Hudson Brett: Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHudson Brett: Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 18 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2422. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BRETT HUDSON (National): It is just quite incredible to hear that from the previous speaker Kevin Hague—a man who aspires to be a party leader but who does not even know the economic growth rate of the last quarter or year criticises the arguments of a speaker on this side of the House. That is rich indeed although it is not surprising because that member has been fixated on rich for all the months of this 51st Parliament. I rise in opposition to this member’s bill. It is ill-defined and poorly targeted. In fact it is not targeted at all. It is a one-size-fits-all approach and as we on this side know one size does not fit all. It is also a solution by decree. It has no specifications. It has no fundamental standard details. It merely says: “We’ll make a couple of changes and the job’s done.” Some would say that is the typical approach of the Labour Party—in fact some might describe it as its policy methodology.What does the bill do? It does seek to set a single standard across all rentals. It takes into no consideration at all the challenges from different builds different types and different previous standards. It merely says that everyone can comply with this one set standard. It does not understand and takes no cognisance at all of some of the challenges as we have heard from a previous speaker on this side of the House. Some of the challenges are simply insurmountable given current insulation. Others are challenging but could be addressed. However they could be addressed only at major cost. What we on this side of the House understand but clearly is not understood on the other side of the House or on the cross benches is that an increase in costs to the landlord is going to be borne by the tenant if not in the short term then certainly in the long run. So what we have is a bill that is going to propose what amounts to an increase in cost to tenants and that the Opposition members think is somehow going to solve an affordability problem and a housing problem. It simply will not.Let us have a look at the standards that are specified in the bill. Well the answer is that there are none really. We simply do not know whether the standards that will come into force will be so high that they will compromise supply of rental stock because landlords cannot afford to do it or whether they will simply compromise the cost that tenants have to pay. Of course the other possibility is that the standards will shoot too low in which case they will not improve the warmth or dryness of the rental stock either. At the moment in the bill that is being introduced we simply do not know. There is the rub and the heart of the problems that this bill will create or exacerbate. It will simply force properties out of supply or it will force significant costs on landlords which in the reality of this market environment which the members opposite have spoken about will simply force greater costs on to tenants.It proposes a measurement that would make the person legally responsible for something they cannot control. It is the internal temperature and ventilation. That is something that is drivel. It is highly dependent on the tenant’s behaviour and yet they would seek to make the landlord responsible. That is incredible absolutely incredible. What the National Party is doing is that we are very clear that housing affordability is driven by supply challenges and we are addressing those through strong pragmatic means to open up land supply to reduce regulatory costs and to reduce materials’ costs and by tackling problems head-on. We are taking on the real problems for vulnerable renters by addressing insulation in State houses—something we have already done. We have grabbed the bull by the horns and have actually solved that particular problem.The next step in that plan is developing a practical minimum quality standard and applying that to our State housing stock—the stock as I have said where the most vulnerable low-income earners are likely to reside. So we have tackled the problem pragmatically using measures that will work and that have been proven to work. The Opposition is simply proposing a decree and a one size fits all that will not. I cannot support that and I will not. Thank you.