SpeechAGNES LOHENI (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to make this contribution on the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill.What a shocker of a bill. This is absolutely the politics of envy—very clear and evident in this bill. Not only is it a shocker of a bill what a shocker of a process that the Minister has just tabled in the last hour this 15-page Supplementary Order Paper. Look no one here would dispute that we want to address the issue of domestic violence but to put this down at this last minute is absolutely shocking—shocking to the process and shocking to our democracy. I would just like to outline what the current situation is that renters are facing at the moment. It has already been traversed in this House that rents have gone up on average by $50 a week more under this Government. That's $2600 extra a year that renters are paying. Not only that but the Government has not even raised a comment about the social housing register wait-list of 18000 under this Government. The Government wants to quickly claim credit for the 3000 social homes but fails to mention that half of those were signed or under way under the National-led Government. So again as I said this bill is very very clear. It's actually not about trying to balance as the previous speaker Marama Davidson said a power imbalance—trying to address a power imbalance. What actually will happen is that this bill will penalise actually the most vulnerable in our society—those members those families who want to get into rental property. This bill which is supposed to—you know the Government's plan was to address the housing situation and to make housing more affordable; this bill actually does the opposite of that. So they will force rental homes off the market in this bill but actually this bill is heavy on stick and has absolutely no carrot in it whatsoever. If we look at some of the changes that were made the biggest one I think that had the biggest opposition from submitters was the three-month termination period. It is absolutely unreasonable the changes that have been made under this bill. I just want to touch on the submitters. There were just under 1500 submissions made on this bill. I as a member of the Social Services and Community Committee was party to the Zoom submission process during lockdown. So during lockdown while everyone was at home with their families concerned the submitters had to dial in to Zoom to make their submission. It was very very clear—and there are members in this House who were also sitting in on those submissions—the frustration that was voiced by many of the submitters at having to go through this process on this important piece of legislation whilst they were in lockdown. Actually these were just mums and dads—they were mums and dads who rang in to make their oral submission on this bill. I remember one in particular was a mother who actually had her baby on her lap. She was trying to rock her baby and make her submission because we all had our children at home with us at that time. So it was a stressful period for many families at that time during lockdown and then having to make a submission on a very important piece of legislation that affects them and their property—it affects their property rights. Because ultimately this is what it is: it is an attack on private property rights and the worst thing the scariest thing about this bill is the socialism creep. It definitely is an example of that—politics of envy creeping in again under this Labour Government on hard-working New Zealanders working hard. They've got property rights but clearly are being undermined under this Government and it will not serve those families that we know are vulnerable in the community. It will not help them in any way in getting any closer into getting a good rental home for themselves. I do not support this bill.