Bradford Sue: Residential Tenancies (Damage Insurance) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Bradford Sue: Residential Tenancies (Damage Insurance) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:630;Page:2743] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 On behalf of the Green Party I welcome the introduction of this bill to Parliament. We will be voting for it and I hope sufficient other parties will do likewise so that it can proceed to select committee for deeper consideration. I also congratulate Maryan Street on getting a useful member’s bill like this into the House so early in her parliamentary career. I hope it succeeds whether as a bill in its own right or as part of the broader revamping of the Residential Tenancies Act which I hope will happen soon. I just hope that Ms Street’s bill does not share the fate of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill that deals with boarding houses which sank into the mire of parliamentary process in the Social Services Committee and has never been seen again since it came out of that committee. 
The Green Party supports this bill from a fundamental belief that New Zealanders deserve secure and affordable long-term rental accommodation as a valid housing option and that both tenants and landlords deserve to be treated fairly by the State and by each other. However we ought to accept that residential tenants are on the whole an economically and socially vulnerable sector. Landlords with admitted exceptions and insurance companies tend to have considerably more economic power than tenants. 
Over the years there have been a number of cases in the tenancy tribunal that have resulted in decisions regarding damage to a landlord’s property that have been blatantly unfair to tenants. For example one of the earliest was tenancy tribunal decision No. 33/87. In that case when damage was caused by subtenants the chief tenant was found liable by the tribunal despite having no responsibility whatsoever for the damage caused. Cases of this nature culminated in a District Court appeal from the tenancy tribunal in September 2002 in which Judge MacAskill in the Dunedin District Court specifically suggested legislative change as a mechanism to address what is an obvious injustice in the law. I commend Maryan Street for taking up Judge MacAskill’s observations about the inadequacy of the law in this area and for taking the opportunity of using the member’s bill process to rectify what is a clear inequity. 
The Green Party believes that the principle behind this bill is totally fair. Insurance cover should be extended to include the interests of tenants not just those of landlords and tenants should be covered for all situations except damage that they have intentionally caused themselves. One tenant should not be required to pay compensation for damage caused by another for whom they have no responsibility as can currently occur. Landlords should be required to insure against damage caused to their property by tenants or their subtenants or visitors. 
This bill does not impose any additional costs on landlords. As I hope members will realise—and indeed I have heard some of the National Party members say this—the costs of insuring against tenant liability for damage can be passed on to the tenant by means of rent. Nothing in this bill will stop that from happening. It will not necessarily be an extra cost for the landlord. 
What this legislation proposes is an exemption from the insurance covering tenant liability when damage has been caused intentionally by a tenant. That is simply reasonable and is consistent with other legislative provisions such as the recovery of a debt incurred as a result of fraud which is treated differently in law from the recovery of a normal civil debt. 
However we do have some reservations in the area of the limitation of this provision to intentional damage. What if for example damage has been caused unintentionally but by an unlawful act such as a tenant operating a P lab that explodes in the property or through a grossly negligent act such as a drunk tenant smoking in bed and passing out and fire taking hold? Should the landlord’s insurance company bear the brunt of the cost of damage caused by such unlawful or grossly negligent acts? These are matters for the Social Services Committee to consider but I do note that we have some concerns at this stage about this particular aspect of the bill. However I am sure they can be sorted out. 
There is no question that overall the bill is sound in principle. It will work to rectify a longstanding injustice and the Green Party welcomes its introduction. I look forward to what I hope will be a substantial consideration of it by our select committee shortly.