Woods MeganDr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): I rise in support of this bill. When the member who introduced this bill Andrew Little took the first call on this tonight he asked a very simple question for members in this House and it was: Whose side are you on?".It is as simple as that. We have seen spinning on the head of a pin by Government members. First of all the argument was: "We do not need this bill because we are doing it anyway." Then we had: "This is an unsophisticated one and a half pages which we do not need." And then finally we got to the crux of the matter when we heard from the previous National speaker Ian McKelvie and that was: "It is too expensive."Well at what price? Every year 42000 children are admitted to hospital because they live in cold damp and mouldy houses. We have 15 children a year who die because their houses are not of an adequate standard. On this side of the House we make no apology for asking people to choose which side they are on. To hear members saying that it would be too difficult to put in place an inspectorate to make sure we do not have homes that are a threat to our children's lives is simply galling. It simply shows which side this Government is on and it is not on the side of the children who are being admitted to hospital.What we have at the moment is a piece of legislation—a Residential Tenancies Act—that says landlords have to insulate to a 1978 standard. I remember growing up in the 1970s. I remember seeing my breath in my bedroom. I remember ice on the inside of my windows. I remember a cold house. I think we can do better and that is exactly what this bill of Andrew Little does.We have heard—again the dancing on the pin—"It doesn't specify what the standard will be." It is very simple and I will reiterate it: we have made it clear all the way through that the standard would be set by regulation so that it could be adjusted as it was necessary without having to come back to this House to make those amendments. It is not unheard of to do that by regulation and we have been very clear that it would be the 2008 standard. This would result in some huge benefits in terms of our houses and their healthiness and whether or not people get sick in them.We have seen the evidence come in. We have seen from the Children's Commissioner the number of people who get sick but also we have seen evidence of the number of hospital days that would be saved by insulating to this higher standard. But not only is it insulating because you do not keep warm in an insulated house—even the best-insulated house—if there is no efficient way to heat that house. If you are on a low income you actually need an ability to heat that house. What this bill does is make a requirement to have efficient and clean sources of heating in those homes so these can be homes that can be heated. To say that you cannot measure how warm that is is just nonsense. This is managed all around the world and if we cannot manage it here then there is something that is seriously deficient. It is something that we cannot contemplate or accept.Then for the Government to claim that it has done more than Labour did is simply nonsense. What we had was a National Government that came into power in 2008 and scrapped a scheme that if it was still running today would have seen more homes better insulated than we currently have. This is a Government that is content for our children to be admitted to hospital or to die because it thinks it is too expensive for us to insulate and heat our homes adequately. That is not the side the Labour Party is on and it is not a side that we are willing to accept. That is why Andrew Little's bill should proceed."