Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe tēnā koutou e te Whare. Fascinating—given the amount of interest that there appears to be in this legislation—that we seem to be collapsing the debate this evening. I find it fascinating to hear that there is kind of consensus amongst the two larger parties in this Parliament and perhaps this speaks somewhat to the intention of or the philosophy behind the legislation that we are debating tonight.We don't live in a game of Monopoly. By the way the game of Monopoly the board game was invented exactly to explain or to illustrate the pitfalls and the dangers of an economy that is premised on property speculation. It was a game made for children to illustrate exactly this point of such a problematic version of thinking about the economy. And we don't live in a game of Monopoly: we can—and should—change the rules when the rules are not working for us. That's the point of living in a society: we live by the social contract and the social contract can and indeed should evolve when the rules need updating. That's supposed to be the role of this place; of our Parliament. The rules do not work and when it comes to the healthy homes standards and immense amounts of discussions with renters who have come forward to me in my constituency office—Auckland Central happens to be the electorate in this country with the highest proportion of renters and the highest proportion of rental transience—that is renters living in their properties for less than a year at a time. We are hearing that the healthy homes standards are not working. The Greens supported them in their introduction in 2017 and 2018 because they were far better than the status quo but we made the point at the time that they did not go far enough. And in fact at the beginning of this year in parliamentary written questions the Associate Minister of Housing—then the Hon Poto Williams—showed that one of the many issues with the healthy homes standards as they currently operate is not the fact that landlords don't have enough time to comply as this legislation seeks to create that extension for; but the fact that the Government does not collect data on that compliance. That's despite the fact that every new tenancy needs to have the tenancy contract put on the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment website through Tenancy Services—and I've asked a number of questions about whether it's that they need their computers upgraded to simply be able to read those documents and to check for that compliance. But it is the fact that the Government at present does not know how many private rentals are up to scratch when it comes to the healthy homes standards. But worse than that it doesn't know how many companies are holding themselves out as capable of verifying compliance with healthy homes standards and it also doesn't know how many landlords or property managers are self-verifying their exclusion from the healthy homes standards. So when we talk about the rules not working and we talk about listening in this Chamber tonight I do feel aggrieved and the Greens do feel actually quite understandably frustrated by the fact that when the Government's talking about listening and when it's pinpointing—through the regulatory impact statement as prepared by officials—that those who it is listening to are those who have always disproportionately held the power in terms of our rental market. Because despite the fact that the regulatory impact statement pinpoints very very clearly that those who will be disproportionately impacted—or rather actually those who will be primarily affected by this proposal and this is on the regulatory impact statement page 2—are those who rent homes that are not yet compliant with standards because the healthy homes compliance date has not passed. The regulatory impact statement makes it incredibly clear and I quote from it here that the negative effects will disproportionately impact vulnerable populations of tenants who already experience inequitable health outcomes." You would have thought when the Government talks about listening that those who are identified as being primarily impacted by the legislation that it is passing under urgency tonight would have been those who the Government listened to. But no if you turn over the page to page 9 on the regulatory impact statement you'll find in fact that the stakeholders who the Government approached were in fact property managers landlords and Kāinga Ora. Renters Renters United—rental organisations were not approached and were not engaged and I'm really looking forward to the committee of the whole House stage to dig into this because it appears as though Government's not particularly—and rather the Opposition is not particularly interested in holding the Government to account on this one and just passing it on through.Andrew Bayly: You go for it. Go for it Chlöe!CHLÖE SWARBRICK: But what we have here is a Government saying that it's listening but listening only to those who are benefiting from the status quo. So I also think that when we're going to talk about compliance and the amount of lead time that has been available—there has been five years to get up to scratch Andrew Bayly with the healthy homes standards and at the last hurdle the Government is deciding to restart the clock and provide yet another year. And this brings us back to that really key issue with data—which again was identified in the regulatory impact statement. Many of these issues with a lack of data and a lack of evidence could be resolved by the way with a warrant of fitness that would reverse the burden of proof instead of it continually falling once again on tenants to prove that their homes are not up to scratch—Andrew Bayly: It's David Parker's fault!CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —to take them through the likes of the Tenancy Tribunal—which I should say Andrew Bayly—many landlords also report that they do not feel works particularly well for them. So what's the Government doing in the absence of having that data? It's polling. And it's polling and it's using as we can see reflected here specifically in the regulatory impact statement—page 9 for those who are interested. The data that it's using to base this decision on and this policy to extend the time frame for compliance to the healthy home standards is not statistically significant. I don't know how the Government can stand up and say that it is listening and that it is doing the right thing here when it continues to side with those who are profiting from the status quo. I also just finally want to turn to the departmental disclosure statement where fascinatingly enough—and I can't find it in front of me—what the departmental disclosure statement makes really clear is that at part 3.1: "what steps have been taken to determine the policy to be given effect by this Bill is consistent with New Zealand's international obligations?"—well it turns out that the Ministry for Housing and Urban Development considered the bill's consistency with New Zealand's obligations under Article 11.1 of the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights. For those following along at home that is of course our international commitment to housing but more than that adequate housing is a human right. And somehow we have here reflected in the departmental disclosure statement—in black and white—that these proposals are consistent with the obligations of housing; adequate housing as a human right. This legislation which extends the ability for landlords to comply with the healthy homes standards—housing being warm dry safe and healthy—is somehow consistent with our commitment internationally to treating or rather giving effect to the human right to adequate housing.I'm really looking forward to continuing to canvass this debate and these discussions in the committee of the whole House because I think that we've only just begun to scratch the surface. Again I'm really gutted by the fact that we're not having a fulsome debate—as I would hope that all parties in this place would be interested in the many 1.5 million New Zealanders who live in rental properties—living in healthy homes—but unfortunately it appears as though the Opposition is far too keen to get home. The Greens of course will be opposing this legislation."