Paul TamathaTAMATHA PAUL (Green—Wellington Central): Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. I'm standing here today to oppose this bill. And I want to use my five minutes to speak to the amendments made in this bill on interest deductibility. Yesterday in question time our Prime Minister said that this Government was unapologetically on the side of renters—well that's the joke of the year isn't it? Well the Government really should apologise to renters for taking us for fools. Does the Government really think that renters are idiots?As one of the only members of Parliament that rents and does not own a house I can tell you that we know that these changes to interest deductibility are not in our interests and we shouldn't seek to make out like it is. They're not doing it for us—they're not doing us any favours. And when was the last time a National Government did anything good for renters? They're doing it for themselves knowing that most people in this House own multiple houses and make their living off people like me who are renting their houses. And they're doing it to line the pockets of their rich landlord mates. This Government is unapologetically on the side of the rich.I'm a renter. I've flatted in Kelburn in Te Aro in Aro Valley in Mount Cook and in Brooklyn here in Wellington Central. And there have been claims by this Government that this bill will benefit renters and that the benefits of the interest deductibility will transfer on to renters. And I can tell you that excluding one flat that I've lived in for the better part of the last decade whenever my rent has increased it has had absolutely nothing to do with any improvements that that landlord had made to our flat. But I do remember when the last Labour Government increased student allowances by $50 and all of a sudden magically my landlord put up my rent by $50 per person just because they could. That is an example that landlords will find any old reason to lift our rents and that there hasn't been an awful lot of research into this particular bill to show the impacts that it will have on renters. And it goes to show that increases in the amount of money available to landlords will not be passed on to renters.It's not just me who thinks that; it's all of my friends who are renters and even Treasury agrees with me that there's no evidence that this bill will pass on any benefits to renters. That's because in reality the provision of housing is seen as a business by our Government and this bill simply increases the ability for housing to be seen as a commodity as opposed to what it is: housing is a human right.In reality landlords don't really care about your circumstances—I can testify to that to you. They're just there to make a profit. They see it as a business. And don't get me started on the nightmare property management companies who are even worse. As my colleague Chlöe was saying before we actually don't know anything about these landlords or these property management companies because they're operating in a way that we don't even know what they're up to or how many houses they're managing. And those property management companies some of them pride themselves on being able to squeeze every single cent that they can out of renters. And this just increases that and contributes to that.Let's not forget who is paying for this cash handout to landlords; it's the kids at school who won't be getting school lunches anymore it's disabled people and their carers and it's people on benefits whose lives will get much worse so that landlords can get even richer. Housing is a human right. It's not a commodity; it's something that everybody needs to live a good life and to contribute meaningfully to the societies that they live in. And when bills like this are rammed through without any evidence or feedback from the people it becomes clear that we have a Government whose objective is to make bigger profits for their landlord mates.Better solutions that we the Greens are constantly advocating for include more public housing to clear the public housing wait-list and bring down median rents across the country. We're pushing for rent controls. We're pushing for a rental warrant of fitness. These are actual things that you could do for renters to walk the walk to match the big talk that you're talking. Thank you.