Upston LouiseHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I'm pleased to rise and take a call in this second reading of the Residential Tenancies (Prohibiting Letting Fees) Amendment Bill. I do want to start by saying I don't think there'd be a member in this House that wouldn't agree that we want people particularly on lower and middle incomes to be able to afford to rent a home. The difficulty is that this is yet another piece of legislation that has a good intent but actually in terms of the policy and the ability to deliver that intent there is a massive gap in between. So I want to take the House through some of the submissions that we did hear in the select committee because what the Minister outlined in her second reading speech actually doesn't line up with the reality of what we heard in the select committee. I do want to put on record that from some of the submitters we heard there were absolutely some horror stories and the one thing I will agree with the previous speaker Clare Curran about is that there are some landlords—and I would say they are a small minority of landlords—who don't do a good job. The unfortunate reality with this legislation though is that for those who want professional assistance to assist them in the letting process—guess what? That will be less available than before and for those that continue to use that service someone has to pay. And guess who will pay? It'll still be the tenant. It'll still be the tenant and unfortunately what it will mean instead of an upfront cost is that that cost if you look at the regulatory impact statement could be $10 a week—each week every week—for the remaining term of the tenancy. And when we had submitters in front of us they agreed that that would be the impact of this legislation and so I want to come back and use some of the international examples because I believe they were incorrectly applied by the Minister in her opening speech.But I just want to come back to the point that Judith Collins made which is the fact that rents have already gone up under this Government by $25 a week. That's 6 percent. So it's no mistake that if we look at the most recent benefit statistics the area where we see hardship assistance massively spiking up is accommodation. So there's already a challenge. The Government is blatantly passing another piece of legislation that will most likely increase rents even further. So the very people—the very people—that the Government purports to want to support they're not. They are absolutely not supporting low and middle income families and they're definitely not supporting those on benefits as these figures show. We've already seen a $25 a week rent increase. The costs will be passed on; that's exactly what happens. So whether it's a mum and dad investor with one property or someone who's got 10 if a business or an investor has costs—guess what?—they pass it on to their customer and the reality is that is the tenant. So unfortunately not only has the Government whacked those households—the very households that that side of the House purports to support—with massive petrol price increases but it is also willing to increase rents willy-nilly without any regard for the very families it so often gives lip-service to.I want to turn to the regulatory impact statement because it's very telling. It's very telling in a couple of ways. One is it's yet another example of very poor process by a Minister putting legislation into this House. So this is a regulatory impact statement which is actually a requirement if you're making good law and what this regulatory impact statement says is there's been no consultation on the proposal. Surprise surprise—no consultation on the proposal. What it does state though—and the Minister didn't raise this when she referred to the regulatory impact statement—I want to quote: There is a risk that landlords will pass the letting fees on to tenants through increased rent over the term of the tenancy."It goes on to say "the current national average weekly rent [is a] $452 for tenancies managed by property managers [which equates to] $9.99 per week [which] would be added to rents over a one year tenancy." The example that was quoted was Scotland. So I want to bring House's attention to what has happened overseas.Minister Salesa quite easily quoted the fact that rents hadn't increased. Actually the evidence was inconclusive. Ireland and Wales looked at following Scotland's lead both in 2013 and 2014 but they both rejected the move. They made some other changes around transparency which could have been something that this Government considered but as I say Ireland and Wales rejected the move that Scotland made. The Minister referred to the UK but I'm not quite sure what country she was referring to. England said that they would introduce a ban in 2015 but haven't done so. In Germany letting fees were banned in 2015. The significant difference between New Zealand and Germany is the average length of a tenancy in Germany is 11 years. So they actually haven't been able to fully measure the impact. So to have a Minister stand in this House and use one example when there are multiple I think is actually very misleading in terms of the reality of the impact of this legislation.The other thing I want to say is that one of the hundreds of reviews or working groups that the Government is undertaking is on the Residential Tenancies Act which is due to report back early next year. Why on earth this particular issue wasn't wrapped into a broader piece of work around residential tenancies is absolutely staggering. So no it's a piecemeal approach and not only that: this is going to come into effect on 12 December this year. It is absolutely rushed and is poor process in terms of the regulatory impact statement which is really interesting because when we were in Government any time there was a regulatory impact statement that hadn't been given the proper process and the proper scrutiny there'd be squeals of protest from every member in the then Opposition. Oh but they're very quiet today. They don't worry about regulatory impact statements now that they are in Government because it might tell them something that they don't want to hear.Well what it told the Government was that there was a likelihood this will increase rents for the very households that they purport to be working for. Well I've got news for you. I had an email just this afternoon to say that Labour had promised to look after those at the bottom and guess what—they're not. Whether it's increases in rent whether it's increases in petrol prices whether it's increases in food prices the Labour Government and their policies because they are piecemeal rather than integrated are hurting hard-working low and middle income families. This is another example of a jammed-through poor process that is going to increase rents and I haven't even touched on the subject of supply that Judith Collins raised.So I do want to say it's a significant concern that this is coming into effect on 12 December. Again it's a rushed process a poor process and one that will have an impact on rents. As I said it could have been included in the wider reform of the Residential Tenancies Act which is a discussion document out at the moment.The speaker before me Clare Curran from that side of the House said it will have zero impact on people choosing to continue to have an investment property or not. Well I can tell that side of the House that on Friday alone I was attending a meeting in a very working-class suburb of Christchurch and there were a couple of people there who had scrimped and saved to purchase an investment property which would supplement their retirement savings and all three of them said "We're getting out. It's too hard. It's too expensive. There are far too many risks in being a landlord these days and we're sick to death of being criticised publicly by the Government who treat us all as if we are fat cats when we have scrimped and saved to provide more in our retirement—and we look after our tenants is if they were our family." and that side of the House thinks it's a joke. Well I'm sorry but we want to make sure that tenants on low and middle incomes don't have their rents increased by legislation introduced from that side of the House."