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill 
In Committee 
CHRIS TREMAIN (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 I seek leave for the Committee stage of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill to be taken as one question with unlimited calls. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 to 3 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 It is with great pleasure that we finally come to the Committee stage of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. This bill has been a long time in making further progress through the House since it was reported back from the Social Services Committee in about September last year. It is very pleasing that we finally see some action to progress this bill. Labour has put up a number of amendments in the Committee stage. We support this bill; it was Labour legislation to start off with. Unfortunately following the change of Government the Minister of Housing has seen fit to water down the protections for tenants under this legislation so I have moved a number of amendments in my name in an attempt to address that watering down and restore some of the protections that Labour saw fit to award tenants under its bill. 
It is fair to say as a background that tenants in New Zealand do not enjoy an enormous amount of protection compared with tenants in other countries around the world that we generally compare ourselves with. Many other OECD countries have secure tenancies; New Zealand does not have those. This means that any tenant in New Zealand can be evicted on 90 days’ notice for absolutely no reason at all. That does not provide security for families in New Zealand. In saying that I acknowledge that the situation in New Zealand is very different from for example that in Europe where there are a large number of corporate landlords as opposed to mum and dad landlords. I feel that the bill that Labour originally put forward provided a number of protections for tenants that did not need to be removed considering that in New Zealand compared with other countries the balance is already heavily weighted towards the landlord. 
I do not hold out much hope that the Government will support my amendments because I fear some of these arguments have already been had and lost. But there is one particular amendment on a new issue that I hope the Government will support. Certainly Labour will be arguing very strongly that the amendments put forward in my name in this Committee stage should indeed be supported. 
The first amendment in my name that I will speak to relates to the issue of letting fees. In Labour’s bill we prohibited the charging of letting fees to tenants. This is the situation where a tenant goes into a letting agency in order to find a property to rent and a landlord has engaged a letting agency to market the property to prospective tenants. When a tenant finds a property that he or she wishes to rent the letting agency then charges that tenant a week’s rent usually—sometimes more—for that service. Labour thought that that was particularly unfair. It is hard enough at the moment for tenants to get into the private rental market without putting up another barrier. When we consider that rents are likely to rise as a result of the taxation changes in the Budget we see that this barrier for tenants is not needed and not warranted. I make the comparison of letting agents with real estate agents. When someone wants to sell a house and engages a real estate agent to market that house to prospective buyers the vendor pays the charges or the commission to the real estate agent not the person who buys the house. 
The argument is often put up—and it was put up to us in the Social Services Committee—that when the rental market is tight the letting agency is in a way working for the tenant not for the landlord because it is so hard to find a property that it is in fact good for the tenant that a letting agency is doing that work. But that argument does not apply when someone sells a house. Regardless of the state of the housing market the person who has engaged the professional agency be it a real estate agent or a letting agency pays the agency’s commission. It is not the decision of the tenant or the purchaser to engage that professional agency so why should those people be the ones who pay for its services? I welcome the Minister’s arguments on this matter because it is a significant barrier to getting into the rental market. It is yet another thing that people have to pay on top of the cost of moving on top of the cost of an upfront bond and on top of the fact that rents will be going up—and they have been going up. The letting fee might not seem like a lot of money to some members here but for someone to have to pay another week’s rent on top of everything else may well make the difference between that person being able or not able to get into the property. 
An interesting fact is that a lot of property agents came along to the select committee and said they were annoyed because other agents could charge letting fees but they could not. When we asked them whether they would be happy to just have the right to charge those fees taken away from everyone they said yes. They wanted to have a level playing field; they did not want to have those fees as a source of income. National Party committee members and Labour Party members agreed there should be a level playing field but the National Party’s point of view was that everyone should charge tenants a letting fee and the Labour Party and the Green Party—I am not speaking for it—then said no one should charge letting fees to tenants. If a landlord wants to engage a property management agency or a letting agency to market a property then the landlord should pay the cost of engaging that agency. The charge should not be put on to the tenant. 
So there is an amendment in my name that would make this change and prohibit the charging of letting fees to tenants. I urge members to support it. I think it is only fair that this amendment be passed into law. 
The second amendment that I will talk about is one that started off in a member’s bill in the name of my colleague Maryan Street. It is around the issue of joint and several liability when there is damage to a property. This issue arose out of a case in Dunedin where a student flat burnt down. One tenant was responsible for the action that caused that but the other tenants were not. In fact they were not there. They did not know anything about it and they could not have stopped it because they knew nothing about it. But they were held liable. We have heard I believe that two of the tenants who had nothing to do with causing the fire and who could not have stopped it even if they had wanted to were bankrupted as a result of the insurance company going after them to get back the money that it had to pay out to the landlord to fix that property. That is a situation where clearly only the insurance company wins. 
I want to be quite clear about this issue because I know that there tends to be a bit of mischief about trying to misrepresent what Labour believes about it. Absolutely a landlord should be able to recoup the cost of damages caused to a property but Labour says we should make the person responsible for causing the damage the one who is targeted for recouping that money rather than people who are not responsible for it. It may well be that the response that Labour put up is not the best way of doing it and that the Government thinks there is another way of achieving that. If so we would definitely be open to considering other options. But I do not think anyone thinks it is fair that an insurance company can get two bites of the cherry by chasing after people who could not possibly have stopped an action from happening. We have ended up with young people at university being bankrupted as a result of the actions of that company. 
This is a serious issue. The Minister has known about this issue for a long time. In fact when in Opposition he dealt with it as the spokesperson on housing when my colleague Maryan Street first brought her member’s bill to the House. He has had more than 18 months to deal with it as the Minister. The select committee reported back on this bill many many months ago; I think it was in September last year. He has known about the issue for a long time and I hope that he will be able to stand up and tell us either why he will not be addressing it—why he does not feel the situation needs to be addressed—or if he is prepared to address it what he intends to do about it. 
I will save my other amendments for further calls. Certainly the issue of letting fees is critical and I do not understand how the Government could possibly say it is unfair that the person who engages the letting company should pay for that as opposed to the person who ends up renting the property particularly in light of the Budget changes and the hardship that is being faced by many people. In fact 30 percent of New Zealanders rent their properties and 50 percent of them have a combined household income—not personal but combined—of under $50000 a year. These people cannot easily absorb another couple of weeks’ rent on top of everything else and that is what makes the issue of letting fees even more critical than perhaps it was when the previous Labour Government put forward legislation to prohibit the charging of letting fees to tenants. It is an issue of fairness. I do not see the Government scrambling to make sure that in a tight housing market the real estate agents charge buyers and not vendors for marketing properties so it is difficult to comprehend why the Government and the Minister of Housing feel it is necessary to whack another cost on to tenants who in the current financial situation are already struggling. 
I have to say that issue was a big one at the select committee. It was an issue on which even those who thought that letting agents should be able to charge whomever they wanted acknowledged that charging tenants the letting fee caused hardship. There were people who acknowledged that it did keep people out of the housing market. We had a comment from one of the National members on the committee that those people could just go down the road and find somewhere else to rent. That comment worried me because I think that sometimes National members do not understand that the lowest-paid New Zealanders do not have a lot of choice when it comes to these situations. 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Housing) 
: 
 I take this call to clarify the purpose of the Government’s two Supplementary Order Papers. The first proposes minor technical amendments to improve and streamline the implementation of the bill. More specifically it separates certain intertwined provisions of the bill so that they may be brought into force via separate commencement orders as envisaged by clause 2 to ensure that parties have sufficient time to prepare for their new rights and obligations. The bill provides for administrative and Tenancy Tribunal forms to be updated and approved by the chief executive of the Department of Building and Housing rather than by regulations. It updates the Tenancy Tribunal’s jurisdiction to mirror the new process for dealing with abandoned goods as proposed in clause 42. It removes the requirement but retains the ability to prescribe a fee for providing a debtor’s address details to the District Court for enforcement purposes. It provides for the form of notices filed with the District Court—for example a notice of appeal—to be governed as is the case under other legislation by generic court rules rather than separate regulations. Although the aforementioned changes are minor in nature collectively they will aid clarity reduce unnecessary regulation and facilitate improvements to the administrative processes over time in response to feedback from users. 
The second Supplementary Order Paper proposes minor consequential amendments to the bill that reflect the recent enactment of the Unit Titles Act which was passed obviously before this legislation. We would have had to make other changes had the reverse been the case. 
Both Supplementary Order Papers are consistent with the policy intent of the bill and the changes recommended by the Social Services Committee. I assure members that the Supplementary Order Papers I am tabling today are worthy of support. They have no policy impact except to make the legislation more streamlined and understandable by those who use it. I urge members’ support. I will be happy to respond to members’ queries in due course. 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 I will make a contribution on the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. Although I am not on the Social Services Committee and have not had the opportunity to hear what sounds like some very fine submissions on the bill the issue of letting fees is an important one in every single community in our country none more so than in the community of Hamilton. 
Even though we are in the Chamber debating once again legislation that started out as good robust Labour Government legislation it is legislation that yet again is being watered down by the Government. Even though we are debating such watered-down legislation at least some progress is starting to be made on this issue although Labour would like to see much more progress than is possible in the bill before us. 
My colleague Moana Mackey spoke in very fine detail about letting fees. This is a classic issue of trying to balance the difference between the haves and the have-nots. Generally the people who are landlords have the financial capability and therefore the power in this relationship. They not only own their own home that they live in but also have enough financial assets to own other homes that other people can live in. They are the haves. 
Then we have the have-nots. They are the people who for many many reasons—whether financial or a deliberate decision not to own property—are not in a position of owning and holding property. Therefore they heavily rely on some form of regulation to protect their interests. As we have heard those protections are currently not strong enough. However I would argue that the bill before us does not make them strong enough. It does make some improvements and I acknowledge the Minister of Housing for his work on that but we need to go an awful lot further. The Minister has picked up a previous Minister’s work and good on him for doing that. 
I will dispel a myth in relation to what I will call the Rugby World Cup amendment so that people understand what I am talking about. Labour members are proposing giving tenants some certainty in the situation where a major event comes along and landlords see an opportunity to make a lot of money because accommodation needs will be very high in their city. I want to dispel the myth that this is an Auckland-only issue. We are talking about the Rugby World Cup and the city I live in Hamilton will have exactly this issue as well. On behalf of tenants in Hamilton I support Labour’s amendment to make sure there are some protections so that people cannot be thrown out of their accommodation in order to make space for landlords to bring in people who are prepared to pay more because of a lack of accommodation in our city. And it will not just be for the Hamilton-based games of the Rugby World Cup because there is a very good proposal for Hamilton to have a passenger train service during the course of the Rugby World Cup. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Where to? 
SUE MORONEY 
: From Hamilton to Auckland. People with foresight and vision can see why that would make a big difference. If that proposal goes ahead Hamilton will take the overload from Auckland and lots of people will stay in Hamilton. 
It is my view that I do not want to see one family or one child put out of the place they call home because some landlord in Hamilton Auckland Christchurch or wherever wants to exploit their ability to make a bigger profit over the period of the Rugby World Cup or any other event for that matter. I think it says a lot about our country if we are prepared in that circumstance to allow people with low incomes or people with children to be turfed out of their homes in order that their landlords can make a greater profit than they need to. They would be turfing people out who are paying enough rent to cover the landlords’ costs so the only reason that it would occur was that the landlords wanted to make a profit. 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Housing) 
: 
 On the matter of charging letting fees I think the Committee should note that up until recently real estate agents had the exclusive right to charge letting fees. They lost that right. All the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill does is allow all agents not only real estate agents but also other property managers to charge letting fees. The ability for them to do it as recommended by the majority of the Social Services Committee will reduce the size of letting fees through increased competition. 
In fact I think what will happen is we will find that a whole lot of agents will not charge letting fees at all just as they have not charged them for decades. That is why we are levelling the playing field by allowing everyone to do it. If they do that is up to them; they will have to provide the service that goes with it. If they do not then they provide a point of difference which as I said has been in existence for many decades now. 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 By way of introductory remarks I agree with many of the principles behind the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. It is a bill that the Labour Party is generally supportive of—obviously with our minority report in mind. I think all Kiwis should have some security in where they live. Kiwis are entitled to some certainty in their accommodation arrangements; they need to be able to put down roots. Their kids need to have stability in where they go to school. Where children live has a direct relationship on the stability of their lives their schooling their early childhood education and so forth. Giving people even those who cannot afford the homeownership dream stability in their rental arrangements is really important. 
People have the right to live peacefully in their homes even if they rent them with relatively minimal disruption. They are also entitled to be treated with respect by their landlords. I have been very concerned in the last few days as the media coverage has reported the way some tenants of State houses are being treated in the neighbourhood of Pomare which is in my electorate. I think that some of the issues those people are confronting have direct relevance to the debate on this bill. The suggestion is that the Government is not living up to its own expectations and the things it talks about in this bill when it comes to State house tenants particularly those in Pomare. 
In the neighbourhood of Pomare over 40 Housing New Zealand Corporation houses are empty. Over 30 of those houses have effectively been abandoned by the Housing New Zealand Corporation and it is not putting new tenants in them. To some extent those houses are uninhabitable as they have been badly run down. Unfortunately by simply abandoning them the Minister of Housing has made the problem so much worse. He has basically abandoned that whole community. We now have whole rows of empty houses that are prone to vandalism and to squatting in some cases. Simply leaving those houses there and saying that it is an antisocial neighbourhood which is what the Minister tried to argue this afternoon makes the problem worse. A whole lot of empty houses in a neighbourhood make the problem worse. Who wants to go and live in a neighbourhood where a whole lot of houses immediately around them will be empty and subject to vandalism squatting and the various other things that go on? The Government is effectively creating a ghost town. The Government is exacerbating problems that may have existed before and it is stereotyping an entire community based on the actions of a small number of people who are being dealt with in other ways. I think it is absolutely shocking that the Government has all but turned its back on an entire community in my electorate. 
Moana Mackey 
: Punishing them. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: It is punishing innocent people. Good families who are trying to do the best by their kids are being punished because the Government is on this grand crusade to persecute a small number of people. I think that that whole community deserves to be treated with a little bit more respect than that. 
I extended an open invitation to the Minister yesterday and I am happy to re-extend that invitation today. If he wants to come and meet the residents of Pomare I would be happy to arrange that. I would happily go with him and show him around the neighbourhood. It is a community that I have spent quite a lot of time in. I have knocked on every single door in Farmer Crescent in that neighbourhood over the last few years. I know many of those residents very well and I am absolutely appalled at the stereotyping that the Minister has undertaken. For him to suggest that they are all antisocial or members of gangs or involved in criminal activity is absolutely disgusting. Those people deserve to be treated with some respect and they are not getting that respect from the Government. I think that is really disappointing when we consider some of the rhetoric that sits behind the bill we are debating at the moment. Clearly it is rhetoric that the Government is not willing to live up to itself. 
These houses have been poorly maintained. Yes they need redevelopment; there is no argument from me about that. As a matter of fact they have been neglected over several decades. I do not think the blame rests with the previous Labour Government or with the National Government that preceded it. I think that generally speaking that community has not had the level of investment in and maintenance of those State houses that it should have. I do not want to go back over a debate on who is responsible for that; I want to know what will happen now who will deal with that situation and who will give the residents of Pomare the type of neighbourhood they can be proud to live in. All we are seeing at the moment is the Government far from dealing with the situation turning its back on the problem and saying that the tenants are to blame for the situation they find themselves in. I simply do not think that is an acceptable argument for the Government to be putting forward. There is so much more that the Government could do in the area. 
We cannot ignore the impact that tenancy arrangements made by the Housing New Zealand Corporation or others have on surrounding communities. For example I have been a regular visitor to the primary school in Pomare and having a whole lot of empty State houses in that neighbourhood has had a big impact on the school. It is struggling to cope with how to respond to that quite understandably. Empty houses have impact not just on individual families; they have an impact on whole communities. I have been really concerned to see the stereotyping of that community that has gone on. I absolutely accept that some people in that community have behaved inappropriately. I do not want to go into that in great detail at the moment but I absolutely object to the idea that an entire community should be punished because of the actions of a few. 
We heard the Minister say in the Chamber this afternoon that it is not the Housing New Zealand Corporation’s policy to leave empty all of the State houses in an area where there have been some evictions but that is exactly what is being done in Pomare. The question that Moana Mackey put to the Minister this afternoon which he did not answer was why Pomare is being treated differently from all of the other State housing neighbourhoods throughout the country. Why is Pomare being picked off and picked on by this Government? The residents of Pomare were told before the last election that if they had maintenance problems with their State housing the National Government would address those. Phil Heatley went up and down the country and said that he was shocked by the state of State houses in New Zealand and that he would do something about it. The residents of Pomare will be struggling to reconcile that with the fact that he has made massive cuts to the maintenance acquisition and redevelopment budgets of the Housing New Zealand Corporation in this year’s Budget. They were looking forward to Phil Heatley making good on the promise he made them before the last election; a promise that he is now very keen to forget—I guess along with all the other promises on the National Party pledge card on tax cuts and so on. 
I will talk a little bit more about some of the other provisions in the bill but I restate the point—I think we should not underestimate its impact—that residents of rental properties whether those properties are owned by the Housing New Zealand Corporation or otherwise are entitled to be treated with respect by their landlords. I assert very strongly that the Government as the landlord of the people in Pomare is not treating those people with the respect they deserve. I think the Minister should do something about that. There are opportunities there. A redevelopment plan is on the books; he could put money into the redevelopment plan and give those residents a neighbourhood that they can be truly proud of. 
We have to deal with the reality that increasingly people are renting their homes rather than owning them. That is a problem. I am moving on now from the issue of Pomare to talk a little bit about some of the issues to do with why residential tenancies are becoming more and more important as more people find themselves tenants rather than homeowners. I did a little bit of research on this issue a few months ago and discovered that purchasing a home prior to the Second World War was about the equivalent of 3½ years of the average annual salary. After the war that figure went up a little bit as members can imagine because people were paying for the cost of a war and the figure went up to about 5 years then back down to about 3½ years at the time the baby boomers were purchasing their homes. Now it costs about 10 years’ of the average salary for people to purchase their own home and that makes homeownership much more of a dream for so many families and it makes tenancy arrangements so much more important. That is something this House needs to consider and that is why some security in tenancy arrangements ensuring that both landlord and tenant are in mutual relationships of respect and making sure that those things are very clear in the law and that the law is up to date are very very important. Increasingly New Zealanders will be finding themselves in rental accommodation because they cannot afford the homeownership dream. 
I conclude my preliminary comments and I look forward to the rest of the debate. 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to have the opportunity to take a call in the Committee stage of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. First I say how pleased I am along with my colleagues that the bill is before the Committee having been introduced by the previous Labour Government in the last Parliament in May 2008. We were very pleased about it being introduced then and we looked forward to its speedy passage through the House particularly with issues such as boarding houses being included in the new legislation. Unfortunately people who rely on the provisions of the bill have had to wait a very long time. The Social Services Committee did great work and reported back in 2009 and here we are almost 2 years later finally getting to the remaining stages of this bill. It has been a long long time coming. 
I am also disappointed at the potential lost opportunity this bill represents. My very good colleague Moana Mackey has put up some excellent amendments and I hope the Minister of Housing will genuinely take them into account because I think there are some very important issues in them. 
I had to wonder about the Minister having been so busy swanning around Northcote. Today in question time he could not resist holding up the report by the  
North Shore Times 
—that really good left-wing local newspaper! Front page— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: What’s it called? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: The 
 North Shore Times 
. 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: I notice you advertise in it. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Every week it has a column from the member opposite Dr Coleman or his colleague. There is never anything from Labour in there but the Minister of Housing was on the front page. He could not help but tell the House how the tenants had cheered. Does the Minister know why they cheered? It was because they had been worried about whether their community urban renewal project would continue because it has been up in the air. I ask members to guess who started that community urban renewal project way back in the early 2000s. Labour set up that project and put forward the funding. 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: You actually were in Government then. You would expect you would have done something. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Labour funded the Tonar Street project I say to Dr Coleman. It was Labour that put the money forward to fund it yet the Minister last week was taking credit for something that he had absolutely nothing to do with. It was a hilarious thing to see. I know those tenants quite well and I know that they are Housing New Zealand Corporation tenants. They rely on legislation like this to have their issues heard. They come to see me in my office in Northcote and I am sure they come to see the member opposite Dr Coleman as well. I am very very pleased for them. 
The other interesting thing about that little celebration the other day was that on that same day there was a report in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 saying that the Tonar Street project was on hold because of issues to do with stormwater and so on. The Minister did not like that because it kind of spoiled his big moment. In the report in the  
New Zealand Herald  
the journalist had gone to ask what was happening to the staff of the community urban renewal project. As of last week they did not know what their jobs would be and whether they would still be working in the Cadness Street properties. 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: That’s because you keep on telling them they won’t. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: That is true I say to Mr Coleman. I know those workers and I talk to them. Eighty percent of their jobs have changed from being community urban renewal project officers to being some sort of mortgage broker. 
It said in the report that they had gone to the union to ask what was happening with the restructuring in Housing New Zealand Corporation. That is a fair thing to do; after all the Public Service Association (PSA) represents those Housing New Zealand Corporation workers. The Minister could not help himself. In the presentation at Tonar Street he said that a union official had made some comments—a union official—and the Minister asked what a union official would know about stormwater. It was unbelievable. I suggest the Minister should talk to the PSA and get to know a few of those Housing New Zealand Corporation workers. They are very very worried at the moment. 
I particularly want to mention the amendment that my colleague Moana Mackey is putting forward about— 
Simon Bridges 
: You should stand for North Shore. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Well I have not made up my mind yet so I tell Mr Bridges not to worry about it. I will let him know when I have made my decision—how is that? 
I want to talk about the representation of the Tenancy Tribunal and my concerns about the changes that raise the monetary threshold of the automatic right to be represented by a lay representative or counsel from $3000 to $6000. The problem for the people of Northcote I have been talking about is that there is no way they can afford that. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I thank the Minister of Housing for his very brief comments on the issue of letting fees. As I said to him Labour members were not arguing against the level playing field; we were asking why he was opposed to the person who engages the letting agency paying that fee as opposed to the tenant. I do not believe that he addressed that question at all and I would very much appreciate it if in the interests of moving the Committee stage along he would be prepared to address why he thinks it is unacceptable that the person who engages a business is the one who pays for it. I look forward to his answering that question. 
I will pick up on my amendment that was alluded to by my colleague Sue Moroney. It is about what happens to tenants during major events. Over the time of the International Sevens held in Wellington earlier this year boarding-house tenants in Wellington were evicted en masse. They were told that they had to leave their homes—well boarding houses are not really homes; their places of residence—so that their rooms could be charged out to tourists here for the rugby. That move was to my knowledge unprecedented; it was unexpected. The police hospitals and emergency accommodation providers in Wellington were overwhelmed by the sudden outpouring of extremely vulnerable tenants on to the streets of Wellington. It raised a very very serious issue. Because there is no such thing as a secure tenancy in New Zealand that situation is possible. 
I live in a very beautiful part of the country which is incredibly popular over summer. I know people who are told every summer that they have to move out of their homes. For a couple of months they have to move out so that their landlords can rent the places out for three or four times the cost to people who come to the East Coast and Gisborne for their holidays. I think that is incredibly unfair but I have tried to be extremely reasonable with the Government on this issue. I have not tried to cover off the holiday situation in my amendment; I have kept it to the schedule of major events. Let us keep focused on that for now and let us say that it is illegal to evict tenants “for the purpose of providing short term accommodation for a major event” as listed in the Major Events Management Act. 
This is a serious issue. I have already been approached by tenants in Auckland who have been told by their landlords that they will have to move out over the time of the Rugby World Cup. And why would they not be told that? There is price-gouging going on in Auckland over the Rugby World Cup with some hotels charging thousands and thousands of dollars a night— 
Darien Fenton 
: And locking their workers out. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: —and locking their workers out at the same time. They are trying to make sure that their workers cannot have any salary negotiations during the Rugby World Cup period because God forbid that workers should be able to stand up for their rights and ruin a good time! 
Coming back to my amendment the fact is there are private sector tenants who have already been told that they will be issued with a 90-day notice to leave their homes—their homes. They have children—and I know that the Government is going to give schools a holiday over that time—and they will have to move away from their communities. Those tenants will have to find somewhere to put all their furniture and they will have to pay to move out and then move back in. They have been told that they can move back in at the end of the period but when they have asked about their furniture and said that storing it was really expensive the landlords have very helpfully said that they could leave it so that the people coming to stay over the time of the Rugby World Cup could use it which solves the problem that a lot of those people will want to live in furnished homes. I have no problem with people who live in their own home letting it out—of course not. A lot of them will get out of Auckland for the duration of the Rugby World Cup and they will charge people to stay in their homes. They will make a bit of money and I say good luck to them. But when a landlord is evicting a family—a family that the landlord has a tenancy agreement with—purely to make money by providing accommodation for visitors over the time of the Rugby World Cup I do not believe that that is something this House should be endorsing. 
I spoke to the Minister about it some months ago and suggested that he get his officials to work on the matter so that he could rely on their wording and not on wording that I had come up with. I asked the Minister in the select committee the other week whether he would support my amendment but he has not told me yet. I sincerely hope the Government will support the amendment. 
The other thing is that boarding-house tenants and people living in short-stay motels have also been told that they have to get out for the duration of the Rugby World Cup. That provides two problems. There is the moral argument that it is just wrong to kick people out of their homes so that someone can make a huge packet of money by providing accommodation to tourists over the time of the Rugby World Cup. But the second problem is the question of where these people are going to go. When people are evicted en masse out of boarding houses and out of their short-stay accommodation they will pour on to the streets of Auckland at a time when emergency accommodation providers will not be in a position to assist them. I think the Minister should grab the issue with two hands and say that yes the Government will deal with it. He should draw a line in the sand and say that this practice is not OK. I have not had any indication from the Minister about whether he will support my amendment but I sincerely hope he will. 
I will go on to two other amendments in my name which relate to representation at the Tenancy Tribunal. Labour has put forward two amendments on this matter because there are two issues. The first is that currently when tenants go to the Tenancy Tribunal the monetary value of what is in question has to be at least $3000 in order for them to be able to take a representative with them. Labour under the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill that we put up got rid of that provision altogether. We said that tenants were allowed to have representation at the Tenancy Tribunal. That was not something we did lightly because the Tenancy Tribunal is intended to be an expeditious agency. It is intended to be low cost and it is intended to be fast. There is absolutely no question that once a whole lot of lawyers and everything else are added into the mix things can become more protracted. But the Government is ignoring the reality that often the people the tenants are going up against are professionals. The people the tenants are going up against are tenancy managers property managers and the Housing New Zealand Corporation. I do not know on what planet it could be said that Housing New Zealand is not a professional advocate. We were told during the process that the Housing New Zealand Corporation could say that yes the tenant can have an advocate as well. But that does not happen. Labour thinks it should be clear that a tenant has a right to representation. 
We are talking often about people who have English as a second language. We are talking sometimes about people who are illiterate and not able to read the documents in front of them. We are talking about people who are simply unfamiliar with a tribunal process such as that of the Tenancy Tribunal. We are talking about people who can be overwhelmed by it. We are talking sometimes about people who have mental health issues or drug and alcohol addiction issues. We are talking sometimes about people who are in extremely vulnerable situations such as those who have escaped from domestic violence. Labour members think these people should be allowed to have representation at the Tenancy Tribunal. Indeed it may actually speed up the process because sometimes tenants do not know what their rights are so they argue everything under the sun. Sometimes having an advocate there to focus them on their strongest argument and telling them to forget about the rest because those issues are not covered by the law can help the process. 
So I have two amendments in my name in relation to the Tenancy Tribunal. The first is to reduce the monetary threshold from $6000—the Government has lifted it from $3000 to $6000—to $100. The more important one is to get rid of that threshold altogether and to not have a prohibition on representation at the Tenancy Tribunal. We have put forward two issues. If the Government says that no it does want all tenants to have representation that is fine but let us reduce the monetary threshold down to $100. I can tell the Committee that people who live in boarding houses do not have $6000 worth of stuff. They do not. They might have $100 worth of stuff or $200 worth but they do not have even $3000 worth so their entire life’s possessions could be being thrown out by a boarding-house landlord—their entire life’s goods. The fact that the worth of their entire life’s goods amounts to only $250 means that according to this Minister and this Government they should not have representation to help them fight eviction even though everything they own—every single thing—is at risk. To some members of this Committee $6000 might not seem like a lot of money but I can tell them that to boarding-house tenants it is far more money than they would ever hope to see or ever hope to own. 
A number of cases that have gone before the Tenancy Tribunal have been about mental health patients living in boarding houses ending up having to go into care for a number of days. When they come back they find out that their landlords have evicted them while they were away—because boarding-house tenants currently have no protection under the residential tenancies laws and we have been waiting a long time for them to get coverage—and all their stuff has been chucked away. They want to go to the Tenancy Tribunal but their stuff is not worth enough to trigger their being able to take some help to the tribunal. Well I do not think that is fair and I do not think that most members of this Committee would think it was fair. 
I urge the Government to support those two amendments. I urge the Minister to stand and take a call. 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Housing) 
: 
 I would like to respond to the member in respect of the amendments she has put forward. They have been presented with some thought and consideration and they are genuine amendments. I certainly acknowledge that. I will start with the last one which is the issue about tenants having advocates before the Tenancy Tribunal. It might be worth informing the Committee and those listening and the member that I can give six ways in which tenants can get an advocate who may or may not be legal counsel to assist them at the Tenancy Tribunal so that they are in no way disadvantaged. The first way they can have an advocate is if they ask the other party the landlord for consent. If a landlord consents to the tenant having an advocate then the tenant can have an advocate. 
There is another way and that is if the dispute exceeds the sum under this new legislation which is $6000. So if we are talking about $6000 or more being in dispute then the tenant can certainly have an advocate and in fact can have legal counsel. If the landlord is represented by an advocate or by legal counsel then that is the third way that a tenant can be represented by an advocate or legal counsel. Fourthly if the nature of the issue at stake is quite complex then the Tenancy Tribunal can allow the tenant to have an advocate and perhaps be represented by counsel. So if it is a complex issue the tenant can certainly have an advocate. If there is significant disparity between the two parties the tenant can have an advocate. If there is a large disparity between the tenant’s knowledge and ability to defend him or herself and the landlord’s knowledge and ability then the tenant most certainly can have an advocate. We talk about this as a sort of David and Goliath situation. If a tenant is indeed vulnerable and in a “David” situation he or she can have an advocate. If the person is a minor or has a disability then absolutely he or she can be represented by someone approved by the Tenancy Tribunal. A person who is young or who has a disability can have a representative appointed to help him or her. 
The last way is that the tribunal itself can rule in favour of the tenant having an advocate. It can do so for a reason other than the David and Goliath situation or the complexity of the issue or when the other party has legal advocacy or whatever the other reasons are and it can do so even if none of those reasons is fulfilled. So there is no shortage of avenues for a tenant to have an advocate and that is why we do not believe it is worthwhile supporting the amendment that the member Moana Mackey has put forward although I acknowledge that it is a serious issue and I appreciate the fact that she did bring it forward. 
The other issue she talked about was the issue of tenant liability for damage. Labour would like to reduce the liability for damage accidentally caused by a tenant or by a tenant’s guest to the value of 4 weeks’ rent. We are opposing this Supplementary Order Paper as well because limiting the liability for damage would impose unfair costs on the landlord who did not cause the damage was not the one who allowed the tenant’s guest into the house and was not there when the tenant accidentally caused the damage. Why would a landlord the owner of the property get stuck with the fix-up bill for damage caused by a tenant or a tenant’s guest? National believes in personal responsibility and we believe that it is important that tenants meet their obligations in this regard. In the same way we expect—and this legislation makes sure of it—that landlords who are obliged to fix properties and keep them in a decent state of repair should do so as soon as possible. That of course as one of the previous speakers said is one of my challenges and one of Housing New Zealand Corporation’s challenges in Pomare in the Hutt Valley. 
There is also the issue over the Rugby World Cup. Moana Mackey is rightly concerned about the people who during the Sevens competition were asked by the owners of the property to vacate so that they could have in residence visitors from overseas and within New Zealand who could pay quite high fees for accommodation in Wellington. Moana Mackey is concerned that that might happen with other national sporting events particularly the Rugby World Cup. My challenge to the Labour Party and the member if they are concerned about that is to vote for this legislation because the reason why landlords were previously able to do that in Wellington is that they had to give only 24 hours’ notice for someone to move out. This legislation which hopefully Labour will support means that they will have to give 28 days’ notice before someone leaves the accommodation. Boarding-house operators will be very reluctant to ask someone to leave 28 days in advance of a sporting event because they may very well get 27 days of no rent. So we think it is important to support this legislation to fix that problem of people being asked at short notice to leave in order that overseas tourists can take up their positions in that accommodation and pay a much higher rent. This legislation requires boarding-house operators to give 28 days’ notice not 24 hours’ notice. Had that provision been in place when the Wellington Sevens event was on I do not think we would have seen as many people asked to leave the premises they were living in in order to make room for those travelling with deep pockets from overseas. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Before I call Moana Mackey I just ask that the level of discussion around the Chamber be lowered. It is very difficult to hear what speakers are saying. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I thank the Minister of Housing for his comprehensive response. 
I will take a final call in respect of my last amendment which is to clause 9. The Minister and I will never see eye to eye on these issues. On the issue of the Tenancy Tribunal I say to the Minister that it is not happening. If he talks to any of the advocates who are out there they will tell him that it is not happening. I think it would be far cleaner for the Tenancy Tribunal to say that a tenant can have an advocate. The Tenancy Tribunal has powers to exclude people who are problematic; if someone is vexatious and deliberately dragging the matter out the tribunal can deal with that. I think that is far easier than having a convoluted list of A B C D E F and G things saying that someone can have an advocate when we know from the experience of tenants that it is not happening. I think my amendment is a really clean and simple way of dealing with it and I do not think it will cause the problems that the Minister has outlined. 
When it comes to the Rugby World Cup issue I say that yes of course boarding-house tenants will have more protection under the law. But all it means is that a landlord has to give his or her tenants more notice that he will evict them; it does not mean that he cannot evict them. It means that instead of being able to give 24 hours’ notice that a tenant has to get out a landlord now has to give 28 days’ or 90 days’ notice—it is just notice. The Minister did not address my question about tenants already being told that they are going to be given 90 days’ notice. We have had plenty of warning that the Rugby World Cup is coming; it is not something that suddenly jumps up overnight with landlords thinking “Oh here we go.” So I do not think the Minister addressed either of those questions. 
My final amendment is on cleansing orders. The Social Services Committee actually removed the requirement—and Labour voted in favour of this because we thought it seemed sensible given the arguments we had heard—for a tenant to be told that a cleansing order had been put on a property. We had heard a lot of argument about why it was ridiculous why it would be unfair to landlords if something had been cleaned up and the property was all hunky-dory and fine why should we worry tenants—yada yada yada. At the time that kind of made sense and I think the select committee was under quite a lot of pressure to report back; we did not have time to investigate as much as we should have done. 
Since then I have been contacted by a number of people who work in this area who are really really concerned that the select committee took it out and I think it raises enough concern that the Committee of the whole House should put it back in. I have been told that there are not consistent standards. What we are talking about here largely is methamphetamine labs. That is what this measure was trying to address. These labs leave residue that is dangerous and yes we should deal with that. The argument we heard was that the cleansing orders was put on the land information memorandum report. Well tenants do not have enough money to pay for a land information memorandum report in order to see whether there has been a cleansing order. Who will pay up to $300 or $400 on the off chance that there might have been a cleansing order on his or her property for a methamphetamine lab? Tenants simply cannot afford to do that they are not going to and they should not be required to. 
I have discussed this with the Property Investors Federation. Obviously it would rather that this provision was not in there but I have put a 5-year limit on. The federation said that it would be happier with this provision if it had a 5-year limit. So for the 5 years following a cleansing order during that time a tenant would need to be notified that there was a cleansing order on that property and be shown documentation that it had been cleaned up. I think the protection of tenants should be paramount. I think the chemicals we are dealing with here are very dangerous. 
I do not think the select committee made this decision with all of the information before it. Yes it is a requirement under law for a cleansing order to be placed on the land information memorandum. I have been told by councils that that practice is not uniform. Some councils take it off the land information memorandum once the cleansing order has been approved; some leave it on. It is not policed. Some councils do not know when a methamphetamine lab has been found so they do not know that the cleansing order is meant to be on the land information memorandum. 
I say to the Minister that I think there are too many questions in this area. I think the clause the Minister himself drafted and put into the legislation should be put back in until we are certain that this provision is an undue burden. 
As I have said I have spoken to the Property Investors Federation. It has said that a 5-year time limit would make it far more comfortable with this provision. I welcome any short comments that the Minister has on this. I really hope that this is the one amendment that we can get some agreement on. Again I say that on all my other amendments he has not really answered my questions which suggests to me that he does not have an answer to my questions. 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Housing) 
: 
 I will again respond to Moana Mackey’s amendment to clause 9 because it concerns a serious issue and she is taking it seriously. She is not trifling with the Committee at all. Methamphetamine manufacture within some properties including rental properties is a problem. It is something that the Minister of Police is certainly getting on top of but it does happen from time to time. 
It is worth explaining to the Committee what the process is when a meth lab is discovered in a property. The manufacture of methamphetamine is illegal so if anyone is caught manufacturing methamphetamine two things have to happen: firstly that person is busted by the police; secondly the police inform the local district council which has to—having been informed and the police have to inform the district council—issue a cleansing order. The council documents that a cleansing order has been placed over the property. So after a methamphetamine lab is found in a property the police have to go to the council. The council then registers a cleansing order against the property. Once there is a cleansing order the cleansing order goes to the owner of the property. The owner in this case a landlord has to have the property decontaminated to a particular standard—in other words the property is clean to a standard that people can live in it. So there is a process for when methamphetamine labs are discovered. 
In some cases a property cannot be cleaned and it needs to be destroyed. We have seen that happen a few times and in fact we have seen it happen to State houses a couple of times. I think it may have even been in Chris Tremain’s electorate of Napier. The problem of compulsory disclosure of a landlord having to disclose to a tenant that the house had previously been used for methamphetamine manufacture may very well drive landlords and owners of properties not to declare to the police or the local council that they have been used as a meth lab. We prefer that the processes in place incentivise the clean-up of properties used for methamphetamine production. We must incentivise that clean-up or otherwise the destruction of that home. The only way to do that is to have an easy process which we have: on discovery of a meth lab the police find out about it; then the police take action through the courts against the perpetrator the police inform the district council the council issue a cleansing order and the property is cleansed to a very high standard or is otherwise destroyed. That is why we will not support Moana Mackey’s amendment. 
I also note for members that renting out contaminated premises is a breach of the Residential Tenancies Act and the Tenancy Tribunal can terminate the tenancy and award punitive damages to tenants should they be put in unhealthy and unsafe contaminated conditions. So there is a belt and braces approach to this problem. We want to incentivise the reporting of discovery of methamphetamine or other drug manufacturing labs. We do not want to disincentivise reporting of methamphetamine or other drug manufacturing labs within the rental community. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Moana Mackey to clause 9 be agreed to: 
to insert the following subclause after subclause (1): 
(1AA)Section 13A(1) is amended by inserting the following paragraph after paragraph (n): 
“(na)whether an owner or occupier of the premises has been ordered or required under this Act or any other enactment (including but not restricted to section 41 or 82 of the Health Act 1956 or section 124(10)(c) of the Building Act 2004) in the last 5 years to cleanse the premises and if that is the case the nature and date of the order or requirement and the steps if any that have been taken to comply with the order or requirement; and”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 50 
New Zealand Labour 40; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 68 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 4; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Moana Mackey to clause 13A be agreed to: 
to omit this clause and substitute the following clause: 
13ARequiring key money prohibited 
Section 17(4) is amended by omitting paragraph (c) and substituting the following paragraph: 
“(c)any sum required to be paid by the tenant to or at the direction of the landlord in respect of any fee or other charge for services rendered by any solicitor or letting agent relating to the grant or assignment of the tenancy is prohibited:”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 50 
New Zealand Labour 40; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 68 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 4; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Moana Mackey be agreed to: 
to insert the following clause after clause 31: 
31ANew section 51A inserted 
The following section is inserted after section 31: 
“51ATermination of tenancy for provision of short-term accommodation for major event not allowed 
“(1)It shall not be acceptable for a tenancy boarding house or other to be terminated for the purpose of providing short term accommodation for a major event as defined under section 7 of the Major Events Management Act 2007. 
“(2)A tenant who had their tenancy terminated may apply to the Tenancy Tribunal for a finding that it was terminated for the purpose outlined in subsection (1). 
“(3)Where the Tenancy Tribunal finds that a landlord is found to have terminated a tenancy for the purpose outlined in subsection (1) the landlord will be subject to a penalty to the value of the daily rent of that property charged under the tenancy agreement for each day it was rented out for the major event.” 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 50 
New Zealand Labour 40; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 68 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 4; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Moana Mackey to clause 38 be agreed to: 
to add the following subclause after subclause (1): 
(2)Section 59 is amended by adding the following subsection: 
“(5)The tenant liability for damage to their rental premises is limited to 4 weeks’ rent if the Tenancy Tribunal is satisfied the tenant neither caused the damage intentionally or recklessly nor intentionally or recklessly encouraged or permitted another person to damage the premises.” 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 50 
New Zealand Labour 40; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 68 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 4; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Moana Mackey to clause 63 be agreed to: 
to omit “$6000” and substitute “$100”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 50 
New Zealand Labour 40; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 68 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 4; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Moana Mackey to clause 63 be agreed to: 
to add the following subclause after subclause (1): 
(2)Section 93 is amended by repealing subsection (7). 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 50 
New Zealand Labour 40; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 68 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 4; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 110 in the name of the Hon Maurice Williamson and Supplementary Order Paper 120 in the name of the Hon Phil Heatley be agreed to. 
Amendments agreed to. 
Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 to 3 as amended agreed to. 
Bill reported with amendment. 
Report adopted.