Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Stoked to hear members of the ACT Party talking about contracts and about the likes of Te Tiriti o Waitangi because I would have thought that the ostensible libertarian party in this House would be in favour of consistently honouring the founding contract of this country.But today is a good day although unfortunately it comes far too little far too late. So what we have here with the proposals for this register and these regulations around property managers is a really important start.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Epitaph for the Government.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: But it could have come 15 years ago—and I will come to you Gerry Brownlee—because what we had 15 years ago—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Oh please don't. I'm leaving.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Just wait for it—what we had 15 years ago in the debates around the Real Estate Agents Bill now Act was actually some really fascinating propositions from members in the House at that time. So I just want to quote from the committee of the whole House during that debate and I quote here: This bill is not worth much if it does not address the real issues being faced particularly by young people who have to deal with property managers. The submitters to this bill did not consider that the provisions for property management in the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 (RTA)—which of course relate primarily to relationships between parties as tenants owners and property managers—are sufficient to ensure that consumers are protected in property management transactions. So what does the Minister propose to do about it? He proposes to conduct a review. Well that does not provide much comfort to those people who deal on a day-to-day basis with property managers. National's view is that this bill should include property managers within it and without doing that the Minister's fine words about cowboys and land sharks remain very pertinent." That is a quote from the Hon Jacqui Dean and in that same debate we had exactly the same propositions backed up by none other than the Hon Gerry Brownlee who was in favour of regulating property managers within the residential or the Real Estate Agents Act. That was 15 years ago.We had members of the Opposition who then were proposing that we needed to regulate property managers within a regime that we were proposing to regulate real estate agents. Well guess what! They then got into Government and they put Associate Minister the Hon Nathan Guy Associate Minister of Justice in charge of doing that review which they had critiqued at that point in time. And guess what! That review found—and there's a press release from the Beehive which those who are interested in crawling back through the archives can find—well the Hon Nathan Guy said "Don't worry nothing to see here because the majority of complaints for property managers tend to be lesser than $15000. So don't worry. Nothing to see here nothing to regulate." And if that is not a shining example of how we in this country continue to kick the can further and further down the road for those who continue to be the most structurally marginalised and disempowered then I do not know what is. Because what we're talking about here is a residential property market in the rental space that caters for 1.5 million New Zealanders: one-third of New Zealanders rent. And we know that those New Zealanders spend more of their income disproportionately on older colder and mouldier properties. And in my patch in Auckland Central it's more than half of my constituents.We also know based on written questions to the Minister that the average tenancy in this country is approximately 16 months. If you want to talk about people's capacity to build their community their physical and their mental health a sense of hope and security and planning into the future you need a stable home. This bill goes somewhat of the way to ensuring that we address that imbalance and that power dynamic—that was identified even by the National Party 15 years ago—but it doesn't go far enough. The reason that it doesn't go far enough is that in the Government's own initial consultation documents they couldn't identify whether we had 2000 or 7000 property managers in this country. It's quite a big problem when we don't have meaningful data because we can't create meaningful evidence-based policy to respond to those issues as outlined in that data and in that evidence.But we also know that property managers directly manage approximately 40 percent of rentals in this country. That means that the Government knows full well that in excluding private landlords they are excluding approximately 60 percent of the rental market in this country from those regulations which they themselves identify are critical for ensuring that for example there is awareness about the likes of the healthy home standards and other rights and responsibilities under the Residential Tenancies Act.So it will come as no surprise here that throughout the select committee stage the Greens will be working incredibly hard in organising with renters across this country to ensure that their voices are heard and that this bill is extended to include those private landlords who operate in the market. Because what we know full well—and actually to allude to some of the conversations that I've had with property managers because many in this House already have including the member of the ACT Party. What I hear time and again is that actually those engaged in property management tend to also be associated to real estate agencies and they have a professional standard to uphold. And it's not always the case that those who are engaged in being private landlords are aware of those legislative responsibilities and liabilities that they may have and therefore that in practice there potentially tends to be the case that property managers even while being unregulated may operate from a more professional starting point than those private landlords. Because the only barrier to entry to being a landlord in this country at present is the capital outlay necessary to do it. There is no necessary expertise there is no necessary qualification or otherwise. And if we are to impose that on property managers so too we should impose it on private landlords.That again should come as no surprise to anybody who has been following the campaigning that we have been doing to uphold the rights of renters in this country. We have these forms of registers for property managers and landlords in many countries including in the UK. I believe that Northern Ireland explains their register for property managers and landlords as "A central repository for landlords and for tenants to know what their rights and responsibilities are and to prevent issues cropping up further down the track." Imagine the efficiency gains that we could get out of preventing things from escalating to the Tenancy Tribunal by ensuring that everybody knows their rights and responsibilities and what the law actually is.I just also need to comment on the point that was made by the member of the ACT Party with regards to students. And here I would remind them that section 5B of the Residential Tenancies Act currently excludes student accommodation from meeting any of the standards or responsibilities within the RTA and that is a big problem. We have the student accommodation inquiry which I spearheaded back in 2020 in which the Greens were the minority view saying that we needed to revoke that section 5B exemption.But there is so much more to do for those renters for low-income New Zealanders for students and the solutions are really really clear. This is an important starting point and I want to commend the Minister for bringing the bill to the House. But I say it should come as no surprise to her that the Greens will be pushing for this to go a whole lot further and faster. Because if this House kicked the can down the road 15 years ago well now it's time to grab that can and it's time to get on with it. We've got work to do and we know what those solutions are we know what the evidence says. And those 1.5 million renters in this country deserve better."