Hipkins Chris: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Hipkins Chris: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I apologise to the House for my slight lack of voice. I will see whether I can get to the full 10 minutes. There is a possibility that I might not. 
Craig Foss 
: That’s a good thing. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: The National Government prevented us from getting the good drugs over the counter at the pharmacy. We have to go to the doctor to get those now. I have not had the opportunity to do that yet—[ 
Interruption 
] Can anybody get a sick leave form for me? 
It is slightly ironic to hear Katrina Shanks complaining about the fact that the previous Labour Government did not do enough in this area and that it took too long. This bill has taken since September. Where are we now? We are towards the end of July. It has taken nearly a year for the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill to be progressed through its remaining stages. So it is a little bit rich for Katrina Shanks to say that the previous Labour Government took such a long time. 
There were situations that could have been potentially avoided had this legislation been passed prior to Christmas. I am thinking about the boarding tenants who were chucked out of where they were living for the sevens rugby. That potentially could have been avoided had the Government got its act together to get this legislation passed before Christmas. I have to say that listening to the debate I was very disappointed that the Government chose to vote against an amendment put forward by my colleague Moana Mackey that would have guaranteed tenants certainty during major events. It would have prevented them from being evicted from their homes because of the very significant amounts of money that landlords could potentially generate by letting those homes on a short-term basis during major events. Moana Mackey’s amendment would have stopped that from happening. It was very disappointing that the Government voted against that amendment. Although generally speaking we are supportive of this legislation some changes proposed by Labour were opposed by the Government and we think that will make this bill much much weaker than it otherwise would have been. 
I will talk in particular about the issue of letting fees. There is a problem under the current law that a real estate agent can charge a letting fee but a property manager cannot. The Labour Party’s view is that we should therefore do away with the letting fees. There should be an even playing field between real estate agents and property managers. The Government also thinks there should be a level playing field but it wants to do that by allowing property managers to charge a letting fee as well which ultimately leaves the tenants or the prospective tenants— 
Katrina Shanks 
: Or not. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: It may be a one-off fee but people on low incomes students in particular—and Katrina Shanks talked about Otago University students—now potentially face another fee on top of all the fees that they have to pay at the beginning of the year in order to find somewhere to live. I do not think that that is necessarily a good thing. I think it would have been much better had the Government agreed to the Labour recommendation which was to do away with the letting fees altogether. 
Ultimately if I sell my house I am the one who has to pay the real estate agent. Why should it be different for a tenant? The person purchasing the house does not have to pay the real estate agent; it is the person selling the house who has to do it. Why should the situation be reversed in the case of a tenancy arrangement? Should it not be that the person letting the house pays the fee not the prospective tenant? It is very disappointing that the Government voted against that. We know that for those looking for rental property accommodation sometimes letting fees can be a significant barrier to finding somewhere to live. 
There are elements of this bill that the Labour Party supports strongly; that is why we are voting in favour of it. Obviously we want stability and certainty for those living in rental accommodation. Being able to have some certainty about where one lives being able to put down roots and being able to send one’s kids to a school and know that they will not be uprooted and have to change school at short notice is really important. That is where stability in residential tenancy arrangements is important. It is really important that there is good faith on both sides of a tenancy arrangement—from both the tenant and the landlord. As a constituency member of Parliament—I know plenty of other people in the House will have this experience as well—I have seen evidence of where the good faith relationship has broken down on one side or the other or in some cases on both sides. Not all tenants behave the way they should; not all landlords behave the way they should. It is really important that we provide very clear legislation and guidelines so that everybody knows where they stand. I think this bill goes some way to improving the situation at the moment. 
I talked about good faith and with the Minister of Housing in the House I will once again pick up the major tenancy issue that exists in my electorate in the community of Pomare and the bad faith I think that the landlord—in that particular case Housing New Zealand Corporation—has been showing towards the tenants in Pomare. It has been leaving empty large numbers of Housing New Zealand Corporation houses. There were 42 empty houses at last count. There may be more in the last few weeks; I have not driven around there to count them. That is creating problems for the local community. 
One of the obligations on a landlord particularly in the case of Housing New Zealand Corporation where it may well own all of the houses in a neighbourhood should be to act in the best interests of the whole community as well as the individual tenants. When the landlord leaves a large number of houses empty prone to vandalism squatting and antisocial behaviour—a whole lot of those things—all that that is doing is exacerbating the problems in that community. I know that Housing New Zealand Corporation wants to do some redevelopment in that community. I welcome that; I think that is very good. It is long overdue and I think that successive Governments need to accept responsibility for that. But I would like to see that happen sooner rather than later. 
At the moment my very strong view is that Housing New Zealand Corporation is being a bad landlord to the people in Pomare. It is not maintaining the houses that are there at the moment. The tenants who live there are having a great deal of difficulty getting even the most basic maintenance done. That is not good enough. They deserve to have Housing New Zealand Corporation behave as a responsible landlord but that is not happening at the moment. I want to see the Government go back to Pomare give them some certainty around when the redevelopment is likely to take place give the tenants who are in the houses at the moment some certainty that when the redevelopment takes place they will be looked after and that they will be able to go back into their community once those houses have been redeveloped. One of the concerns amongst that community is that they will be effectively thrown out of their community so that the houses can be redeveloped they will not be able to go back there afterwards and the whole community will be broken up. I think that it would be good to see Housing New Zealand Corporation give them some certainty by engaging with them again to reassure the people there that this is not about turfing out people who are good tenants at the moment and not allowing them to return to their community but that there will be some staged redevelopment process that allows those already in the community to stay in their community while the redevelopment takes place. I do not have any problem with the Government cracking down on severe antisocial behaviour as part of the process. I do have a problem if innocent tenants the good tenants who take a lot of pride in their houses are being turfed out. One of those tenants has for example won a Housing New Zealand Garden Award. 
There is a winner of the Housing New Zealand Garden Awards in Pomare. I want to see those people rewarded for taking pride in their houses. I do not want to see them having their whole community effectively written off by the Government. Significant progress can be made in that area to improve the lot of those tenants. I hope the Government takes that on board and does something about it. 
Finally to conclude one of the things I have become aware of as a local member of Parliament is that there are good landlords and bad landlords. Possibly one of the areas of weakness in the legislation at the moment is that there are few minimum standards that a landlord needs to meet in terms of the property they provide to a tenant. The House may want to consider whether somebody who is letting a property should have to meet minimum standards in terms of its habitability before it can be let. Otherwise there is not much to prevent landlords running slums as some of the very irresponsible ones do at the moment and that is something Parliament should not turn a blind eye to. I think the possibility of some greater minimum standards for rental properties is something we should look at closely. Before a landlord can put a property on the market for rental perhaps they need to meet some minimum standards so that we know that those who are unable to afford to purchase their own properties are protected. As Katrina Shanks pointed out a significant number of New Zealanders live in rental properties. We want to provide them with some certainty that they can find not only somewhere to live but also an adequate standard of accommodation in their rental property. 
Overall this is a good bill. It does not go as far as the Labour Party would like. We think it has been watered down from what the Labour Party was proposing. We are disappointed the Government has voted against what we felt were some constructive common-sense amendments including the one I have mentioned in respect of protection for tenants during major events. Overall we are in support of the legislation as it stands at the moment. We would like it to go further and we will be voting in favour of it.