van Velden BrookeBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): I rise on behalf of the ACT Party this morning in opposition to the Residential Property Managers Bill at the first reading. The ACT Party is opposing this bill because further regulation of housing is not going to solve the structural issues that we have with housing in this country. This bill is going to make it more costly for people who are struggling already to afford affordable homes than the status quo. That's because this bill—it says it seeks to create a [new] regulatory regime designed to improve the provision of residential property management services in New Zealand … by establishing minimum entry requirements for residential property managers ensuring that residential property managers meet professional standards of practice and providing accountability by establishing independent transparent and effective complaints and disciplinary process" etc. etc. But the Government has I think acknowledged the real problem at the start of the explanatory note of the bill and it says that "Almost one third of New Zealand households live in rental accommodation and housing affordability challenges mean that an increasing proportion of households are expected to need to rent long-term." But this isn't going to help people who are needing to rent. They have addressed that more people are needing to rent because housing affordability is a real issue so let's address that problem rather than looking at the homes that we already have to rent and try and make them more expensive by regulating them further. So I like the goal overall but regulating the property managers is not going to have a good outcome for people who are renting. So how would we actually make it better for people who do want secure affordable homes? Well you've got to allow more people to be able to build more homes because if there's more competition that drives out bad practice. Now you take an example of someone currently going along to view a home—maybe it is being managed by a property manager and there are 40 or 50 people queuing up to have a look at this home. Now that's a lot of people needing a secure affordable place to live. But imagine a scenario where you're turning up and it's one or two people looking for a place to live; not 40 or 50. That's because if you have more homes for people to live in the options are so much wider for people and it drives out bad practice because if you do get a bad landlord you can choose not to live in that home anymore and go somewhere else. At the moment I know a lot of people struggle because there isn't enough housing supply. So we've got to fix the fundamental issue that's holding us back—and that's because we're not actually building enough homes.Now the ACT Party has solutions to address this and we've addressed the issue that the housing crisis is an infrastructure crisis. We're not going to see capacity built at the rate that we need it to be built unless we address infrastructure and that's what my Housing Infrastructure (GST-sharing) Bill was supposed to enable—unfortunately it was shot down by this Labour Government but I'm hopeful that we can bring it back with National in the next Government. That will help to address the fundamental underlying issue of why we don't have enough homes; give more people more options. Give students more options for places to live and give families more homes for them to choose to live in. If landlords are then competing tenants will be able to move and our standards overall will increase.But let's look at the effect of this policy—and it is that you'll end up with more regulation which will mean more cost on to a landlord and more cost then on to a tenant. And we know from the regulatory impact disclosure statements that it says that there will be significant cost components the most significant being the cost of becoming licensed in the first instance and then ongoing sector compliance costs. Now we know from a variety of regulation that this Government's passed through that costs then have flow-on effects and it's not borne by just the property manager. The property manager will then increase rents through the landlord needing to find another way of trying to pass on that cost. We know it from the interest deductibility rules that this means that it will have a flow-on effect: hundreds of dollars every fortnight to a couple who is already struggling with a cost of living crisis. But we've got to make sure that we have more access to homes rather than making it more affordable for the homes that we already have so let's address the supply problem. The other issue that I note—that a range of people that I've spoken to in the sector are concerned by—is the ability for this to be extended not just for property managers but for private landlords in general. I noted from the Cabinet paper from the Minister it said that in her view "The increased enforcement powers and penalties for large-scale landlords for those with six or more properties that came into force through the RTA Amendment Act in February last year should be allowed to bed in before further regulation of private landlords is considered." So they're not ruling it out completely; they're just saying "Let's wait a few years and maybe more people will end up being regulated"—but then we end up with an additional problem. But the Government always seems to think they're exempt—there's another standard for property managers than there is for the Government which has nearly 70000 homes themselves and this law has an explicit carve-out and it says that you know "If they're bad property managers that are setting a bad standard well it's different for us" and it's because Kāinga Ora we know is actually the biggest slumlord around and they want an exemption for themselves.And I'll just give you one basic statistic. I found this out through written parliamentary questions—in the last year 243 of 257 of the Kāinga Ora homes that were tested for meth contamination tested positive. That's a very very large percentage of homes that are positive for meth contamination. Now would you not consider that Kāinga Ora is the largest slumlord? And they know that they could possibly never meet the same standards that they're expecting of somebody else—so it's constantly one rule for Kāinga Ora and another for other agencies. We also know that so many people are really struggling and they can't even get into one of the Kāinga Ora homes so they're in emergency housing and they're in transitional housing. Neither of those even need to meet the healthy home standards. So we have people who will be forced out of a home that they could have afforded with a private rental—maybe into something that's even worse for them. We've got to address the underlying issue of why we don't have enough homes and why we can't build to the capacity that we need to allow more competition and more homes for people to live in—whether they're a student a family or just a single woman living in Wellington or somebody who's retired but can't actually afford their own home. Let's allow for more choice for people at all stages of their lives rather than thinking another ban another tax another regulation is going to solve the problem; it's just a cheap band-aid over a problem. We've actually got to look at those structural issues and that's what we do in ACT rather than looking at more regulation. With the last few moments that I have I just wanted to point to clause 142 because I know a large number of real estate agents have raised this with me in concern—that we are once again seeing the Treaty and the Treaty principles creep into every form of legislation possible. And it says in here that "The joint Ministers must appoint members to [a] board who collectively have knowledge and experience of and capability and perspectives of Māori and Te Tiriti o Waitangi / the Treaty of Waitangi."—when it's about real estate agents and about the administration of the Residential Property Managers Act. Is it not more important that people on this board have knowledge of residential property and real estate agents; not the Treaty at the heart of everything? We have to be practical and this is what people up and down New Zealand are telling us they are so concerned about.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order. The member's time is completed."