Salesa JennyJENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): Thank you so much for this opportunity to have a speech on the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill (No 2). Labour supports this bill to the select committee and I look forward to the discussions at the select committee as well as to hearing some of the submissions especially submissions from tenants when they come to present to the select committee. The bill deals with a lot of issues but the three most important for the Labour Party that this bill actually addresses are the following: first that it will address liability for damage to rental premises caused by a tenant; second meth contamination in rental premises; and third tenancies over rental premises that are unlawful for residential use.Now I will discuss the third issue first but before I do I want to agree with my colleague Metiria Turei. One of the things that she said was would it not be wonderful if this was legislation that would do so much more—for instance legislation that would ensure a warm dry safe home for all of our people; one that would ensure a warrant of fitness for homes.When we have 1600 people a year pass away and one of the reasons is because of the condition of the houses that they live in and when we know from a coroner that 2-year-old Emma-Lita Bourne from my electorate in Ōtara died because of the condition of the house she lived in which was a State house there is so much more that we as members of Parliament can do to ensure that we save people's lives.On the third point this bill would look at what can be a rented property covered under the Residential Tenancies Act. This bill aims to clarify the kinds of properties covered by the Residential Tenancies Act 1986; in particular tenancies of rental premises that are unlawful for residential use. It is unfortunate that I come across so many unlawful residences like this in Manukau East and South Auckland. There are certain streets in my area where as you walk down the street almost every second house has a garage that is a converted garage where families children live—garages where it is leaking. Some of these garages are mouldy.One particular example was of a mother with six kids. Most of her kids were really really sick. One of her children had special healthcare needs and this particular lady had been living in this illegal garage for months and months. She had no other option. In fact this particular garage was one that belonged to the mother of one of her son's friends. So one of her sons goes to school and one of his friends whom he plays hockey with has a mother who is a teacher at the school. When this teacher heard about the fact that they lived in a car she offered up her garage. It was not until she came asking for assistance from the MP that they were able to be placed in a house. The point I am making is: why is it that we live in a country now where we have so many families who live in illegally converted garages like this?Now we know and I heard the Hon Minister when he was in the chair earlier on refer to the fact that the initial residential tenancy legislation that has been passed—one of the things is that the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has a compliance unit that now looks at landlords and prosecutes them. But some of these folks—our office has been involved in some of these tenancy issues and we take them to the Tenancy Tribunal. They are awarded funds because they are living in illegally converted garages or working sheds and all that kind of stuff but these landlords then legally become bankrupt and so then no one actually pays these particular families. So having legislation like this that gets passed and having a unit at MBIE that can prosecute folks—and I have actually read somewhere that the compliance unit over at MBIE has 15 compliance officers; if we are to look at the practical implication of that for all of New Zealand to have only 15 compliance officers at MBIE to look at monitoring all of the possible illegally converted garages all of the sheds that people are living in all of the residential properties that should be warm dry and healthy—15 compliance officers just does not cut it.Hon Member: Nick Smith's smiling. He thinks it's funny.JENNY SALESA: No it is actually not very humorous. When you actually go to various houses where you see a house that has no running water a house that has no working bathroom a house that has windows with no glass in the windows for 95 percent of it and a house that is infested by cockroaches rats and all kinds of insects this is not the kind of house that people should be living in that people who are paying rent people where—some of these landlords are getting the funds directly from Work and Income New Zealand (WINZ) themselves. Some of these families are actually encouraged by WINZ to go and see these various houses. It is not good enough.Last year an investigation by Lisa Owen of TV3 revealed some of the worst kinds of working sheds that our people in South Auckland are living in—illegal non-consented working sheds. She showed us that some of these working sheds had mould on the outside—not even looking at the mould on the inside of these working sheds. Some of these garages in South Auckland are being rented out at up to $560 per week—$560 per week for an illegal unconverted cold freezing garage that vehicles should be in not families with children. So I commend this Government for bringing this legislation through but I just do not see it as the solution to ensuring that we have fewer families living in such illegal places.The other area that this legislation deals with is with meth contamination. Now it is one thing to actually allow legislation to look at and have regulation where we would look at testing kits where hopefully not that many people are going to be evicted out of the houses. Now we know and we have heard many other speakers cover this point where there are over 500 State houses that people have been evicted out of that the Government has spent more than $30 million not only to evict people but also to decontaminate these houses. But we have so many who are living out on the streets and too many who are homeless. Over 41000 people are homeless.When we look at the housing crisis in Auckland it is by far the area that is experiencing the worst but it is not the only place that experiences the housing crisis right now. Here in Wellington and the Hutt Valley we know that Lower Hutt and Upper Hutt have over 266 families on their waiting list. When we look at Whangarei there are more than 150 people on its waiting list. There are 166 in Napier and over 199 in Tauranga. These are issues that this Government should most definitely be looking at and making sure that our people have a house to live in.The third and final point that this bill actually covers is tenants' liability for damage. This bill would refine some of the law about tenant liability in relation to their accidental damage to the rental property. These provisions for tenant liability would reverse the recent Court of Appeal decision about limits to tenants' liability so that they would actually pay part of the damage that they themselves have actually caused. Broadly speaking intentional damage by tenants would be something that they must actually contribute to. Thank you so much for this opportunity.