Doocey Matt: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDoocey Matt: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 11 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:11016. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): It is a pleasure and an honour to rise in wholehearted support for the second reading of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. I am going to start my call tonight by just acknowledging our Minister for Building and Housing the Hon Dr Nick Smith for all his work that he does in this space and the very credible work he does. I think he has brought a very credible bill to this House.I would also like to acknowledge Alfred Ngaro who is the chairperson of the Social Services Committee which steered this bill through to this stage. I think it is fair to say there was lively discussion around the select committee table and I think the slight and deft hand of Alfred Ngaro was able to administer this bill clearly to its second reading. I would also like to acknowledge the 715 submitters who took time to submit on this bill. We heard from 110 orally and I must say out of all the bills that I have sat on as a member of a select committee we had a very wide range of views and stakeholder groups from landlords tenants low-income advocacy groups and those with building interests around sustainability and environmental practices. I would just like to acknowledge all their time and say that they were heard and their submissions have had input into this bill.Most of all I would like to acknowledge the advisers and the officials because there is a lot of technicality about this bill. There is a lot of fact and data that we need to be informed by. This bill has become very emotive and quite rightly. Let us be clear that where one person is injured or where there is a fatality from fire is one person too many. One person who rents a damp cold house is definitely one person too many. But what we need to do—and I think the advisers and officials helped us through this—is come back and look objectively at the facts and look at evidence-based policy and evidence-based legislation that will make a positive impact on low-income renters.What we know is currently there is no requirement under the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 for insulation or smoke alarms so it is quite right that we put this in. When we look at the about 270000 private rentals that need insulation 56 percent—or 150000—of them are rented by low-income earners and about 120000 need smoke alarms. When you look at that this is a much-needed bill. Base that on the history this Government has around retrofitting spending hundreds of million dollars on rental properties already. There is some great work from organisations in my electorate—like Community Energy Action teaming up with the Canterbury District Health Board—working with rental property tenants who are presenting to accident and emergency around respiratory illness and so forth. We know this method of insulating houses works and is making people safer.The logical step now is to draw the next step and that is around regulation. That is exactly what this bill will do. It will enact from 1 July 2016 that all social housing income-related rents will be insulated and private rentals by 1 July 2019. There was some question about why it was 3 years but when we heard from the sector around scaling up to provide insulation for about 180000 houses—about 60000 houses a year—that very much fitted the capacity of the insulation sector.I just want to focus as well around safety alarms because that is where we need to look at the facts—just acknowledging the very hard-working volunteer firemen and women in my electorate who are tirelessly out there advocating for free fire alarms and getting them into people’s houses. What we know is that with 120000 houses we have about one fire per every 400 houses and about 20 fatalities. Out of those 120000 houses by regulating for smoke alarms that will save three lives every year—a potential of three lives saved every year. So it is great to see that will be brought in by 1 July 2016.There are a couple of amendments that this bill has been brought back with. One is around increasing the penalty for unlawful acts. A lot of submitters quite rightly thought there was a power imbalance between tenants and landlords in asking for this requirement around insulation and smoke alarms. We felt that increasing the penalty from $3000 to $4000 was an effective tool in redressing that balance as well. We also realised upon further exploration of this bill there was a further amendment needed. Currently landlords need to give 24 hours’ notice to come in and repair and provide maintenance. Now under this amended bill landlords will be able to come within 24 hours’ notice and fit smoke alarms as well.I very much wholeheartedly support this bill and commend it to the House. Thank you.