Upston LouiseHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise to speak against the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill in the second reading and I want to go through the National Party's reasons why not. But I want to just put on record you know our serious concern around the process in this instance because what happens with a piece of legislation in the first reading is it's introduced it goes off to the select committee submissions are heard and as part of the process within the select committee the select committee has the ability to improve the bill. The member before me talked about a couple of submissions that were part of that process. So it's somewhat disturbing that if that member was advocating for it so strongly why that change wasn't made in the select committee because that's where through that process Parliament has the ability to ensure through officials' advice and through detailed assessment in some instances the referral back to submitters so that they have the opportunity to also present their view on the additional changes. So instead what we have here 3 o'clock second to last day of the sitting of the 52nd Parliament we have a 15-page Supplementary Order Paper dropped on the table literally seconds into the first speaker of the Opposition party. So it is particularly concerning under urgency that the Government continues to follow shoddy process around lawmaking and we've seen unfortunately on far too many occasions that's resulted in legislation coming back to the House for further changes to fix it.So I do want to start my comments by just reiterating Simon O'Connor's concern about a shoddy process. This particular piece of legislation the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill in the National Party's view unfortunately alters the balance quite significantly between landlords and tenants. That is a really important relationship and it's an important relationship to have in balance. What we don't disagree with is the fact that tenants need to have—because there are more people renting we do need to have a situation where there is longer rental tenures available. But the difficulty is with legislation like this unfortunately it is tilting the balance too far the other way.I actually had a conversation with a constituent at the airport the other day. He and his wife have one rental property they've saved for a long time to get it and unfortunately this piece of legislation will force them out of the market. Now this is a landlord. They're not the fat cats that the other side always says. This is a typical New Zealand landlord—what we call mum and dad investor".Tāmati Coffey: A business owner.Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Might have one property one rental.Tāmati Coffey: Business.Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Oh the other side don't like businesses. They hate the idea that anyone could be in business. This person's not in business; no they're a mum and dad investor. They've got one property. They pride themselves on their relationship with their tenants and they go above and beyond to support the tenants in that property that they own.Unfortunately this particular piece of legislation 71 percent of the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand members were opposed to the one clause—Hon Member: Surprise surprise.Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Wait but wait—71 percent of landlords opposed ditching the no-cause 90-day notice. Same survey 45 percent of tenants also didn't agree with it. Their concern was antisocial behaviour of the neighbours of the house they were renting. So this particular bill—and I want to tell you about one of the unintended consequences that I find really disturbing because what it means is landlords will be far more careful in terms of who they rent their property to and it is their property—it is their property. So unfortunately some of our most vulnerable New Zealanders who are trying to get into a rental property will be shut out of the rental market because of this policy.So let's just have a quick look at the housing situation at the moment. So we've got 18000 New Zealanders on the waiting list for the social housing register. On average they will be on it for 213 days. That is more than three times what it was when this Labour Government came in and they've got their heads down now. Emergency housing grants—the now Minister of Social Development had said the Labour Party's comprehensive housing plan would mean that there wouldn't be funding spent on emergency housing grants; four times as many—Hon Peeni Henare: Who sold the State homes?Hon LOUISE UPSTON: —pre-COVID. Oh and the State houses 146 by the Labour Party who said they would stop the sell-off of State houses. And those that you want to claim have been built it's great that we've got more State houses built; half of them were started by National so you can't claim credit for them.So unfortunately this piece of legislation does nothing to support vulnerable tenants getting into a new property. The balance has been tilted too far the other way. We've been listening to landlords we've been listening to tenants and unfortunately this legislation will mean there are fewer properties available and rents will continue to go up."