Hague Kevin: Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHague Kevin: Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 18 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2421. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KEVIN HAGUE (Green): Earlier this evening my colleague Catherine Delahunty referred to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs which of course is a way of thinking about basic human needs that need to be met in order for a human being to achieve their potential. What we have seen from the Government members this evening is also an approach based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. We have seen them defeat the “Feed the Kids Bill” and then David Shearer’s alternative solution to the same problem. The right to food—the need for food—is one of those basic rights.Another of those basic rights is the right—the need—for warmth and shelter and it seems that the Government is intending to vote against this as well. So it appears that rather than approaching those basic needs on the basis of trying to progressively meet them all which actually is kind of the purpose of government the Government is instead intent on destroying all of those needs and ensuring that they are not met. If I were Matt Doocey I would be embarrassed. The man has come from a health background and therefore he must know that health status is driven by environment—by the environment that people in communities find themselves in—and there is no more direct kind of environment than the housing that we live in.The evidence is abundant—Phil Twyford captured a small summary of that in his opening contribution—that housing in New Zealand is one of the major drivers of ill health in this country in two ways. First of all it is through overcrowding. The Government’s failure to ensure an adequate supply of housing is condemning New Zealanders to live in overcrowded conditions that feed respiratory and skin infections and that feed rheumatic fever and even more serious conditions. The second way in which poor-quality housing drives ill health is through that housing being cold or damp or drafty or mouldy. That is the condition that this bill sets out to address. Both of those problems are getting worse—overcrowding because of the shortage of supply and because in particular of the decreasing affordability of housing in this country—but the poor-quality housing is getting worse because it acts as a safety valve for the Government’s failure to provide affordable housing. That is right and Matt Doocey’s opening contribution in fact pretty much said that. It said that the Government is worried that this would force up rental costs.Denis O’Rourke: It won’t.KEVIN HAGUE: As Denis O’Rourke has said you know it is unlikely to result. What that means is that the Government has a balanced solution from its point of view. It enables landlords to provide poor-quality shoddy housing and that enables it to get away with in fact not ensuring that there is affordable housing available to New Zealanders. It is a disgrace. The Green Party as Metiria Turei has commented already this evening has worked for many years on this issue of the quality of housing. In particular Jeanette Fitzsimons was an absolute battler for ensuring that houses were as well insulated and energy-efficient as they could be working first with Labour and then with National to ensure that our insulation schemes were progressed.We have our own bill. It takes a different approach from Mr Twyford’s. That is in the ballot but we will be supporting his bill tonight. Any of the problems that the Government members have addressed in their contributions tonight could and should be addressed by the select committee. That is the proper process for legislation. It seems to me that it is an unusual state of affairs when we have tenants we have landlords—and I notice that the Property Investors Federation speaks to Mr Twyford and me; it is a bit of a worry that it is not speaking to the Government—and we have the health professionals all saying that this is what we need to do. So why will the Government not do it or allow it to be done?