Kuriger Barbara; van Velden BrookeASSISTANT SPEAKER (Barbara Kuriger): I call Brook van Velden.BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Oh—Andrew Bayly: Really?BROOKE VAN VELDEN: —thank you Madam Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Barbara Kuriger): Yes. We're up to call 10. You're call 11 Mr Bayly.Dr Duncan Webb: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The Business Committee has resolved the split of calls and the ACT Party gets one call in a debate at second reading.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Barbara Kuriger): So Labour Party took the Māori Party call no one from Labour stood up to take the following call. And Brooke van Velden actually has stood up to take the call so Brooke van Velden has the call.BROOKE VAN VELDEN: Thank you Madam Speaker. It's amazing what can happen in this Parliament if you're willing to debate ideas. We need more people to take initiative in their own lives like we need to take initiative in this Chamber to stand up and take calls.I want to just start by refuting something that one of our Labour colleagues has just said: that they are proud of this law and they are proud of this law coming to Parliament. And I question how anyone in the Labour Party can be proud that they have created a law where it's one rule for landlords and one rule for Labour. How can you be proud as a Government to create a healthy homes standards piece of legislation that said We expect all private landlords to come up to scratch with the healthy home standards by 1 July 2021 and if you have a new house or a renewed tenancy we expect you within 90 days of that deadline to bring your House up to healthy homes standards. But we as a Government believe that we should have an extra two years beyond what a private landlord has." I don't understand how a Government can be proud that they hold private citizens at a much higher standard than they do of themselves. And yet even when we get close to the deadline that the Government set for itself it says "Oh sorry. It's been a really really tough time with COVID and we can't meet that. We can't even meet that standard that we set for ourselves let alone the high standard for other people."But it's constantly from this Government one rule for them and one rule for everybody else. And I just take the point that this is not the only piece of law that has put a division between private landlords and the Government. When we look at the interest deductibility rule changes that came through many months ago we had the private landlords being told "You now will have your interest deductibility limited but not the Government. If it's the Government that's something different. We can still deduct our interest but just not the private landlords."And when I come to another example it was about the heat pumps. Now under the healthy homes standards there are heating standards. A little while ago we had the Government admit that it got the heat standards wrong that private landlords had been spending up large on heat pumps that were overcooked for the size of the rooms that they were being put in. And we had for months landlords telling the Government telling the Minister Hon Dr Megan Woods speaking publicly emailing through that the heat pumps that they were being required to put into their own homes under the heat pump standards or the heating standards were way too big for the houses that they were being told to put them in. Nobody from the Government listened.It just happened that I looked through a Cabinet paper and I saw that the Government right before they decided that they actually needed to change the heating standard—bearing in mind the private landlords had been spending thousands of dollars on these already—had said "Our own new Kāinga Ora developments won't meet the heating standards and we're going to go have to go back and spend millions of dollars on retrofitting brand new Kāinga Ora developments because they don't meet our own heating standards. That is another example of one rule for private landlords and another rule for the Government because the Government didn't care about private landlords and the huge cost that has been imposed. They just didn't listen. They only cared about themselves and whether or not they would have to fork out millions of extra dollars because their own new developments didn't meet their own healthy homes standards.Parking those two issues you've now got the whole issue of well the Government can't get all of their Government-owned rental accommodation up to the standard that they expected of private landlords so they are making an extension. But a year ago I was in this very Chamber asking for an extinction for private landlords because they had come to me to say "We can't meet the deadline because the Government has forced us into a lockdown." Now at that time I tried to publicly advocate for these landlords who are trying to do the right thing under the law to make sure that their homes met the healthy homes standards and the Government turned around and just said "We don't care."Karen Chhour: Too bad.BROOKE VAN VELDEN: Too bad as my colleague Karen says. And people have forked out thousands of dollars under time constraints to bring their homes up to these standards and the Government just said "We don't really care. If you miss the deadline we're not changing that for you." Well it turns out when the Government realises they can't meet their own deadline well they've got lots of compassion for themselves but not for the private landlords.Karen Chhour: Shame.BROOKE VAN VELDEN: So—I think it is shameful that this Government and members of the Labour Party can come to this House and say that they are proud of this law going through. They are proud of the fact that they couldn't meet the standards. They are proud of the fact that they have to come and ask for another extension when they didn't listen to the problems that private landlords were having with interest deductibility where people have now had to sell their homes to tenants who have been living in them for years on lower than market rent because they genuinely care about the community—they don't care about that. They didn't care about the fact that landlords were putting in heat pumps thousands of dollars more expensive than was actually required because the Government got that wrong. And they didn't care that landlords were very stressed that they couldn't get their houses up to scratch within the prescribed deadlines because the Government had forced them into a lockdown and they physically couldn't do it. But they only cared about themselves because it's one rule for everyone else and one rule for Labour. I think they should be ashamed of that not proud."