Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeResidential Tenancies Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 31 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11513. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Residential Tenancies Amendment BillThird ReadingHon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): I move That the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This is a significant bill that will make for warmer safer and drier homes for tens of thousands of New Zealand families.Let me emphasise the four key changes that are made in this bill. Firstly from 1 July this bill will require smoke alarms in every one of our approximately 500000 residential properties. That is a measure that is expected to save between three and four lives per year. The regulations that back it up require that all new smoke alarms that are being installed are the new 10-year long-life alarms. It is expected that there are approximately 120000 homes that do not comply and for which we need to have an effective information campaign over coming weeks to ensure that they comply before the coldest period of winter. It is a good practical measure that I hope every member of this House would support. I point out in the cost-benefit analysis that it is a no-brainer; it is going to be one of the least expensive ways in which we can make homes in New Zealand safer.The second measure in this bill covers the issue of home insulation. It builds on the work of this Government where in the very first Budget we said that we need to get our State houses insulated. We got on with the programme of getting 30000 State houses—every one that could be—insulated. We then set out with an ambitious programme of over $400 million being spent on providing generous healthy-home grants to get 290000 homes insulated. What this bill does is it requires every rental property to be insulated by 1 July 2019 and it requires that the insulation of social houses for which we pay a very high Government subsidy must be done by 1 July this year. That is a further 180000 homes. Put that alongside those other two measures and we are talking about over half a million homes that this John Key Government is going to ensure are insulated.When I hear the feeble arguments from members opposite that this is not enough or it is too slow I remind them that in their 9 years in Government they did fewer than 50000. That is this Government is insulating 10 times as many homes as the previous Government and those opposite have got the audacity to somehow say that these measures are not adequate. According to my officials when fully implemented these measures are going to save 129 lives per year on top of those saved by smoke alarms. So over the next 10 years this bill is expected to save the lives of 1000 fellow New Zealanders and it is a measure on behalf of this Government that I am incredibly proud to sponsor through the Parliament.There is a third measure in this bill. Every member of this House is aware of the pressure that is on our housing stock. One of the frustrations is the issue of abandoned tenancies. What this bill provides for is a fast-track process for dealing with tenancies where the tenant has abandoned the property. Why is that a good thing? Well actually everybody is losing from abandoned tenancy homes sitting empty. The landlord is losing because they are not getting rent; the community is losing because those homes are sitting empty when others are desperate to get in there. The measures in this bill are part of a wider street—lots of things—that we are doing in housing and this is just one of those common-sense sensible provisions that get those houses that are abandoned by tenants back into the rental market as quickly as possible.In my view the fourth provision in this bill is equally important and is the sort of sensible legislation that this Government is advancing. I know that every member of this House will be concerned about some of the slum landlords—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable Minister. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It is good to come back to the House to speak on this bill that is going to save 1000 Kiwi lives over the next decade with the measures to require smoke alarms; insulation which will greater enable the enforcement of our existing residential regulations; and the provisions that will enable abandoned properties to be able to be returned into the rental market more quickly. They are all good practical measures that this National Government is implementing in this important area.I want to take a moment to rebut three of the Opposition concerns on this bill. The first is that they claim the insulation requirements are not tough enough. The bill and the associated regulations require all new insulation work to be done to the 2008 standard. It requires that any older insulation be in fit and proper working condition. It also requires that landlords must from 1 July include in their tenancy agreements a statement of the standard of insulation under the floor in the walls and in the ceiling. Members opposite have argued that this bill should be extended beyond the 180000 homes that are uninsulated and include those homes that have got insulation either under the 1978 standard or the 2001 standard.Phil Twyford: How many of them Nick? How many?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Some hundreds of thousands. The problem is that the 1978 standard gets an 83 percent reduction in heat loss. The 2001 standard gets that up to 87 percent. The bit that Labour members miss is that every cost that we impose on the housing rental sector gets passed on in rents. We need to be careful that we do not impose more costs than there are benefits.I challenge members opposite: why when it comes to catalytic converters in our cars do we put a new standard on existing but do not require every one of these members opposite—who I will swear will not have cars that meet today’s standards—to go back and retrofit? Why when it comes to earthquake standards do we have a view that says: “No we are not going to require older buildings to meet today’s standards.”? If you follow the rhetoric of members opposite they say that cost can have no part in the equation—that you just have to meet today’s standards. Well they should tell that to owners of earthquake-prone buildings because they would bankrupt the country. They should tell that to people who have got older log fires. In our view it simply does not stack up that these are free goods and that the costs that we would impose on lower-income tenants would be more than the few percentage gains that we have.Here is a further point: this bill is going to require 180000 homes to be insulated over the next 3 years—that is 60000 per year. Members opposite say that is too slow. Hang on a moment these are the guys who did 50000 homes over 9 years. They did 50000 over 9 years and they say that 60000 per year is not enough. They cannot be taken seriously.The second criticism that members opposite have had is that they are saying this bill should tackle issues of ventilation of heating of sanitary plumbing of things like safe wiring and of dampness. All those issues are covered in the current housing regulations. The issue is enforcement and the enforcement provisions of this bill will make sure that we are able to deal with those slum landlords to ensure that they meet the standards that are already there. There are only two areas of Labour’s bills on this topic that differ from the Government’s and that is with regard to temperature and that is with regard to the issue of having to have notices on their glass windows to ensure that they are safe. We think that is over the top. We think that is into nanny State. Yes people may wish to put those in place. It should not be illegal to have a property.The last point I make is that I turned the radio on this morning and Mr Little said: “Every bill that Nick Smith has introduced is rubbish.” On that basis I challenge members opposite to vote against this bill. They will not because they know that this is a good bill. They know this is a bill that will save lives. They know this is a bill that will make our homes safer warmer and drier. They know that this is the right sort of practical approach that typifies this Government: of getting on in an economically rational way reducing incidences of diseases like rheumatic fever that we are successfully achieving and achieving more with insulated homes than any Government in the history of this country. That is why it is a good bill that despite all of Labour’s rhetoric it will support and get through this Parliament because it will make for a better country with warmer safer and drier homes.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I want to start with the positive aspects of this bill because I always like to be positive when I talk about Nick Smith’s tenure as the Minister for Building and Housing. Let us look at the good things about this bill. The first thing I think that has to be said and acknowledged is that smoke alarms will be in place in 500000 rental properties as a result of this bill. That is a good thing and I will not argue with that at all.This bill does contain some insulation standards and I will talk some more about those standards in the course of this contribution but it is a good thing that there are insulation standards in this bill. The bill establishes the machinery for requiring monitoring and compliance activities for the quality of housing. The role of the Tenancy Tribunal the requirement for the landlord to sign a statement that certifies that the property meets the required standards and all of those things are useful. In fact they will be helpful when Andrew Little’s Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) is passed and we need that machinery there to implement decent standards. That is why Labour members are voting for this bill. It is something—it is at least something—but it is just not enough.The second thing I want to say is that this issue of healthy homes is so important. Otago University’s most recent calculation is that New Zealand is hospitalising 50000 children every year primarily because of cold damp and mouldy homes and the toxic cocktail of poverty and overcrowding in poor quality homes. An estimated 15 children a year are dying needless deaths because of the poor quality of New Zealand housing.Generations of young New Zealanders have their lungs permanently scarred from bronchiectasis. We have some of the most shockingly high rates of rheumatic fever of any developed country and that is because of poverty and poor-quality housing. We often talk about these issues in relation to the kids and that is right. We should be ashamed of the way that we are blighting the life chances of young New Zealanders because of poor-quality homes. But we should think about the old people as well. We should think about the thousands and thousands of older New Zealanders all around the country particularly in places like the central North Island and in the colder parts of the South Island where people stay in their pyjamas or in bed all day because they cannot afford to heat their homes in winter. It is a depressing soul destroying thing and New Zealanders should not have to live in those conditions.This bill will be particularly important for children who are growing up in rental properties. It needs to be said that 70 percent of children who are living below the poverty line live in rentals both public and private. Fifty-three percent of children who are living in poverty live in private rentals. Those are the kids who will benefit from this bill but not enough. They are the kids whose life chances could be so enhanced if this bill had decent standards.I want to quote Dr Russell Wills again in this debate because he came to this Parliament and issued a damning indictment of Nick Smith’s lack of ambition and this National Government’s lack of ambition in tackling what is probably one of the most pressing public health challenges this country faces. Dr Wills the outgoing Children’s Commissioner came to the Parliament and said: “When the 2013 Budget came out … Government made a promise to New Zealand children: We will make your house healthy. Three years on from that Budget promise this bill”—which we are debating here tonight—“will do little for children living in cold damp mouldy housing.” He said: “It is a wasted opportunity and a broken promise to our children.” That is our view here on the Labour benches. This bill is a wasted opportunity because Nick Smith is not ambitious for the children of this country who are growing up in cold damp mouldy homes.Why is this bill yet another grudging half measure from this Minister for Building and Housing? It is one of such a long line of grudging half measures: the special housing areas which have delivered only a thousand houses in 3 years; the Crown land initiative which promised thousands of houses on 500 hectares of land and a year later has delivered only 13 hectares and no houses; the promise to remove the tariffs and dumping duties to lower the cost of building materials which has had zero impact on building materials in 2 years; and the brightline test which Treasury said would raise only $5 million and which it is very clear from looking at the Auckland housing market has had zero impact on property speculation and sky-rocketing house prices. This bill is yet another in that long line of grudging half measures.Let us talk about the insulation standard that Dr Smith spoke about. Dr Smith with his lack of ambition for the children of New Zealand is allowing with this bill and the accompanying draft regulations he released hundreds of thousands of rental properties around New Zealand that are insulated to the redundant outdated 1978 insulation standard. With this bill DrSmith is saying to landlords that that is OK. It is OK to continue with a redundant insulation standard instead of upgrading and insulating your rental property to the modern 2008 insulation standard.You are passing a bill Minister so why would you not require the modern insulation standard in every rental property? It is an obvious question. Why would you legislate for a redundant insulation standard? That speaks volumes about Nick Smith and this National Government’s lack of ambition. Dr Smith’s main rationale for not including a modern insulation standard across the board his rationale for not including ventilation or heating—the obvious things that would ensure a house is warm and dry for the people who live in it—is that it would put too much cost on landlords. I can barely cope with the absurdity of Nick Smith’s argument.Think about this: if a landlord has to replace the roof on a house because it is leaking and the water is pouring in on the poor tenants and it costs $20000 to replace that roof is the landlord then going to be able to go and bump up the rent of that house and charge the tenants for fixing the roof? No of course not. If the landlord has to re-pile a house because it is falling down the hill can he charge whatever it costs to re-pile the house? Can he charge that to the tenants and try to recoup it from their rent? Of course he cannot. Rents are set by supply and demand; it is not up to the landlords. They are not able to just bump up the rent to recoup whatever expenditure they have outlaid to keep that house up to scratch. Rents are set by supply and demand and if landlords do unreasonably put the cost of the rent up the tenant will simply go down the road.We have been arguing throughout this debate that heating should have been included in the standards. A heat pump would cost a landlord $3000 to put in and that expense would have a lifetime of 15 years which is about the average lifetime for a modern heat pump. Over that period a rental property will generate between $300000 and $400000 for the landlord in gross revenue. So that is $3000 for a heat pump and gross revenue over that same period of time for the landlord of $300000 to $400000 depending on where you are in New Zealand. That is not an unreasonable expense.I say again to the House that we know from credible New Zealand - based research that every dollar you spend on retrofitting a house to make it warm and dry will save $5 to $6 in public health expenditure. With this bill Nick Smith is standing alongside and siding with slum landlords—the bottom end of the rental market—who are happy to rent out houses that are cold damp and mouldy and are a risk to the health of their tenants. This Parliament will have the opportunity to vote for Andrew Little’s bill again very shortly and see it through this House. We will set decent standards for heating ventilation and insulation and we will ensure that every rental property in this country is warm and dry.ALFRED NGARO (National): I rise to take a call on the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill in its third reading. Can I also too commend the Minister for Building and Housing and the Social Services Committee for the process through which we heard submissions on this bill.The previous speaker Phil Twyford talked about the issues around insulation and also the issues around heat pumps ventilation and heating in houses. That member would know about that because he was present with the advisers to hear that the Housing Improvement Regulations 1947 which still stand today still stipulate under that code that there be provision for both ventilation and heating. So nothing has been taken away; those provisions are still there. We know we had the territorial authorities talk about the fact of enforcement. We have talked about that and in a moment I will talk about the importance of how we enforce those measures that are there in the bill. I just want to set the record straight: provision is in there in the code of the Housing Improvement Regulations 1947 which still stipulate that there must be adequate ventilation and adequate heating. We know that on a number of occasions for some tenants it is the issue of just simply opening up windows curtains and so forth so there may be some form of education and support and information that needs to be given.Also the previous speaker talked about aspects of insulation and heating. I want to say that in Budget 2016 there is the Warm Up New Zealand programme which was part of the insulation of over 300000 homes throughout New Zealand. This was a subsidy that allowed for different landlords and owners to be able to apply to have a subsidy for the insulating of their homes whether they be rental properties or their own and also too inside that subsidy there was a provision for heat pumps. I just want to put on the record that there still is that provision. It is continuing on. There is about $36 million for that provision that is continued on. Can I put on the record that what has happened and is part of what this bill is ensuring is that we want to make sure that homes are warmer and drier and also safer.If we take the safety component of that one of the things that is important about this bill and one of its provisions is ensuring that every single rental property will have a smoke alarm by 1 July 2016. That is critically important because we know that there have been tragedies. The reports on that show there are some 129 potential tragedies that have happened per annum—annually—because of the lack of having adequate response. Therefore a smoke alarm is the first point of call to be able to warn the occupants of the premises. Now it is going to be mandatory. It is going to be mandatory right throughout and it is not going to have to wait until 2019—it is going to be mandatory by 1 July 2016. We have to say that this is an important part of this bill.The other thing I want to talk about is insulation. It is all very well to turn round and hold up big fluffy bits of insulation and show the small bits and then the big bits. It can actually create an image and a perception that the bigger bit is warmer than the smaller bit. What that member Phil Twyford will not know—and again I can remember as a tradesman going through many houses and many homes crawling up in ceilings and under floors doing the wiring and so forth. The majority of homes built in 1978 did not have the fluffy green bits. In fact those are called “green” Insulfluff which is actually a new product. Those are not the original products that were used. The product that was used was what they called Insulfluff. It was a spray-on product. So it is not a correct perception to create of the two sizes of insulation. Insulfluff is what was actually used back in 1978. Then came along Pink Batts which is a fibreglass substance and the product that was used before we had that “green” Insulfluff. So that comparison is not really a true picture.The other thing too is that if you look at the officials’ reports—if you think about the insulation from 1978; no insulation and 100 percent energy loss—it is in the report here. There is about 100 percent energy loss when you have no insulation. We know that; that is clear. When you have the standard from 1978 to 2008 the efficiency and the energy loss from that standard over that period of time was something like 58 percent which is to be regarded. However when you look at retrofitting in the current building code of 2008 energy loss was 48 percent. In other words though the members on the other side are saying we should retrofit to the new code you are talking about an efficiency of only 10 percent. The cost of that average form of retrofitting is going to be about $3400 per home. That is for a standard three-bedroom brick and tile house. When we talk about the cost of making sure we are efficient and effective in what we are trying to do this bill meets that.The last thing I want to say in my contribution to this third reading is that the new Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) that has come out from Mr Andrew Little talks about the fact that this bill will make standards mandatory right across the board. If you read the details in the bill the mandatory aspect of that bill will not come in until 2023 whereas in this bill it comes in in 2019. They have to comply within that 3-year period to make sure there is insulation top and bottom and smoke alarms by 2016. This bill is going all the way. We have not done as the previous Labour Government did insulating 50000 homes in 9 years. In the National Government—the current Government—we are talking about 500000 homes to be insulated to be warmer to be drier and to be safer. This Government is pragmatic and it is practical. It is doing the things that make a difference. All the rhetoric on the other side is smoke and mirrors. When it comes to the details and to the facts in the reports they are what makes a difference. I am proud to commend this bill at its third reading and look forward to its implementation. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): The one thing I can say about this Government is that it is not aspirational for the people of New Zealand. The Government is not aspirational for the tenants of New Zealand and it sure as heck is not aspirational for those people who are looking for housing. Housing is a big hot-button issue at the moment is it not when you think of the number of people who are reported to be living in cars. I think I saw a report this morning that a 15-day-old baby is living in a car with her mother.How did we get ourselves into this situation? It is because this Government is not aspirational for people when it comes to housing. When we think about the whole suite of legislation and policies that this Government has put out for tenants in New Zealand we think about Housing New Zealand’s reviewable tenancies programme for example which forces people out of their homes. Whether they have lived there for a year or for 6 years or whatever it forces people out of their homes. It does not allow them to build up that social capital that they need by living in and being part of a community.This Government is not aspirational for tenants in New Zealand and it does not take seriously the deaths of children like Emma-Lita Bourne. That was a tragedy but unfortunately she was not the only child to die in a house that was cold and mouldy and damp. We could take the huge step of insulating our properties better and forcing our landlords to meet some minimum standards for our kids in this country. There is no protection for tenants in New Zealand any longer. There is no security of tenure. The Government actually leads the way in forcing people out of their homes by the reviewable tenancies programme. That is shocking.There is no stability. There was a programme recently on television about transience and the impact that transience has on the social outcomes the health outcomes and the educational outcomes for young children. There was a mother who said that her child had moved to seven schools in the period of a couple of years. That is not the way that you set the foundation for a child to have the best start to make the most of it and to reach their full potential. You only do that by having them in a home that is stable and in a community where they can then learn to reach out to those community networks and build that social fabric.The Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill is about setting a minimum standard that will have a huge impact on the health of the children of New Zealand. The Children’s Commissioner told Parliament in a submission that there are 42000 hospital admissions a year and 15 children a year dying due to cold mouldy and damp houses and the Minister for Building and Housing wants us to insulate homes to a standard that is way below any recommended by any of the submitters who submitted on the bill. I do not see how the Minister’s argument—that he is wanting to reduce any further costs to the tenants—actually washes. When you weigh that up against the fact that you are committing children to unhealthy lifestyles and potentially to death from living in these cold damp homes the arguments simply do not stack up. That is why I say that this Government is not aspirational for the tenants of New Zealand. Otago University showed that insulating to the 2008 standard would reduce hospital admissions for children by 6 percent. That is 3000 children. That is an enormous number. Can you imagine? That is like 10 primary schools’ worth of children who would be saved from having hospital admissions and it would impact on 19 percent of the rental properties.I cannot buy the argument that the Minister presents. This Government has lost the Kiwi Dream. It used to be the Kiwi Dream that we could own our own homes. In one generation we have gone from being a generation of homeowners to one of renters. In one generation we have gone from homeownership to renting. We must as a Parliament be cognisant that there are people who are in a much more vulnerable position because they are now tenants as opposed to being homeowners. We should do what we can to ensure that legislation actually supports tenure for those tenants.Let us face it—there are some bad landlords but there are some great landlords. There are some very good landlords who do everything they can and to whom legislation does not need to apply because they already keep their homes to a really high standard. But unfortunately there are some landlords for whom the minimum standard will be all that they will ever want to achieve. And there are some other landlords who do not even meet those minimum standards. But we know all too well that unless you provide the standard you provide the opportunity landlords will not avail themselves unless they are compelled to do so.The submitters were really clear when they came to the Social Services Committee that insulation was not the only part of the answer. It was half of the answer and the rest of it was about providing appropriate heating. As Phil Twyford has already said you could install a good quality heat pump to run relatively inexpensively for about $3000 and that would go a long way to supporting the insulation. Having a home that has been insulated means that you can heat the home and keep it warmer and drier for longer. There are a lot of electorate MPs who go out and meet constituents. I know and my colleagues here know that when you go out to some of our constituents’ homes in the middle of winter—some of us who live in the South Island know that South Island winters tend to be colder than North Island winters. I know so many constituents who live in homes where they can afford to heat only one room. They will often all sleep in that room particularly on very cold nights because it is the only room they can afford to heat.I think about when I was a young mum and I had a premature baby at home. Can you imagine what it would be like for mums taking their babies home to cold damp homes? You give baby its evening meal put baby in the bath and you want to keep baby nice and warm so that they have a good night’s sleep. That is part of the issue that many of our young kids and our children have: they cannot sleep because the homes are so cold. When you cannot sleep when you are a young kid it disrupts your ability to learn. You are often ill and it impacts on your ability to actually get a decent education.When we think about the opportunity that has been missed here let us look at what could happen. We could look at Andrew Little’s Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2). What does that include? Not just insulation. That includes methods of heating. It wants us to look at minimum indoor temperatures—so an ambient temperature of around I think 19 or 20 degrees. Homes heated to about that temperature are good for keeping us warm and also for keeping many of those bugs at bay. Good ventilation so that we can have homes that are dry and that do not allow mould to grow; draught stopping; and drainage—these are all very important aspects to having a warm dry home that have not been considered and that could so well have been considered.We are supporting this bill. It is less than a half measure; it is probably a quarter of a measure. We could have done so much better for the people of New Zealand. Thank you.MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): It is an honour to rise and speak in support of the third reading of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. It is great to hear the support of the main parties in the House for this very important bill and the impact it will have on families and young children—and really what Kiwis would vote against a bill like this? I just want to touch on four key points in my call on the third reading tonight. For the first one I want to talk about the Government’s activity in this space. I want to touch on the important aspect around smoke alarms. I also want to talk about the positive impact of the Social Services Committee ably chaired by Alfred Ngaro and the impact that had around the submissions and especially around increasing the penalty for unlawful acts which will help redress that possible imbalance between vulnerable tenants and maybe intimidatory landlords as well. Then if I have time I want to talk about compliance and how this legislation will be inspected once it is implemented.It is fair to say this bill needs to be passed tonight. This is a bill that will warm up a lot of houses in New Zealand and make a lot of houses safer by installing smoke alarms. When you look at the Government’s track record in this space—since 2001 we have invested $500 million insulating houses in New Zealand we have insulated 50000 State houses we have got the Warm Up New Zealand programme as well as retrofitting 280000 private rentals. I know when I visit the Canterbury District Health Board and Community Energy Action those initiatives of warming up “frequent flyers” to the accident and emergency departments in our hospitals have great results not only for the community but in improving the well-being of those families and those children.Currently we know that under the Residential Tenancies Act there is no requirement around insulation or smoke alarms. It is great that 270000 private rentals will be insulated because of this legislation. We know that 56 percent of them—or around 150000—are low-income earners. So there we are: this is a Government that cares a Government that listens and is responding to people’s needs especially those of the most vulnerable. That is why regulation is the next step. We know once this bill is passed tonight that from 1 July 2016 social housing will require insulation and we know that private residential tenancies from 1 July 2019 will also require it.Can I just go on to talk about smoke alarms. In my home town of Rangiora—Richard Prosser: Woo hoo!MATT DOOCEY: There we go Mr Prosser—a great constituent of mine in Rangiora.Hon Nathan Guy: Does he vote for you?MATT DOOCEY: Of course he does. We have got a hard-working 36-strong volunteer fire brigade men and women who give their time. In the middle of the night they get up and their employers allow them to leave work during the day when that alarm goes off. I fortunately brought the Prime Minister in to have a look at the new $3 million Rangiora fire station. When you talk to our volunteer firemen and firewomen who sacrifice a lot of time the stories they tell us are about a lot of fires they go to that could have been avoided a lot of fatalities that could have been avoided. It is great that we are supporting our volunteer firemen and firewomen around this legislation. We know that in New Zealand there are about 20 fatalities a year that could be prevented and we know that this legislation by putting smoke alarms in these 270000 private rentals will possibly prevent up to three fatalities a year. That is why I commend this bill to the House.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): The Green Party is opposing this legislation. We really wish that it did what Nick Smith described. We really wish that it did adequately insulate New Zealand’s rental homes that it would keep families warmer and drier particularly over this winter but also for the winters to come and that it would actually save people’s lives but it is not going to. The standard in this bill is so low the provisions in this bill are so poor that the legislation is not going to do any of those things. Nick Smith has spent a great deal of time while this bill has been before the House telling myth after myth after myth about it and I just want to deal with three of those myths.One of those myths that Nick Smith is perpetuating is that there are existing legal protections for tenants that mean that they are entitled to live in warm dry homes that do not have mould and so forth. But we know from quite recent research done through Otago University that the provisions of the Residential Tenancies Act fail. There is not an adequate standard set for New Zealand homes. Tenants are not able to hold landlords to account for those basic standards and as a result tenants are paying in some places—because of the acute supply problem for affordable housing—top dollar for homes that are making them and their kids sick. What we are seeing then as a result is that there are lots of families who cannot even afford to live in those kinds of shoddy homes—those kinds of homes that cause their kids to get ill—and they are having to live in their cars. We are seeing more and more New Zealand families ordinary New Zealand families some of them working—they have jobs but they still cannot afford a house even a miserable cold one and are having to live in their cars.I was amazed that Nick Smith stood up earlier and talked about cars—some kind of weird reference about a warrant of fitness in cars and in houses. Warrants of fitness for cars that families live in have a much higher standard for those cars than is in place for the houses that so many other families are barely managing to live in. The warrant of fitness system for the cars that families live in is much much better and to a much much higher standard than even this miserable bill would put in place for the homes—the cold damp homes—that too many families are forced to live in. How unbelievable that Nick Smith would come into this House knowing the acute shortage of decent homes we have knowing there are families tonight who are living in their cars in Auckland and in Christchurch and all over the country and make that comparison here. It is a disgraceful display of how out of touch Nick Smith and this National Government are from the realities that New Zealand faces.Richard Prosser: They don’t care.METIRIA TUREI: My colleague from New Zealand First says they do not care. I agree with him. The Government does not care. It cannot see these families. No matter how often they come forward bravely to tell their stories to the New Zealand public and ask for help this Government still refuses to see them.Another of Nick Smith’s myths is that requiring a decent warrant of fitness standard for rental homes would be prohibitively costly for landlords and therefore for tenants. I want to just go back a few years to the home insulation programme—the one that the Green Party negotiated first with Labour. The one that we negotiated with Labour—[Interruption] Let us just be really clear about the history of this it was a $1 billion programme over 10-plus years to insulate a million New Zealand homes. That was the original programme—Chris Bishop: It was never budgeted. What rubbish.METIRIA TUREI: —that was negotiated between—well this little man over here was not there of course. So he has got no idea what was going on in those times. [Interruption] So let us just set aside the youngsters for a moment and listen to those who were actually there and were part of the discussions and negotiations. The original agreement—[Interruption]Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Calm down a little bit. Calm down. Take a call if you want to yell.METIRIA TUREI: The original programme was a $1 billion programme over a decade-and-a-bit to insulate a million homes in this country because that was what was needed. That was the investment that was needed. It was a commitment—a long-term commitment—to significant funding to fix the housing problem that we had and that we still have of too many cold damp homes that make kids and families sick. As a result of the 2008 election we were able to negotiate a much smaller programme with National of around $300 million over a 4-year period. That was good; it was not as good as the one with Labour but it was at least a start.That programme was able to run for a number of years. It was assessed as having a nearly $1 billion value to the country—to the public purse of New Zealand and the savings to health and employment for those families who had their homes insulated. So for that $300 million that we were able to set aside for the home insulation programme with National there was a nearly $1 billion return to New Zealand in just financial value and an uncountable value when it came to saving the lives of children and particularly older people as well.But what do we see in Budget 2016 when it comes to the financial support that the Government can provide to landlords and tenants who want to have their homes insulated? How far has this Government fallen in support for those landlords and tenants who need to get their homes insulated? Well Budget 2016 set aside $18 million over just 2 years—that is 20000 homes. For those homes that is great. Out of the 180000 homes that still need to be at leastinsulated in this country—at minimum—only 20000 have been budgeted for and only for 2 years because this Government is killing off the home insulation scheme that would give landlords and tenants the support that they need to properly insulate their homes. So while Nick Smith and National Party people are standing up here tonight and proclaiming how fantastic this legislation will be in saving lives because it will insulate homes—they are removing the financial support to the families and the landlords who will need it to make sure that those homes are genuinely and properly insulated.This is a Government that does not care to support landlords and tenants whose homes are cold and wet and damp and cause people to get sick. There is a clear opportunity here for National to put its money where its mouth is and actually make it possible for people to get the financial support to insulate their home. What has it done? Budget 2016 crashes that budget and it slams closed the door to the funding support for home insulation. It is due to finish at the end of June this year for the existing scheme and there is money for only a tiny fraction of the homes that are left to be insulated. In 2 years’ time this scheme will be gone. This is yet another reason why we need to change this Government.Let us be really clear about this: if we want New Zealand homes to be warm and dry if we want families to be safe in their homes from diseases like rheumatic fever that can kill children then we need to change the Government. This National Government will not make it possible for families to live safely in their homes. What a disgraceful legacy and this bill is part of that disgraceful legacy National. You strip away the ability for people to live safely in their homes—little children and older New Zealanders. What a terrible day for National. Thank you.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): It is a very good time of the year for us to be considering a bill like this because as we know winter is well and truly now upon us. It reminds us about what it would be like to permanently live in a caravan or a car or a garage or any property that is not properly insulated. Those are issues that are not actually being very well faced up to by this Government at this time. However New Zealand First will support this bill even though it could do so much more.It does only three things in fact. First of all it provides for smoke alarms and nobody disagrees with that; they are well worthwhile and they will save lives. It does improve insulation for some homes but with standards that are inadequate. I will come back to that later. And it does provide for regulations for a number of things like the chief executive being able to take cases direct to the Tenancy Tribunal for persistent breaches of the regulations. It streamlines the process for recovery of possession when a tenant has skipped and it increases penalties for breaches of regulations up to $4000.All of that is good. I have no problem with that. But I would have to disagree with one provision for regulation which is the one that allows a landlord to state in a tenancy agreement that despite making reasonable efforts they have not been able to satisfy themselves of the extent of insulation. I disagree with that. That will be a cop-out. It will mean that some landlords will use that as a means of escaping the regulations. It should not be there. They should have to come up to the standards like anyone else and if they cannot establish what the insulation is then that home simply should not be on the market as a rental property.We could see much better from a bill like this. It is a lost opportunity really to improve New Zealand’s rental stock from what it is now. The two areas many have spoken about and which I reiterate are that insulation standards for properties built between 1978 and either the 2001 or 2008 standards will not be adequate and secondly the lack of any worthwhile genuine heating standards. This bill means that properties built between 1978 and 2001 with the insulation standards that were enforced over that period will be for ever permanently exempted from coming up to the 2008 standards. That is a great shame. I would have thought that over time all properties should have to come up to those standards whenever they were built.The rationale that we hear from the members opposite is that because around 80 percent of the two modern insulation standards would be achieved by the 1978 standard it would be unnecessary and uneconomic to upgrade those properties to the higher standard. But I do not accept that that is actually even factually correct because there will be a lot of properties that will be under even those standards and of course some that will be over it. It will be patchy. I know that as a matter of fact because I had my home built in 1984 shortly after the 1978 standards came in. I remember investigating methods of insulation and there were all kinds of things that complied with those regulations. Some were good and some were not very good. I hope that I chose a reasonably good one. But the fact is that there will be a lot of properties that were built to the 1978 standards that are clearly not very well insulated at all and that is just a fact that the figures that are bandied about by the Minister for Building and Housing will not reveal.The other claim made is that if the cost of upgrading to the modern standards was imposed on the properties built after 1978 then that would cause that cost to be passed on to the tenants the rents would increase and so on. That is actually completely untrue; that is not the way markets work. A regulation creates a level playing field as they say lifting all ships with the higher tide. There would be no grounds for one landlord increasing rents for this class of home over another and they would not get away with it in the market.What of course do increase rents are house prices because rents are based on the recovery of the cost of capital of houses. That is what is driving the rent increases today and therefore it is entirely the fault of this Government for doing nothing about increased house prices and for its complete mismanagement of the housing portfolio in New Zealand. It is that that has caused the increase of house prices and it is that that has caused the increase of rents not a regulation that would require a better standard of insulation. The members opposite who are trying to argue that are delusional over what really does cause increased rents.In fact if the Government really was concerned about rent increases because of increasing insulation standards for 1978 and newer properties then it could if it wished allow landlords to expense the whole of the cost of insulation upgrades in the year that the expense was actually incurred. That would be a significant incentive for landlords to invest in insulation and it would therefore not matter at all whether the property was built before or after 1978 or which standard of insulation applied to it.As far as we in New Zealand First are concerned when a property was built should make no difference for the purposes of insulation standards. But if a property was built after 1978 and had insulation standards that were too far below standard it would be reasonable to have a longer period of time for compliance—maybe 8 or 10 years to do that. If that had been in this legislation that would have been supportable but what is not supportable is that those properties will never be required to come up to modern standards. In fact looking further forward as technologies improve what we should have is a regime that says we will act to improve all rental housing stock progressively up to whatever the modern standards of the day would be—allowing of course a reasonable time to do that. If every landlord was required to do that then there would be no market penalty or advantage for any landlord over another. So there should be no problem in doing that. That is what we should be aiming for in this country.Lastly I simply want to say that heating and ventilation must also be subject to minimum requirements for performance of a property. There is not much point in having minimum requirements for insulation and then over time making sure that all rental properties come up to those standards unless there is also a performance standard for heating and for ventilation. That is just common sense and why this bill does not move into that area I just cannot understand. The truth is as many others have said and as many submitters said the cost savings in the avoidance of illness alone and the avoidance of a whole raft of social problems that arise from inadequately insulated and inadequately heated homes are just so huge that it makes a bill like this and much more totally justified. Much more should be done many more savings should be incurred and much less illness would result. So the matter is really urgent.In the end New Zealand First is really disappointed that the bill does not go further in that respect. We would like to see it do so. As far as we are concerned this is just a work in progress for the next Government.Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the third reading of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. I am taking a short call to support this bill. It is a fact that different people react differently to their environment; people with lower resistance elderly people and young people respond sooner to any unhealthy conditions in the environment. Making homes healthier is important to this National Government.The insulation requirement in this legislation is going to make the difference that we want to see. Although this bill addresses the insulation requirement it also adds the requirement of having a functional smoke alarm in residential properties from 1 July 2016. This is a very important move because it is estimated that it will save around three lives a year and it will save a number of families from fire-related incidents.This is about the health and safety of people who live in residential rental properties because the current standards do not go far enough to protect the health and safety of tenants in residential properties.The previous member Denis O’Rourke spoke about rent and predicted that rent would not go up with what his party is proposing. Let us look at that. What we are proposing will increase the cost by $3.20 per week and—yes looking at $3.20 per week—it is highly likely that landlords will decide to absorb that cost because landlords also want to see that people living in their properties are safe.But look at what the Labour Party and the Green Party are proposing the warrant of fitness scheme that is going to cost $100 million a year. Breaking that down to a per-house cost that will be $225 a year and moreover that is going to be an ongoing cost because these parties want to have regular inspections on an annual basis for warrants of fitness. Because that is going to be an ongoing cost it is highly unlikely that landlords will absorb that cost; they will pass on that cost to tenants. It looks like the Labour Party and the Green Party do not care about tenants but we in National do.In this bill we are also giving tenants 28 days to go to a Tenancy Tribunal if they feel that the property they are in is not compliant. We are also sending a strong signal to landlords that it is illegal for them to give a tenant notice to leave if he or she is just exercising their rights. What we are proposing in this legislation will be supported by an information campaign to improve compliance with existing standards and with the new standards that will come through this legislation and which will also help people understand how to make their homes healthier.What we are proposing is practical and the benefits outweigh the cost. We know that warmer and drier homes are important to keep families healthy and this bill is to do the same. I support this bill and commend this bill to the House. Thank you.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: A 5-minute call on behalf of the Green Party—Marama Davidson.MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Tēnā tātou e Te Whare. Kia ora. The Green Party will be supporting the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill because it is a step. It is a step and so we support it but the Government is asking the wrong questions and using the wrong indicators for the standards that are required for families and the ordinary people of New Zealand to live in good safe warm homes. So whether or not we are talking about the standard of 19-whatever or the houses that were built after or before 19-whatever the real question that we need to be asking here is how we can ensure that every family has a warm safe home to live in. That is the standard. That is the standard; that is the question that we need to be asking.I rent my home. It is an old home because at the time when I was looking for a home the only sorts of houses that were going to be available to me as a Māori woman with children on the waiting list trying to find a tenancy property were old draughty cold homes which are incredibly difficult to heat. My home is so old that it is not guaranteed that it is going to be insulated under this bill. Last winter I was sending my children to bed wearing beanies and thermals and with tons of blankets for fear of turning on the heater. We had a go at turning on the heater in our house but the heat did not go anywhere except outside because the house is draughty and heat just escapes. The power bill was incredibly enormous but the heater still did not heat my home because the heat just disappeared. So after hours and hours of trying to keep my children warm the heat did not heat my home. My power was cut off because I could not afford to pay my bill because my home is not able to be heated without crippling us financially. You should not have to become an MP to be able to pay a power bill to simply turn on a heater to try to keep your children warm. Those are the questions and the measurements that our Government needs to be using whenever it is setting about setting legislation.That is why I look forward to the Green Party and the Labour Party and other parties that genuinely want a progressive Government working to change this Government. It has had 7 years and still the result is that too many families are not living in warm safe dry homes and this bill is not going to cure it. There are still going to be some houses that are not warm enough—and guess who they will be rented by. Guess who those houses will be rented by and guess who cannot afford to turn on a heater to try to heat a house that is draughty and cold—guess who they will be rented by.For one part they will be rented by Māori and Pacific families who have incredibly high rates of renting properties and rental tenancies in our country. There will be rented by people who are at the back of the queue when it comes to landlords who can pick and choose whom it is that they want to put in their warm nice homes. The homes that are cold and draughty and not insulated enough under this bill are going to go to Māori and Pacific and lower-income families. I was working when I could not afford to pay my power bill and try to heat my draughty home. Those are the homes that are going to be left out of this bill and those are the people who are going to be left to go into those houses.The Government is asking the wrong questions. The Minister Nick Smith could take a lesson out of Sister Anne Hurley’s book. She made a submission for the Sisters of Mercy Wiri on this bill and this is the standard that she asked for: “1. The bill sets standards high enough to ensure that the health and wellbeing of all those residing in all rental accommodation is not compromised.” That should be the standard. Thank you.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: A 5-minute call on behalf of the Labour Party—Jenny Salesa.JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): Talofa lava. Happy Samoan Language Week. Fa‘afetai tele lava for this call on the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. This bill will introduce a few useful provisions for providing some standards for housing in the private rental market. However it does not go far enough to address the dreadful circumstances in which many of our families are living particularly during this time as we go into the cold winter months.Introducing minimum insulation standards as proposed by this bill for private rental houses is indeed a step in the right direction but it is a wasted opportunity because this National Government should be doing more. When a freezing cold house is insulated but there is absolutely no requirement for modern efficient heating that rental house still remains a very cold freezing rental house. It does not magically become warm and dry. During winter it will still leave so many of our children our families and especially our elderly—who are prone to feeling the cold so much more than those of us who are younger—at risk of all kinds of respiratory illnesses. Our freezing cold houses are something that we should address in this bill but that unfortunately is an opportunity that this Government has not taken up.Each year over 40000 of our children particularly our poor vulnerable kids are admitted to hospitals for all kinds of respiratory illnesses. That is also a cost that we see in a different part of society in the health bill. This current Government is not considering that we could actually prevent some of that cost should we actually put insulation and heating in this bill. This is not acceptable. We know that the condition of many of the houses in New Zealand is that they are not warm dry and healthy.We also know that too many of our houses are contributing to the deaths of some of our children. Research shows that over 70 percent of children especially those kids who are living in poverty live in rented accommodation and most of them around 53 percent live in private rental houses. I have got to say that this percentage is even higher for Pacific and Māori because for Pacific families only 18 percent of our people own houses; 82 percent of Pacific families rent either from the State or from private landlords.No child should be living in a house that makes them sick but the sad fact is that thousands of our children are admitted to hospital for respiratory illnesses and worse around 15 children each year die from pneumonia. Emma-Lita Bourne is an example of one of those children—a toddler from Ōtara in my electorate of Manukau East who unfortunately died a preventable death from complications of pneumonia. According to the coroner the condition of the house that she lived in which was not an insulated house and was a freezing cold mouldy house contributed to her death.The Hon Nick Smith in his speech earlier on in this third reading of this bill stated that “Cost is important and we should be careful about imposing cost that that cost imposed is not more than any percentage gains.” Where does one start with such a statement? The costs that are much more important to a local MP like me are children’s lives. Too many of our children die preventable deaths and that is something that we as members of this House could do something about especially in bills like this one. We should do everything as members of Parliament to ensure that we are saving as many children’s lives as possible regardless of where they live.In Budget 2013 3 years ago this National Government committed to mitigating the negative health outcomes of poverty and poor housing. The Children’s Commissioner Dr Russell Wills in his submission to the Social Services Committee stated that he was very disappointed in this bill. In his view this bill will not improve the health of thousands of children living in poor quality housing. This is yet another example of another broken promise from this Government where it committed to doing something and it has not actually delivered on that promise. Thank you.MAUREEN PUGH (National): It is my pleasure to stand in support of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill in its third reading tonight. Although I have not been a part of the Social Services Committee for the whole process around this amendment bill I am very happy to have been part of it towards the end. Unfortunately I have not heard a lot of the submissions or any of the submissions that relate to this bill. However I have heard some news today that did interest me and it reminded me of my primary school art lessons. If my memory serves me correctly when I mixed red paint with green paint I got a terrible muddy brown colour.But not being one to muddy the waters the Hon Nick Smith has delivered to this Parliament a very sensible practical and workable bill that covers a range of requirements that will improve the living conditions of 450000 New Zealanders in rental properties across this country. It deals with one of the features of making homes warmer and drier and that is insulation. A warm home starts with insulation and this bill ensures that social housing will be insulated—floor and ceiling—by 1 July this year.I have not heard any comments made around the other benefits of insulation. Being from the West Coast I can assure you that insulation also serves to muffle the sound of rain on the roof. I can assure you that there will be many West Coasters who will be grateful for this legislation when it comes into effect on 1 July. I just want to note too to the House that this Government leads by example. It got its own house in order in terms of insulation in its very first term by insulating 30000 State-owned homes which had never in the history of this Parliament been insulated. It did take a National Government to get this in order.The other key component of this bill is also around smoke alarms. As we have heard smoke alarms are a first point of call in terms of saving lives in rental properties. The highest incidence of fatalities occurs in those rental properties. We are very grateful to the Hon Nick Smith for bringing this bill to the House. It will deliver warmer drier safer rental homes to 450000 New Zealanders and I commend this bill to the House.CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I just want to start by saying that my colleague Megan Woods just pointed out a few names for National’s Government coalition over there. We had Maureen Pugh talking about muddying the waters between the red and the green and I know how threatened those members are so that is why they have to go there tonight. Actually when you look at that coalition Government—National Māori Party United Future and the ACT Party—I think my colleague Kelvin Davis described it best by saying it is “ménage à whā” really. That is what that is over there so let us get that out of the way and get on to the important stuff—that is the housing bill.We are here for a third reading. This is our final chance to say anything about something that is really important—that is housing. So despite the fact that we have a Government over there that still denies the fact that we have a housing crisis we are considering an important piece of legislation that unfortunately does not go far enough in addressing the health concerns of our people in housing. We are supporting the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill but we do have major reservations and we have made those reservations known right from the start. We have reservations about the fact that this really is a wasted opportunity to set decent minimum standards that would ensure all rental properties are warm and dry.Do you know even just tonight we were looking at the news and seeing that we have such a housing problem in this country not just in respect of the adequacy of the housing that we have but actually the access to any housing at all. Tonight we saw on the news a 15-day-old baby who was premature who is staying on a marae and her family are there because of the fact that they have nowhere else to live. So on one hand it is the fact that we have a housing shortage and on the other hand it is the fact that we have housing stock that is making our people sick. In 2016 it is unacceptable that Kiwi children are dying in houses that are unfit to live in. The time has come for Parliament to ensure that every rental house is fit for people to live in. We believe that the bill should also set a standard for ventilation and require there to be an affordable modern and fixed heating source. We also believe that the 3-year phase-in period is excessive.In contrast Andrew Little’s Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) would provide that after a year all new tenancies would have to meet standards for methods of heating methods of insulation indoor temperatures ventilation draught stopping and drainage. We keep hearing from that side of the House that what Andrew Little is proposing is unaffordable. Well actually what is unaffordable is 42000 children being admitted to hospital every year because of the state of the housing that they are living in. I just do not think that the National Government members know how to do maths because if they added it up then they would see that actually the cost of doing what Andrew Little is proposing would be far outweighed by the cost of the 42000 children who are admitted to hospital every year. That is just the number of admissions into hospital—and the National Government MPs laugh. That is just the number of admissions into hospital.We have also been told about the number of children who are dying every year because of the conditions that they are getting because they are living in unhealthy homes. Fifteen children a year are dying because of the state of their housing and that is unacceptable. For those of us who are electorate MPs—Hon Member: Not many on that side.CARMEL SEPULONI: Lots on this side actually—very few list MPs on this side actually. For those of us who are electorate MPs one of the biggest issues we have coming through our door every day is families with housing issues. The housing issues are not just a shortage of housing but they are also the actual adequacy of the housing and the fact that those houses are making them sick.I have had people come through my office for support with letters from the hospital and letters from their GPs saying that they must get transfers from their housing and they must get access to a Housing New Zealand house because the houses they are in are sending them back to hospital time and time again and it is not funny. I had a mother come to my office for help. She said that she had just been let go from hospital with her 5-year-old daughter because of the respiratory problems her daughter had developed because of the mould and damp in the house they were living in. She was concerned about her daughter having to go back in there. By the time I went to see her a day and a half later she had already been readmitted into Waitakere Hospital. Her daughter—that 5-year-old girl—had gone home from the hospital to that house and that house had made her sick and she was put back into hospital.I mean National Government members—I cannot understand how you cannot take this seriously and why every time we have this debate in the House you end up laughing at what is being proposed by this side of the House. Clearly it is not just about doing these families a favour; it is about the cost to the hospital system every time these kids get admitted into hospital. It is about the cost in terms of lives. We have heard Nick Smith say that it would be too expensive to get slum landlords to upgrade their properties to a livable standard. He exaggerates the cost but more importantly he seems to know the price of everything and the value of nothing. That is the truth.We cannot reduce children’s lives and their right to decent housing to a monetary value. We do not need to calculate the number of children’s lives this bill will save the hospital admissions it will avoid and the better learning outcomes of having kids not missing school so often from being sick and to then offset those benefits against the cost of fixing those houses. We just need to state a simple principle that every Kiwi will agree with: in 2016 no child should be getting sick or dying because their house is not fit to live in.We make no apology for standing up for the simple idea that every Kiwi child deserves a decent place to live. That is at the heart of the Kiwi Dream. Research shows that just over 70 percent of the children in poverty live in rental accommodation and the majority—53 percent—live in private rental properties. I want to go back to what my colleague Jenny Salesa was saying before and that was about the Pacific community. She pointed out that we are more likely to be affected by legislation like this because we are more likely to rent property. Not only are we more likely to do that but I do need to point out that the decline in homeownership of Pasifika is much steeper than anybody else’s. We have gone from 26 percent in 2001 to only 18 percent now in 2016.Su’a William Sio: 16 percent.CARMEL SEPULONI: Actually Su’a William Sio was just saying that it has been reduced even further to 16 percent. So we are affected by legislation around landlords.I would point out the fact that actually most landlords are good landlords. Very few are the slum landlords whom we are talking about but I have come across them in my electorate and I am sure others have too. I have come across landlords who buy up leaky homes because they are cheap but then they rent them out for a market rental to families who cannot afford to live anywhere else. I have been to one of those houses. Where it is damp you can see the mould and actually one of the children living in those houses has developed rheumatic fever because of the state of that housing. So we are having to support this bill because it does something but it does not go far enough. It could have gone much further. It could have saved the lives of children but instead what we have is kind of a half-hearted attempt to do something or at least to be seen to be doing something—Hon Dr Nick Smith: Always never enough!CARMEL SEPULONI: —but really it is not addressing the real issues that we are facing.Nick Smith is going on and on again. I can hear him out of one ear over here. Again he seems to know the price of everything and the value of nothing and he does not really seem to take this issue—or any issue around housing—seriously. In fact the issue around homelessness we have heard him say is a figment of all of our imaginations. Well actually tell the average person who walks out to their shopping centre and walks out on to their main road every day and who is confronted with levels of homelessness that we have never seen in this country before. We have major issues in this country with housing. They are the shortage of housing the adequacy of housing and the level of healthiness that our homes provide for our children. It is just a pity that the National Government is doing so little to address those issues. Thank you.BRETT HUDSON (National): It is a pleasure to rise in support of this the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. The member who has just resumed her seat Carmel Sepuloni spoke a few minutes ago about the importance of maths. In a moment or two I will share some important maths with her. It is very telling with what this Government is doing versus what the Opposition proposes.But firstly this is a very very easy bill to support. This bill will see a requirement for smoke alarms to be installed in all residential tenancies by 1 July 2016 just a few short weeks away. In respect of insulation this bill will see a requirement for ceiling and underfloor insulation where practicable in all social housing—that is a tenancy or a rental where income-related subsidies are given—again by 1 July this year and in all other residential rentals by 1 July 2019. Those are very very easy measures to support. They will make Kiwis healthier and will save lives.The member opposite spoke about maths and what was important. Let us contrast this bill and Andrew Little’s Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2). If we look at what this Government has done in this area of warming up homes and keeping people healthier what this bill will do is this: by 1 July 2019 180000 homes will be insulated—180000 rentals. If the Opposition’s bill in the name of Mr Andrew Little were to be passed by 1 July 2019 there would be 30000 homes—six times as many homes under the work of this Government than what the Opposition offers. That is maths that counts Ms Sepuloni. This Government is one that is doing something to protect New Zealanders and to make them healthier. We are making a difference we are the ones who care about New Zealanders and I commend this bill to the House.Bill read a third time.