Twyford Phil: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 24 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11113. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): Recognising that we are going to treat the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill as one part for this debate including the preliminary clauses I want to make some opening comments about this debate. We have made it clear all the way through that Labour is supporting this bill because we think that it long overdue that the standards of New Zealand’s rental housing are brought into the 21st century. We believe that it is long past time for mandatory standards to be set for rental properties public and private and that there is a strong public support for the idea of making sure that rental properties—whether they are Housing New Zealand the council or community organisations as well as those in the private rental market—are warm and dry. The reason is this: the latest estimates from Otago University are that 50000 children are hospitalised every year in New Zealand and many of them are hospitalised with preventable infectious and respiratory diseases that are associated with poverty overcrowding and cold damp mouldy homes.We have had many debates in this House about this issue in recent years and I have to say I am pleased to finally see the National Government acknowledging there is a problem that needs to be solved here and this bill makes some attempt to set some standards. But we on this side of the Chamber are bitterly disappointed that the bill does not go far enough. We agree with the comments that were made by Dr Russell Wills the Children’s Commissioner who came to Parliament and said that Nick Smith’s Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill is a broken promise to the nation’s children and that it is a wasted opportunity to do the job properly. One of the things we are going to be talking about in this debate is what is not in this bill but should be and we will be doing our best to link that to the specific provisions in the bill.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member had better start fairly soon.PHIL TWYFORD: What the bill does is set standards for insulation and that is good in itself but the problem is that without setting standards for heating and for ventilation all we are doing with this bill is insulating many houses that are cold and damp and miserable. That is why we believe there should have been ventilation standards in here and there should have been heating standards. That is quite doable and much of the work has been done particularly by the metro councils.Five different local authorities have done a comprehensive trial of the warrant of fitness concept. There are lots of data that could be drawn on including the Minister for Building and Housing’s own trial of Housing New Zealand properties but sadly for a spurious reason—the Minister thinks it will be an unwarranted and onerous burden on landlords that may cause rents to go up and we will deal with that argument in the course of this debate—this bill focuses far too narrowly on insulation standards and there are many provisions in Part 1 of the bill that deal with the machinery that will implement those insulation standards.There are other issues that we will deal with in the course of this debate. One of them is the grace period that this bill gives to landlords. There is a 3-year grace period. We believe that is far too long. A year’s grace period would be better as is reflected in Andrew Little’s Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2). We could then allow the changes to be implemented as tenancy agreements turn over. I think the average length of a tenancy is around 10 months. If you phased in the changes that are required when tenancies turn over in a very short period of time the great majority of rental properties would meet the required standards.The other issue we want to talk about in more detail is in the schedules and it relates to the regulation-setting powers that this bill puts in place. It is quite sensible for things like insulation standards—and heating and ventilation standards if there were heating and ventilation standards—to be set by regulation. [Bell rung]The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Just before I call the member I do want to remind members that the Committee stage of a bill is not the point when members can speak about what is not in the bill. They have got to speak about the bill the technical clauses in it and the amendments to it. By way of advice I would refer members to Metiria Turei’s Supplementary Order Paper to the bill and in particular the amendment to add subclause (2B) to clause 13 which probably will help members.PHIL TWYFORD: The only remaining comment I wanted to make in the opening contribution is really about the regulation-setting powers and to say that it is perfectly logical and reasonable for these kinds of standards to be set by regulation because standards will change as new technologies new design and new products are available and as social expectations develop.The unfortunate thing in relation to this bill is that the draft regulations that have been released at the same time as this bill demonstrate an intention by the Government to allow a giant loophole in the insulation standards that this bill propagates. Unfortunately it is going to allow hundreds of thousands of properties that are already insulated to the redundant 1978 standard which is insulation that is not very thick and the draft regulations which have been released alongside this bill will mean those properties will not have to be upgraded to the current 2008 building standard which would allow insulation that is much thicker. This bill is effectively legislating into place redundant and inadequate standards for legislation. Thank you.