van Velden BrookeBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's quite remarkable to be standing here on a Thursday morning—but really in Parliament time we're still on Tuesday evening—and we've somehow managed to get through two speeches already within two minutes. But we are proud as the ACT Party to truly represent the people of New Zealand and bring their voices to this Chamber to represent them and that is what we will be doing throughout urgency because while the Government wishes to pass through 24 laws within one week which would usually take four weeks—and it appears that many of our National Party colleagues can't be bothered to do their jobs either and just want to go home—the ACT Party is committed to actually representing the people of New Zealand and making sure that laws don't get rushed through Parliament without some scrutiny. We want to make sure that these laws have scrutiny and that we don't just pass them through without looking through them in detail.On this particular bill this is about the healthy homes standards. We had a lot of debate last night about the healthy homes standards and we're continuing it this morning. But for this bill it really goes to the heart of the divisive nature of this Government where we're passing laws that have had one rule for everybody else and one rule for Labour. We see that in a lot of laws that have passed—in particular with housing we've seen it with interest deductibility law changes where the Government said If you're a private landlord we're going to limit your ability to deduct your interest from your residential accommodation but we are the Government and we believe that we are different and we are better and we should be allowed to provide housing rather than private landlords." and so they had a different rule for themselves. That goes to the heart of why we're here today debating this law because when the healthy homes standards were written we had a deadline for private landlords that said that by 1 July 2021 all private landlords within 90 days of a new tenancy or a renewed tenancy would have to abide by the healthy homes standards. But for the Government they had another two years. It turns out that even with that extra amount of time the Government acknowledges that they won't be able to bring their own homes up to the healthy homes standards. They won't be able to meet the high standards that they expected of everybody else. So we're here in the Parliament today to give them another extension. I think it's shameful that we constantly hear from this Government that the Government can do better and the Government knows better and if only the Government provided another service and if only the Government took a few more dollars out of your own pocket and provided a service for you they would do a better job. Well case in point they' can't because they don't know better and they can't do better. Even with the economies of scale of the massive Government and all of our money in taxes they can't do a better job of getting their own homes up to scratch than a private landlord. We know that a lot of private landlords have spent a lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of money getting their homes up to the healthy homes standards last year. We heard from statistics last night that 85 percent of private landlords last year had brought their homes up to the healthy homes standards or had actions to do so. Yet it's only this week that that same number of Kāinga Ora homes have either been brought up to standard or are on track to be brought up to standard. So it's not a case of the Government knows best and it's not a case of the Government can do better—in fact they're failing on both.We constantly hear that private landlords are the villains. We hear it in all of the rhetoric that comes from this Government: that the Government can do better that they know better and that they should provide this service and if only the Government were more involved we'd have better standards for living and better standards for all New Zealanders. Well unfortunately the Government looks after the most vulnerable tenants in our country—people living in Kāinga Ora homes—and unfortunately they have not taken the steps to get those homes up to the healthy homes standards for the most vulnerable tenants. But at the same time they're happy to paint landlords as slumlords and say that they are the ones who are creating the housing problems and the housing crisis and they've got terrible water and they've got heating problems and all the things that you can think about but it's really the Government.I'd like to thank the landlords who have done a really good job of not only meeting the costs that have been associated with this law but by doing everything that they can to provide another home for somebody in their own community. Over the last few years as housing spokesperson I have heard from many people—through emails from going to public meetings from having one-on-one discussions with landlords and people from the Property Investors Association—that people have been really struggling and doing it tough especially those landlords who have intentionally held their rents low because they have somebody living in their home that they genuinely care about and want to provide a safe stable environment for. But with all the changes and all the taxes and regulations that this Government puts on them they have become stretched to capacity and in some cases have needed to end tenancies for some vulnerable members of our communities.Now one family comes to mind in Porirua. I had a landlord reach out to me and say that they had wanted their tenants to be able to go all the way through high school at that same house and be able to give that family stability but because of all the tax changes and all the regulations and all those added costs it had become unsustainable for them to keep this tenancy. So they had to put their home on the market and the result is that this family that they'd tried to give stability to had to move out and they couldn't find a home that was that cheap in the same area and so their kid had to change schools. Isn't that a tragedy? That the Government's policies have actually made some families' lives less stable than they would have been.We've heard from some landlords that with these changes specifically to the healthy homes they've gone in to debt to try and bring their homes up to the standard that the Government expects of them. Some landlords have had to pass on that cost the cost of up to $10000 per home to bring these homes up to standard.The ACT Party says that if we truly cared about some of the most vulnerable people in our community we would make sure that they have a home rather than an expensive home—any home at all. We see the emergency housing wait-lists skyrocket. We see the number of people in motels increase and continue to grow. We have people still living in cars and garages and living permanently in motels. Yet we're saying to landlords "I don't care if you can provide a stable environment for someone. Unless you meet all of our very high standards that we can't meet ourselves you shouldn't be allowed to give your home to another member of your community because we don't believe it's safe enough for them." Well I would say that it's better for a person to live in a home than not be able to live in one at all and need to move into emergency housing. We need to see more residential accommodation be built and be developed and be let out to members of our community. We're not going to see that if we keep saying that landlords are the bad guys and we need to put another cost another tax another regulation on them. In fact if we did the opposite and we allowed for more investment growth development and a stable environment for people to get into the building industry we would see more housing development and that can only be good for those most vulnerable of our tenants—the most vulnerable of our tenants—who are now reliant on the Government for emergency housing for living in a motel or for living in a Kāinga Ora home that isn't even up to their own code yet but not in a private landlord's residence. I think we can do better as a society. We need to solve the housing crisis. We need more warm dry and affordable housing. But it's not through more taxes more regulations and more costs but through allowing New Zealanders to get on and provide accommodation in the form that they want it to other New Zealanders. Thank you Madam Speaker."