Sepuloni Carmel; Mallard TrevorCARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): Labour will be supporting this bill. I am a little bit surprised because the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill—the original one; the first one—came to the Social Services Committee and this one is going to another select committee. I was just talking to my colleague Phil Twyford about why that might be. Perhaps the Government is trying to avoid our housing spokesperson by sending it to another select committee but we will send him in that direction when the bill is being considered so that it can get some good Phil Twyford housing analysis going on there.We will be supporting the bill. There are a number of changes; however there are three that we deem to be most important in this bill. First it will give landlords easier access to their properties to test for methamphetamine contamination and it will allow the landlord or the tenant to terminate a tenancy if tests come back at unsafe levels. The bill also sets up a regulation-making power to set the standards and guidelines for meth testing including establishing a maximum acceptable level of contamination and guidelines for testing.We have been going on about this for quite some time. It is long overdue. National's housing Minister Nick Smith has for far too long allowed a cowboy testing industry to run riot for the last few years without any proper regulation. Tenants and landlords who understandably are concerned about meth contamination have not had reliable standards or testing for the last few years. Along with that Housing New Zealand has wasted about $30 million on meth testing and decontamination and it has evicted more than 500 tenants unnecessarily on the basis of faulty testing that has been unable to prove whether there is residue that could be a risk to the health of tenants. Tenants have been evicted on the basis of meth residue being present but without baseline testing there is no reliable proof whether they were responsible or some earlier tenant. So it is really another Nick Smith fiasco. The bill's provisions are long overdue but they are unlikely to be effective without some regulation of the meth testing and decontamination industry.The second point to make about why we are supporting this bill and the second area of primary interest to us is that it clarifies some laws around where the tenant is liable for damage to rental premises broadly encompassed by intentional damage by a tenant and for damage that was caused by a tenant as a result of an act that constitutes an imprisonable offence. It also clarifies that tenants are responsible for damage caused by a guest of a tenant—i.e. someone who has been given permission to be on the premises as opposed to a gatecrasher or an intruder.The law and practice around the liability of tenants for careless or intentional damage to a rental property was changed by the court judgment in Holler v Osaki. The bill tries to set out a new balance of rights and responsibilities for both landlords and tenants. This is a complex area and we are looking forward to hearing from the Property Investors Federation and tenants advocacy groups at the select committee so that we can try to craft a solution that is workable and fair for both parties.Thirdly the bill strengthens the law for prosecuting landlords who have rented out unsuitable accommodation such as garages warehouses and industrial buildings. However given National's seeming reliance on housing people in garages due to its complete inaction on the housing crisis it seems odd that it is willing to do this.We will be supporting this bill to select committee. The three issues that I have outlined are worth getting sorted out but the strange thing is that with half of all Kiwis living in rental housing there is so much more that National should be doing to fix a broken rental market. I see it all the time in my electorate of Kelston where constituents are paying through the nose for substandard accommodation.I saw one case recently where a family was homeless and living in their car. They were then put into emergency accommodation and then they were forced to take up the one house that they were able to actually rent because the landlord said OK I'll give the house to you." and within the first 3 weeks they had two issues with the sewerage where sewage was spilling out on to the driveway. They had a landlord who was very slow to respond. They were told that the house had four bedrooms but they got there and one of the bedrooms was actually the lounge. The house was not insulated. It was cold. There were no smoke alarms. There was a whole lot of rubbish that was left behind from the previous tenant which the landlord had not fixed up. There was a whole lot of things that were broken when they moved in and they had a landlord who had no intention of fixing any of that up.Really as a consequence of the housing crisis what we have here are landlords who are cowboys who are exploiting the housing crisis and who have no qualms with exploiting desperate people in desperate situations. Without the right checks and measures in place that will only continue and unfortunately get worse. We do need a much broader plan to be able to address this. We have come up with a number of things that we would do and that we would implore the Government to do.We have said that we will legislate to improve standards for rentals to make sure that they are all warm and dry. Andrew Little's healthy homes bill will be back in the House shortly for its second reading. It would be great if the National Government would pay attention to that.We will be massively increasing the supply of housing as we have said through our KiwiBuild policy and that will flow on to increase the supply of rental properties. So with that hopefully we will not have so many people in desperate situations and landlords then willing to then exploit them not only through substandard living conditions but also through rents that are completely disproportionate to what they are renting in terms of the amount that they are paying.We have to address the property speculation issue and we have said that we will be curbing that. We will be closing down the speculators tax loophole and banning foreign buyers from buying existing homes. I cannot see why the Government has such an issue with that. When you go out on to the street and you speak to the public and you tell them "Actually we're going to stop non - New Zealand residents and non - New Zealand citizens from being able to purchase properties in New Zealand." they breathe a sigh of relief. They look at you and say "That's just common sense. Why wouldn't the Government do that?" but for some reason that side of the House finds it so difficult and cannot even contemplate being able to ban foreign speculation.We do need to look at the issues around security of tenure and the right to make a house a home. We have far too much transience with regard to our children. In fact we come across schools that say they have got like a 30 percent turnover of students and the reality is that it comes down to the fact that their parents do not have stable housing. If they are in rental properties and there is no security of tenure and if they cannot afford to buy a house and they are constantly getting shifted on then what kind of disruption does that cause to the education of those children? As schools are telling us it is causing huge disruption. So it is about healthy homes and it is about making sure that those kids are well but also it is about giving them that sense of stability in the house and also in the neighbourhood in the community and in the school so that they do not have to constantly shift.Moreover much of the debate on this bill is likely to end up on new changes to meth contamination standards and changes are good. However what would be better is National actually showing some guts on methamphetamine supply in New Zealand and then we would have to worry less about it being smoked in our homes. I will not forget that one of the first things those members did was remove the pseudoephedrine from our cough medicines in our chemists. What kind of impact did that have on the meth problem in this country?Hon Ruth Dyson: None.CARMEL SEPULONI: None. It has gone up every year significantly under those members' watch. It is cheaper and easier to access than ever before. It is cheaper and easier to access than ever before. And what is more since Bill English got into the Prime Minister's office he has put the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet reporting on the meth action plan on ice. That is not leadership. New Zealanders want to see something done about this issue. So far they have seen nothing. The only thing they have seen from that side of the House is the removal of cough medicines that actually help alleviate symptoms but nothing to actually alleviate the meth problem in this country. We need some action and unfortunately the reality is—well actually no not unfortunately; fortunately—I think the only way New Zealand is going to see real action is if it changes the Government on 23 September.Matt Doocey: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Well I have not called the member yet.Matt Doocey: Oh it was just anticipation.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Is the member just going to call in the traditional way?Matt Doocey: Mr Assistant Speaker.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Matt Doocey."