Eagle PaulPAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. Look it's a real privilege to be able to get this slot to speak on my favourite topic which is housing. I said to Minister Henare Can I have your 10?" and he said "Absolutely" and that's why I'm here. I'm excited. I wish the member for Papakura wasn't leaving because—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!PAUL EAGLE: —she made me even more excited.Hon Members: You can't say that.PAUL EAGLE: Kia ora. Sorry Madam Assistant Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you members for helping me with that. Carry on.PAUL EAGLE: Look can I get down to business before the clock ticks down before I can get anything out. The only thing that was pathetic was that speech because the most pathetic effort was that in nine long years they did nothing—absolutely nothing—in housing and they've come here today saying that this bill is pathetic. This bill is described by a constituent—I'm proud to be a constituency MP myself. Letting fees—goodbye and good riddance and I need to say no more.But I want to respond because Minister Twyford and Minister Salesa are quite right. This is all about making life a whole lot better for renters. They say landlords will put up the rents. They say landlords will sell off their properties and exit the market. They say there are safety and security concerns. They say—appallingly—that the public service department Housing New Zealand Corporation is incompetent. I don't want to put words into their mouths but look that's untenable. It's absolutely untenable. "Let's look at putting up rents!"—there's no evidence of this. There's nothing—nothing. There's no evidence. This is typical of an Opposition who had nine long years to put together a housing programme but all we have seen are nasty texts stones thrown and words that are just absolutely cheap.This is a Government that is serious serious and serious about fixing housing in New Zealand. It's a continuum. When we look at anything from homelessness through to social and public housing affordable housing be it for first-time buyers to those who own their own homes down to those who want to add on to their property portfolio this is a Government that's got a comprehensive approach and this is one small part of that.The sad thing for me and members of the public is really that this is just another case of a real victimisation of the vulnerable. Those who haven't got much—in this case a home—like Māori Pacific and ethnic people who are at the absolute bottom who come to my office in Newtown and tell me—I've had nearly 1000. When I was privileged to be able to speak this morning I had a quick count-up. I talked to the electorate office secretary and asked "How many inquiries have we had about the Residential Tenancies Act the letting fees and the other piece of work that Minister Twyford is doing?" Nearly 1000. And that's 1000 too many. When I looked through them I said "How many relate to letting fees?" Nearly all of them. That's too many. That's far too many.Look let's go to what they say. I want to refer to a young chap—and where's the evidence? There's nothing like a bit of evidence here. I want to talk about Ben Crawford who is a renter in my electorate. "It feels like there's nothing you can do because if you kick up a fuss there's always tonnes more people out there who need a place desperately so you can easily miss out."—and that's the crux of the issue. This is a total disgrace and I'm glad that we've finally put in place something to fix it.Can I say that this can't come fast enough. Once this is banned once this is got rid of then we can focus and get back on track with building houses. [Interruption] There's confusion over the other side as to what building houses actually means who they're actually for and why we're doing it. You would have thought after nine years there would have been some—the market would have responded—but they didn't. Then what do you do? You don't want to intervene because you can't tell your mates that they can't build their houses. I don't know. It seems chaotic over there.On this side of the House we've got a plan for housing. We're organised. This is just one very small but very important part of fixing the crisis that that side put on the nation of Kiwis. God what a sad day when we have to continually spend this time fixing all these issues when really we just want to provide good decent Kiwis decent homes. It's such a stress. It's such a stress when you have to step back to move forward. Look everything we do is "fix this; fix that"—oh! Madam Assistant Speaker say no more. I'm really proud to commend this bill to the House."