Hayes Jo; Tolley AnneJO HAYES (National): Thank you very much Madam Deputy Speaker. I just want to say that I'm really pleased that the Prime Minister has given that member permission to speak in the House after his little—a few weeks ago. Anyway I'm pleased to stand and give a contribution on the Residential Tenancies (Prohibiting Letting Fees) Amendment Bill. I must say this is the dumbest most ill-thought-out bill I have ever seen come to this House. It's the dumbest because it's getting rushed through really quickly.I mean the letting fees that people have to pay—yeah for some it is prohibitive. But as my colleague Maureen Pugh said in her contribution it is mainly the bond—the upfront three-week or four-week plus GST rental that people have to pay in the bond. That is actually more prohibitive than a letting fee to be honest. I know. I've had to pay it several times when I've been renting and it is very prohibitive to actually pay all that money up front. I want to say that this bill targets all landlords. It assumes that all landlords are rogues that they are crooks and I can tell you that they are not. My mother has been renting for many years in Masterton and she has the loveliest landlord. I can tell you right now he has said to me that he is getting out of his rental because of this particular bill and the things that this Government is doing. That's actually prohibiting his business from flourishing and he is a very very good landlord. Even the landlords that I had in Christchurch were very good. Even though yes there was that letting fee I was happy to pay for it because I was getting a very good deal from them in being able to rent their properties.I just want to talk a little bit about some of the contributions that have been in this House tonight. The Hon Clare Curran said that this bill attempts to address—to address what? To address what exactly? I sat there and I thought no what it's trying to do is trying to address landlords as if all landlords are rogues. It doesn't do that—it doesn't do that. There are so many loopholes in this particular bill. By taking away that letting fee by prohibiting letting fees there will be people that will find a way around it and tenants will pay and they will pay. There will be no restriction on how much they will pay for however long they pay.This is why I say it's one of the dumbest bills I've seen because all of those things that I've just said around landlords finding ways to get around this—they will find it. It's a business. They're running a business an investment business and that's what people do when they're running their business. I heard the Hon Ron Mark talk about that about the way that landlords divest their business they sell it off and they reinvest. Well some of them may not. Some of them may keep their rentals and may look at another way of recouping some of the letting fee. I've heard the letting agents actually talk to me about that. They said What can we do?' and I said "Well wait for the bill to come out and then have a good look at it." Tonight as I sat here I listened to the contributions and I can tell you that I was really disappointed in the ones from the Government because the Government has not looked at all the possibilities that will actually penalise the brand new tenants that are going into these rentals. People are going to pay and pay and pay and it's the people that can least afford it who will do that. They will be the least able to afford it and this coalition Government will sit there and pat themselves on the backs and go "Gee we did a good job tonight. We wiped out that letting fee. Gee we did a good job. Our people are going to suffer but hey we did a good job. We're doing our thing." For those that are downtrodden though it's not really. What's happened in this bill is that you've actually added more penalty to them. When I look at the work that the previous Government had done in the heat up New Zealand programme in agreement with the Green Party—that's where the landlords and everybody had access to some funding to actually put in heating models into their house and they were given some funding to help them do that—that heat up New Zealand programme was a smart idea. It was a smart idea and whilst it added value to the landlord's property—it added value—what it also did was it gave the tenants inside those homes another form of heating. I don't know of very many—other than the normal increases that go along with the rental—rental properties that have had these heat pumps etc. installed into them where their rents went up astronomically high. But I think that with the wiping out of this letting fee there will be ways and ways that a landlord will be able to find to add more to the actual weekly rent and it's not fair. This is not a fair bill. I don't agree with what the previous speaker has said around fairness. It is something that will penalise with all the other costs of living that are going on with the policies and the legislation that this Government is actually handing out willy-nilly. We are having those that are the hardest people to get work they suffer health issues—these are the people that are actually going to suffer from this particular bill. The letting fee actually gives some protection around the types of houses etc. and yeah as I've said I agree that there are some rogue landlords out there. But at the end of the day you can do other things to actually track them rather than put a blanket piece of legislation in there that gets everybody. It gets absolutely everybody and I do feel for them. I am actually pleased that I'm moving my mum out of her rental and into a nice place where she will be able to be looked after and cared for. I'm pleased because the concerns that her landlord has around this particular piece of legislation do concern me. They concern me a lot. He is a good man and he is going to go out of the market. He is going to sell his house. And yes some nice person is going to end up having their own home but his house—his mother was in it his sister was in it and now my mother's in it—it was all around family. Yes some of the landlords as I've said are rogues but there are also family people—mums and dads—who have had those rentals. They've had them as a family business to help with their superannuation or even to actually help set their children up so that their children can actually buy homes. With this letting fee getting prohibited right throughout all of this piece of legislation what's going to happen with those? They're going to sell up. I had a great landlord in Christchurch—this American guy. I remember that when he realised who the new Government was going to be he came to me. He rang me up and he said "Who did your lawns? I want them to come in. I also want to know who is the cleaner of the house"—it was me so I said "Oh well you don't need to get the cleaner because I did that"—"because I'm getting rid of all of my properties." He owned 10 properties in Christchurch and he put them all on the market. Marama Davidson: Oh the poor dude—10 properties! JO HAYES: He did them all up and he put them on the market and I can tell you now—well actually why does that member sit on the side and yell out horrible things about people who have worked hard who have worked very hard to get where they are? Why do we penalise those hard workers? Why do we stand in here and penalise—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm sorry to interrupt the member but the time has come for this debate to be interrupted. Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 10 p.m."