Turei Metiria: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 02 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9283. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]1.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister for Building and Housing: Has the Minister received advice on how many children’s lives would be saved and how many child hospital admissions would be prevented by a rental housing warrant of fitness; if yes what are those figures?Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): My advice is that the Government’s proposal to require rental properties to be insulated would save 18 deaths per year and the mandatory requirement for smoke alarms three deaths per year. The analysis also shows savings of $12 million per year in hospital admissions. The estimates are not exclusively for children. It is not possible to give a single answer to the proposition of a warrant of fitness because it depends on what the specific requirements of that warrant of fitness would be. My advice is that the greatest benefits are from insulation and smoke alarms and that is why those requirements are to become law. We do not support requirements like those in the member’s warrant of fitness bill that would prohibit renting a house unless it had glass visibility strips on windows because we think it is over the top.Metiria Turei: So can the Minister confirm that he does not have any advice on the cost of children’s deaths and hospitalisations versus the cost of a rental warrant of fitness for housing?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The analysis that the Government has done in my ministry includes not just the deaths of children but also the deaths of all New Zealanders. For instance I am advised that in fact the greatest benefit—in terms of saving lives—from our requirement that all rental properties be insulated is actually from older New Zealanders and influenza-type diseases and I think it is proper that we count the lives of all those who are saved as well as children.Metiria Turei: Does the Minister agree that even one child dying from a cold damp mouldy house is one child too many?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Yes and that is why this Government is going to require that those 180000 rental properties that are not currently insulated but can be shall be by 1 July 2019. That is why the existing housing regulations require that homes be free from dampness and mould and that is why our bill before Parliament will require my ministry to actually be able to enforce those regulations better. What we do not want is a bureaucratic warrant of fitness that will add $100 million of costs in administration which will be passed on to the very tenants that we are trying to help.Metiria Turei: Does the Minister dispute the statement in Children’s Commissioner Russell Wills’ submission on the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill that insulation and proper heating which would be included in a rentals warrant of fitness would save low-income families $800 a year in health costs alone?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The error in the Children’s Commissioner’s analysis is that if you impose costs on landlords—for instance if we required every landlord in the country—Metiria Turei: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. He is not addressing the question—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Would both members resume their seats. Can I ask the member to repeat the question for the benefit of the Minister.Metiria Turei: Does the Minister dispute the statement in Children’s Commissioner Russell Wills’ submission that insulation and proper heating which would be included in a rentals warrant of fitness would save low-income families $800 a year in health costs alone?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Yes I do dispute that because the flaw in the Children’s Commissioner’s analysis is that if we imposed a requirement on every single landlord in New Zealand to provide for instance a new heat pump in every one of those properties that cost would be passed on in the rents. What you do need to include is the regulatory costs that are passed on to families and not simply pretend that somehow when we impose regulatory requirements it is a free good.Joanne Hayes: How many people have been killed in house fires in recent years and what advice has he had about the presence of smoke alarms in these tragedies?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: There have been an estimated 47 deaths from house fires in rental properties over the past 6 years. Half of those had no smoke alarms and so the Government’s requirement for those to be installed by 1 July this year will save many lives. To ensure that we get the maximum safety dividend from this new requirement we are also requiring that the new smoke alarms be the long-life ones because there has been tragic loss of life where smoke alarms have been present but the batteries have either been taken out or not been replaced and there is an extra safety dividend by requiring those long-life smoke alarms.Metiria Turei: Why does the Minister consider that his bill will be enough when even once it has passed rental homes will still be cold damp and mouldy because they will not be properly heated and they will not be properly ventilated?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The part that the member seems to overlook on an issue like ventilation is that it is actually about the tenant using the property wisely as well as the property being provided with ventilation. So what we have provided for quite sensibly as part of the package of the bill that requires home insulation and requires smoke alarms and that also enforces the existing law around those standards is a good-quality information campaign both to remind landlords of their current responsibilities around quality and also to remind tenants about the things they can do to contribute to homes being warmer drier and safer.Joanne Hayes: How much money has this Government invested in retrofitted home insulation and how does that compare with the previous Government?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: This Government has spent $45 million on insulating every State home that could be insulated and a further $450 million on the Warm Up New Zealand: Heat Smart programme of subsidies coming to a total of $495 million. I am advised that over the 9 years of the previous Government it spent $31 million. That is this Government has spent 16 times as much money on making our homes warmer drier and safer.Metiria Turei: What is his response to a submitter on the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill who today described living for some years in a State house that is insulated—ceiling and floor—but that remains consistently mouldy because of poor heating and poor ventilation inside the house and whose only advice from Housing New Zealand on ongoing complaints is that he should use Janola to wash it off despite the mould returning—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The question is quite long enough.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I would say to that member and to that submitter that the current housing regulations require homes to have adequate ventilation and for those homes to be free of dampness. One of the important provisions in that very bill before the select committee is to give us greater capacity to enforce the existing regulations rather than creating an expensive bureaucratic warrant of fitness as the member proposes.Metiria Turei: Is not the Minister’s refusal to implement a proper rental housing warrant of fitness in light of all the advice he has received that it is necessary for child health and well-being the worst kind of Government penny-pinching and the kind that will cost New Zealand children their lives?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No quite the opposite. What the cost-benefit analysis has said is that home insulation makes good sense and we are doing it. It says that smoke alarms make good sense and we are doing it. But what we are not going to do is silly petty provisions like that member’s bill which has inspectors going around to see whether we have got glass visibility strips on every one of our windows and fining New Zealand homeowners for provisions that I bet the majority of members of this House do not even have in their own homes.