Hughes Gareth: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Hughes Gareth: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Speaking as a member who is a tenant and a renter I am happy to take this call on the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill which modernises the Residential Tenancies Act. This bill is better than the status quo and that is why the Greens will be voting in support of it tonight. However we lament the missed opportunities to increase the rights for the more than 1 million tenants in New Zealand including those in non-traditional housing environments. Tonight I will raise the issue of those who live in cold damp and unhealthy homes. 
We support many of the minor changes in this bill to clarify existing law and to broaden it out to reflect the significant changes that have occurred since the legislation was first introduced in this House in 1986. Since 1986 the proportion of New Zealanders who rent their homes has gone up. More young people are flatting away from home and a larger number of older people with children and families are choosing to rent. 
Tonight while we discuss the law around tenancies I would like to discuss where people are living. By First World standards the standard of our housing stock is appalling. According to a recent study commissioned by the Business Council for Sustainable Development New Zealand has around 1 million inadequately insulated homes. Too many of our homes are cold and damp. It is no wonder that we have disproportionately higher rates of asthma and other respiratory diseases. While we are talking books tonight I would like to “book-drop” Philippa Howden-Chapman’s new book  
Do Damp and Mould Matter? Health Impacts of Leaky Homes 
 which documents the extreme health impacts of our poor housing. 
On top of health issues our inefficient housing leads to excessive power consumption higher than necessary heating bills for many households and a huge amount of householders who are living in energy poverty which plays a part in New Zealand’s increasing greenhouse gas emissions. We have around 450000 rental properties that house a third of our population and generally those are the coldest and least efficient of our nation’s housing stock. Lower socioeconomic groups and young people are disproportionately affected by substandard rental properties. Many young people have no choice but to pay exorbitant rents in exchange for housing that is cold damp inefficient and expensive to heat. 
The Green Party has achieved a lot with this Government and the previous Labour Government and the current scheme aims to retrofit 188000 Kiwis’ homes with ceiling and underfloor insulation and to provide them with access to clean-heating devices over 4 years. However when we look at the rental market we see that the uptake has been only about 10 percent of this scheme for rental properties. At this rate it will take decades to bring all of our rental properties up to an acceptably healthy level. So tonight while we think about tenancy law let us also think holistically about where our people are tenants. 
In looking at this bill the Green Party believes that it is important to strike the right balance between the rights of landlords and the rights of tenants. In my second reading speech I looked at a few of the issues that the Greens had with this bill such as the termination issue in respect of boarding-house tenants. The security of tenure issue for boarding-house residents which we had concerns about at earlier stages was improved somewhat in the Social Services Committee but not to the extent that we would have liked. Another issue was the charging of letting fees. The Green Party would have supported a prohibition on the charging of letting fees to tenants. 
We lament the unfortunate oversight of the bill’s not addressing the termination of a residential tenancy following the death of a tenant. When we look at legal representation issues we see that this continues the currently unfair provision that permits corporate landlords to otherwise be represented by an experienced tenancy manager while tenants who often know little about tenancy law and may well have English as a second language are forced to represent themselves. Boarding-house residents have been waiting a long time for legislation that will extend their rights and current protections. However there is another sector in New Zealand that is currently unprotected. We could have been extending protection to those who reside in non-traditional housing forms such as caravan parks and backpacker lodges 
Everyone in New Zealand deserves a fair go but this bill failed to address the fact of life that in New Zealand in 2010 many thousands of Kiwis are not formal tenants they do not live in boarding houses and they suffer for want of normal tenancy rights. It is a good example of where the updating of this old 1980s Act was good and necessary but this bill has not gone far enough to reflect the real facts on the ground. 
Lastly it was a pity that the amendment put up by the Labour member Moana Mackey in respect of major events did not pass. This is a major concern given that one of the world’s biggest sporting events is coming to our shores next year—the Rugby World Cup. We will see people in boarding houses and flats kicked out of their homes so that landlords can make a quick buck. 
In summary the main criticisms of this bill at its first reading were in relation to issues that it did not adequately address. Following the Social Services Committee’s consideration of the bill some positive and some negative changes were made but from our point of view and on balance the Green Party still supports voting for this bill. Kia ora.