Shaw JamesHon JAMES SHAW (Minister for Climate Change): Thank you Mr Speaker. Our primary responsibility as a Parliament and as a Government is to keep the number of New Zealanders with COVID-19 as low as possible and what that means obviously is that people need to stay in their homes. Today more than a third of New Zealanders will be preparing to self-isolate in a house that they rent. The amendments that are in this bill are significant and necessary protections so that people who are renting can stay in their homes no matter what for an extended period of time. New Zealanders also need certainty and certainly given the number of New Zealanders who are renters it is right now an absolute no-brainer to say that this is no time for rent increases. There will be very few Kiwis who will be asking for a pay rise over the coming months and I think it makes no sense for landlords to ask people to pay more rent either at that time. So what this bill does is it gives people certainty by protecting them from unfair eviction. There will be many many New Zealanders over the coming weeks who are facing a significant reduction in their incomes and that will put many of them at risk and it will mean that many of them struggle to make their rent. And at this time of crisis no one should lose their home through no fault of their own because they're struggling to pay rent because the circumstances of the crisis have put them in that position. So I'm very glad to say that this bill will ensure that if someone or a family cannot pay their rent for 60 days then they will not be evicted. Even then the Tenancy Tribunal will have new powers to consider the circumstances under which a tenant was unable to pay the rent and to take those into consideration before any decision is made around terminating a tenancy. I think that that is absolutely critical and New Zealanders need to know that. People will go to work when they can; people will therefore be able to pay rent when they can. The bill also protects people who pay rent by preventing a landlord from evicting a tenant for the next three months on the basis of simply wanting to sell the property or if they just want to move back into the property themselves. Also if someone is unwell due to COVID-19 then they have the right to stay in that home. So that cannot be an excuse for an eviction of someone from the house that they rent. Those things should almost go without saying. I mean this is an extraordinary time so I'm very pleased that we're introducing these measures. Many MPs particularly constituency MPs have been receiving a lot of questions from people who are very worried of course and a lot of them don't actually understand what these measures are. So I think it's important for all of us to start to communicate with people as much as we can to say Here are the measures that are being introduced: if you're renting you will be protected. If you're a landlord here are what the constraints are during the course of this time of crisis." You know New Zealanders have always supported each other during times of crisis. This is a very critical way of doing that. Of course if you can keep paying rent do keep paying rent. That is important. Having people who pay rent means that people can pay rates. That in turn funds essential council services like picking up the rubbish and making sure that we get water which is what we all need to keep going. Rent also of course pays for emergency repairs and maintenance on the house that you live in. It provides an income for other people who need to get through this. But the same goes for landlords. If the people who are living in the house that you own lose a significant amount of income they will need your help and attention and your understanding. So in that situation it really is important for tenants and landlords to work together to find a solution and it will work out as long as we trust each other as people and as long as we work together. Those are the measures that I think are the most critical parts of this bill and I'm very proud to support them.I do just want to draw attention also to some of the education measures that are contained in this bill which I know is dear to your own heart Mr Speaker. There are 2500 school board entities and 4000 early childhood education centres around the country and many of them have wanted to close early or haven't known what the situation is and have been saying "Where can we get some advice on this?" It makes absolute sense right now for that decision to be made centrally or to be able to be made centrally and to provide that certainty to all of those boards and to all of those organisations around the country. I know having been in a number of conversations with the Minister of Education over the course of the last several weeks that it was not a decision made lightly to close the schools and early childhood education centres around New Zealand. It's not as straightforward as just saying you know that there is a risk here and we need to close that down. There are huge social equity issues at play. There are inherent risks also health risks of closing schools and all of those I know the Minister of Education grappled with before coming to the decision that was made on Monday. It does of course make perfect sense for that then to be carried out around the country and it is important that this bill allows that function to occur and to let the Secretary for Education decide rather than allowing individual boards of trustees to make those decisions in this time. The third thing that I just wanted to draw attention to in this bill is that many New Zealanders are now discovering the joys of video conferencing and many of its—Hon Chris Hipkins: Or the hazard.Hon JAMES SHAW: —or the hazard—frustrations as well. It is obviously really critical in a lockdown situation to enable decision makers to be able to video conference to carry out their decisions. And of course Parliament is no exception to that and we're introducing things like video conferencing for select committees in the future and so on. So those are good. This is the age of Google Hangouts and Zoom calls. I will just say that Zoom calls work extremely well when it comes to the operating of a business and so on and so forth but gamers will be particularly delighted that Google Hangouts has created a d20 dice rolling function actually embedded in the software. So people are going to be using Zoom during the day when they're working before switching to Google Hangouts in the evening in order to stay connected with each other that way. I think that the changes that are introduced into this bill to enable decision makers to meet virtually is important as well. Like I said I just want to reiterate the most important thing is that the bill provides safety and certainty to people who rent their homes. It introduces necessary changes to enable the Secretary for Education to be able to handle the crisis that we're going through and also makes sure that decision makers are able to meet virtually as well as in person. So it is a very sensible bill and I'm very pleased to commend it to the House."