Sepuloni Carmel: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSepuloni Carmel: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 31 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11529. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I just want to start by saying that my colleague Megan Woods just pointed out a few names for National’s Government coalition over there. We had Maureen Pugh talking about muddying the waters between the red and the green and I know how threatened those members are so that is why they have to go there tonight. Actually when you look at that coalition Government—National Māori Party United Future and the ACT Party—I think my colleague Kelvin Davis described it best by saying it is “ménage à whā” really. That is what that is over there so let us get that out of the way and get on to the important stuff—that is the housing bill.We are here for a third reading. This is our final chance to say anything about something that is really important—that is housing. So despite the fact that we have a Government over there that still denies the fact that we have a housing crisis we are considering an important piece of legislation that unfortunately does not go far enough in addressing the health concerns of our people in housing. We are supporting the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill but we do have major reservations and we have made those reservations known right from the start. We have reservations about the fact that this really is a wasted opportunity to set decent minimum standards that would ensure all rental properties are warm and dry.Do you know even just tonight we were looking at the news and seeing that we have such a housing problem in this country not just in respect of the adequacy of the housing that we have but actually the access to any housing at all. Tonight we saw on the news a 15-day-old baby who was premature who is staying on a marae and her family are there because of the fact that they have nowhere else to live. So on one hand it is the fact that we have a housing shortage and on the other hand it is the fact that we have housing stock that is making our people sick. In 2016 it is unacceptable that Kiwi children are dying in houses that are unfit to live in. The time has come for Parliament to ensure that every rental house is fit for people to live in. We believe that the bill should also set a standard for ventilation and require there to be an affordable modern and fixed heating source. We also believe that the 3-year phase-in period is excessive.In contrast Andrew Little’s Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) would provide that after a year all new tenancies would have to meet standards for methods of heating methods of insulation indoor temperatures ventilation draught stopping and drainage. We keep hearing from that side of the House that what Andrew Little is proposing is unaffordable. Well actually what is unaffordable is 42000 children being admitted to hospital every year because of the state of the housing that they are living in. I just do not think that the National Government members know how to do maths because if they added it up then they would see that actually the cost of doing what Andrew Little is proposing would be far outweighed by the cost of the 42000 children who are admitted to hospital every year. That is just the number of admissions into hospital—and the National Government MPs laugh. That is just the number of admissions into hospital.We have also been told about the number of children who are dying every year because of the conditions that they are getting because they are living in unhealthy homes. Fifteen children a year are dying because of the state of their housing and that is unacceptable. For those of us who are electorate MPs—Hon Member: Not many on that side.CARMEL SEPULONI: Lots on this side actually—very few list MPs on this side actually. For those of us who are electorate MPs one of the biggest issues we have coming through our door every day is families with housing issues. The housing issues are not just a shortage of housing but they are also the actual adequacy of the housing and the fact that those houses are making them sick.I have had people come through my office for support with letters from the hospital and letters from their GPs saying that they must get transfers from their housing and they must get access to a Housing New Zealand house because the houses they are in are sending them back to hospital time and time again and it is not funny. I had a mother come to my office for help. She said that she had just been let go from hospital with her 5-year-old daughter because of the respiratory problems her daughter had developed because of the mould and damp in the house they were living in. She was concerned about her daughter having to go back in there. By the time I went to see her a day and a half later she had already been readmitted into Waitakere Hospital. Her daughter—that 5-year-old girl—had gone home from the hospital to that house and that house had made her sick and she was put back into hospital.I mean National Government members—I cannot understand how you cannot take this seriously and why every time we have this debate in the House you end up laughing at what is being proposed by this side of the House. Clearly it is not just about doing these families a favour; it is about the cost to the hospital system every time these kids get admitted into hospital. It is about the cost in terms of lives. We have heard Nick Smith say that it would be too expensive to get slum landlords to upgrade their properties to a livable standard. He exaggerates the cost but more importantly he seems to know the price of everything and the value of nothing. That is the truth.We cannot reduce children’s lives and their right to decent housing to a monetary value. We do not need to calculate the number of children’s lives this bill will save the hospital admissions it will avoid and the better learning outcomes of having kids not missing school so often from being sick and to then offset those benefits against the cost of fixing those houses. We just need to state a simple principle that every Kiwi will agree with: in 2016 no child should be getting sick or dying because their house is not fit to live in.We make no apology for standing up for the simple idea that every Kiwi child deserves a decent place to live. That is at the heart of the Kiwi Dream. Research shows that just over 70 percent of the children in poverty live in rental accommodation and the majority—53 percent—live in private rental properties. I want to go back to what my colleague Jenny Salesa was saying before and that was about the Pacific community. She pointed out that we are more likely to be affected by legislation like this because we are more likely to rent property. Not only are we more likely to do that but I do need to point out that the decline in homeownership of Pasifika is much steeper than anybody else’s. We have gone from 26 percent in 2001 to only 18 percent now in 2016.Su’a William Sio: 16 percent.CARMEL SEPULONI: Actually Su’a William Sio was just saying that it has been reduced even further to 16 percent. So we are affected by legislation around landlords.I would point out the fact that actually most landlords are good landlords. Very few are the slum landlords whom we are talking about but I have come across them in my electorate and I am sure others have too. I have come across landlords who buy up leaky homes because they are cheap but then they rent them out for a market rental to families who cannot afford to live anywhere else. I have been to one of those houses. Where it is damp you can see the mould and actually one of the children living in those houses has developed rheumatic fever because of the state of that housing. So we are having to support this bill because it does something but it does not go far enough. It could have gone much further. It could have saved the lives of children but instead what we have is kind of a half-hearted attempt to do something or at least to be seen to be doing something—Hon Dr Nick Smith: Always never enough!CARMEL SEPULONI: —but really it is not addressing the real issues that we are facing.Nick Smith is going on and on again. I can hear him out of one ear over here. Again he seems to know the price of everything and the value of nothing and he does not really seem to take this issue—or any issue around housing—seriously. In fact the issue around homelessness we have heard him say is a figment of all of our imaginations. Well actually tell the average person who walks out to their shopping centre and walks out on to their main road every day and who is confronted with levels of homelessness that we have never seen in this country before. We have major issues in this country with housing. They are the shortage of housing the adequacy of housing and the level of healthiness that our homes provide for our children. It is just a pity that the National Government is doing so little to address those issues. Thank you.