Sepuloni Carmel: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSepuloni Carmel: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 08 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8629. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I just want to point out that the reason that Government has no problems with pandering to slum landlords is that it is a slum landlord. The Government has been a slum landlord with our Housing New Zealand houses. I want to remind Mr Alfred Ngaro because I am sure he knows this that just about every single case that comes through our electorate offices in west Auckland now is a housing case. Four years ago I was a list MP for Waitakere. We never had this number of housing issues like we do now. Just about every single one of them is about people who cannot find a house or they are in homes that are making them sick.Iain Lees-Galloway: Thank you Nick Smith.CARMEL SEPULONI: Thank you Nick Smith for being responsible for all of those people who are coming to us with letters from their GPs letters from their hospitals pointing out the fact that they must be provided with healthy housing because their children are getting sick.I just want to point out to that slum landlord over there that actually I think it is disgusting following on from the Emma-Lita Bourne case that that Government is still not keeping a record of the number of people who are putting in for transfers to Housing New Zealand houses because of the fact that their children have health issues due to the conditions that they are living in. We asked how many transfers have been put in for that reason. The Government said following on from the Emma-Lita Bourne case that it is not collecting that information. Well it should be collecting that information.Today we are talking about private rentals but looking at this it really is a reflection of what we have been provided with by the Government. Recently I had a mother contact me whose 4-year-old was in hospital with respiratory problems. She was going to be released because of the fact that at Waitakere Hospital there were too many people in there and the hospital could not provide everyone with a bed. The hospital said: “Look we would like to keep her in but we can’t. She is going to have to go home.” That mother was so scared because she knew that as soon as she got her daughter home to their house which had dampness problems and black mould all over it her child would get sick again and she would be back in hospital. She went home on the Thursday; she was back in hospital on the Saturday.I am going to point out to Mr Smith that actually this bill does not go far enough. This is typical of the National Government as my colleague Phil Twyford has pointed out. The Government does just enough to look like it is doing something it forces us to have to vote for it but it is not enough and it does not address the problem that we are facing in this country.I have had tenants come to me who are living in leaky buildings. They are living in leaky buildings in west Auckland that have been bought by landlords—bought for cheap because no one wants to buy them. But the landlords buy them knowing that they can still rent them out for market rentals. It is disgusting. These people living in these houses—I have seen cases of rheumatic fever. I have seen numerous cases of children who had never had asthma or respiratory problems until they were living in these homes. These are the types of landlords whom that Minister should be trying to legislate against. That Minister should be doing something in relation to that but he is not.A landlord or a person can purchase a leaky building and rent it out for a market rent because we have such a demand for housing. People are desperate and they will take whatever they can get. Do you know who ends up in these houses? It is our poorest families—our families that are not first in line to be able to get the healthier homes the nicer homes the nicer rental homes Mr Smith. They are the ones who end up in these unhealthy homes. So that Minister and that Government should be ashamed of themselves.My colleague Phil Twyford who is working in west Auckland as the Te Atatū MP like me has seen so many cases come through the door where we have landlords who are not acting in an ethical way and who do need to be held to account by responsible legislation. I am going to share another example of an irresponsible landlord. This one has three houses on the same street and is renting out rooms to people who are on parole and also people who have mental health conditions who find it difficult to get housing elsewhere. But the housing that they are in is not only unhealthy but is causing problems in terms of the number of people who are being squeezed into those homes. It is causing problems for that whole street that whole neighbourhood and I wish—I wish—that the National Government had the courage to do something to go a little bit further than it has gone here.Sadly this policy is the kind of grudging half measure that has become the trademark of National’s housing policy and not just the National party’s housing policy but also its social development policy and its education policy. In relation to its social development policy I can refer to the so-called Support for Children in Hardship Bill which really did very little to address the issue we have with 305000 children living in poverty. Instead it was an attempt to make it look like the Government was doing something. As I said this Government has no courage to make bold decisions. National simply has no real commitment to housing reform and standards.The Government actually should have voted for Phil Twyford’s Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill earlier this year but it did not. Instead of the bill we are debating today which is a weak half measure Government members should actually vote for Andrew Little’s Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) which will be debated in early 2016. That is Labour’s bill that will see standards for both insulation and heating. I do not know how National Government MPs live with themselves on a daily basis particularly those ones who are electorate MPs or even list MPs based in poorer areas knowing the very real reality that our poorer families especially are facing out there and the implications that that is having for their children.I want to point out that at the moment we are talking predominantly about the health issues in relation to children but actually there is a growing number of New Zealanders not in their own homes. A growing number of New Zealanders are being forced to rent—in particular I am looking at our senior citizens who are going into retirement without owning homes. This is a very real issue for them too. Respiratory problems amongst our senior citizens are a huge issue. Unless the Government can lift the standards required in private rentals then we are going to see not only children as the direct victims of these types of housing environments and low living standards but also our senior citizens who are going to be increasingly visiting our hospitals with respiratory problems because they are living in substandard rental accommodation.There is a massive need to make rental properties warm and dry. The Building Research Association of New Zealand says that only 22 percent of rental properties are in good condition and 44 percent are in poor condition. Nick Smith justifies his pandering to slum landlords by saying that setting standards for heating and insulation would cost too much and push rents up. But a heat pump and insulation for a three-bedroom home would cost around $5000 and last 15 years. Over that time a home would bring in more than a quarter of a million dollars in rental income. It really is a small investment in an asset that generates a lot of revenue.Listening to Mr Smith talking earlier about Labour’s measure which was a full warrant of fitness for private rentals he said it could not be considered because it was not considered to be the most cost-effective mechanism for achieving the outcomes required. How can that not be considered cost-effective when every day this low standard of private rentals is costing us lives is costing us admissions into hospitals and is costing us the health of New Zealanders—not just our children but also our senior citizens and a whole lot of people who are living in mouldy damp homes? So actually Mr Smith perhaps there should be a conversation that goes on with our Minister of Health because I am sure if they are able to reconcile what is happening in health and what is happening in housing then they will work out that the most cost-effective thing to do would be to implement a full warrant of fitness for private rentals like Labour has suggested for a long time and will continue to do so. Thank you.