Ngaro AlfredHon ALFRED NGARO (National): Thank you Madam Chair. I rise to speak on the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2)—and it's actually a number 2 bill because there was a first bill. In fact the Minister Phil Twyford himself sponsored that bill as a member's bill which was defeated and now this is bill number 2. When I heard that I thought of number 2 or Mark II and actually the Mark II Zephyr. I don't know why that came into my mind but it was probably because when I was playing rugby our coach had a Mark II Zephyr. We had many fond memories of the Mark II Zephyr. I know the member Ron Mark will remember those days. They came in a four-cylinder and a six-cylinder model.Getting to the point though what I am trying to say about the bill is this. It is Mark II and I think about the Mark II Zephyr but the word zephyr" actually means a soft gentle breeze. I have to say that when I look at this bill it's nothing but a soft gentle breeze in regards to the thundering and the strong advocacy that we heard from the then Opposition to the bills around the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill when they were coming through.I remember those days in the House. In fact Mr Faafoi was there. He used the props that the Minister was using at the time where they had these forms of insulation that was there. They were saying this: "If we truly want a guarantee that these homes are warm and dry for the families of those who are vulnerable then we've got to make a difference first of all to the insulation that we have in our houses."Now the 1978 insulation regulations—and it's the R-value rating that's used. So 1.9 is the R rating for insulation and that was back in 1978. Then it was amended again in 2001 and so what we had from 1978 to 2008 was that the R rating went up by 1 percent. So it's actually at R2.9.When we had submissions in regard to the healthy homes bill those who were retrofitting insulation simply said to us this: there is no difference in regards to the way they measure. The way they measure that is by looking at the amount of heat loss that comes from that insulation. So with the insulation of 1978 the maximum amount of heat it contains is about 83 percent. Seventeen percent gets lost. When you go up to 2008 it's about 92 percent. Here is what they said to us: so really realistically there is not going to be any difference if you go from 1978 to 2008.Hence the reason why the Residential Tenancies Act said this: for those who have the standard at 1978 those can remain—there needs to be no change to that. But then those who don't have insulation need to bring it up to the code of standard for 2008. But what we heard on the other side from the Minister himself and when we had the props—they said "Here's the difference: 70 millimetres is what it was in 1978." and then they didn't know what the other was but it was probably about 140 centimetres. This is the difference that they advocated for. In fact they told us that's what it should be. They said it should double the amount of insulation.I suppose the point that I'm trying to make that goes to my colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse is that on the other side they talked about the regulations. They knew what the measurements were. They knew what the insulation should be and yet when we come to this what do we see? A zephyr—a soft gentle breeze. There is no regulation here. There is no standard. In fact inside the Hansard that's clearly what it states. It states there from the honourable Minister in the chair Phil Twyford that we should have minimal standards. Now that member here in the Hansard talked about the fact that it should be double; that 1978 shouldn't stand. In fact what it should be is we should bring everything up and retrofit it to the 2008 standard and yet here we have the Minister almost backtracking.We're not having any indication about whether he's going to retrofit to the 2008 standard that we think he's been trying to advocate for. So again I plead to the Minister that he will rise and actually give us an answer to that question: will he advocate just as strongly as he advocated when he was on this side of the House when he had his props when he talked about the fact that the minimum standard should be at 2.9—1978 won't count? In other words then he'll have to answer the other question: what will be the cost? What will be the cost to the landlord who will need to do that? What's the subsidy that they will give? He hasn't done that. And if he's costed that what will that look like? Those are critical questions that we want to ask on this side as well.I think what's also really important—when we talk about the comparison with the existing legislation and where the bill is—is that in the signed agreements that we have in the initial bill it was 12 months after the Royal assent. The amendment bill is July 2019. We don't see any difference here. We're trying to get a sense that again what we're sort of seeing—there is an underpinning of when it will be passed and how could this actually apply to those who don't meet that standard.I just want to make that point. There are other points to be made but I hope that the Minister in the chair will be able to answer those questions being put forward."