Shanks Katrina: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Shanks Katrina: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to stand this afternoon and talk to the third reading of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. First I acknowledge the Social Services Committee and all the hard work it put into this bill. In particular I acknowledge my deputy chair Hekia Parata from Mana; Tim Macindoe who will speak later from Hamilton; Todd McClay from Rotorua; and of course Chester Borrows the member of Parliament for Whanganui. Of course other members who sat on the committee contributed as well. I also acknowledge the hard-working officials who worked for us. It was a very intense bill and we made many significant changes to it. 
This bill took a while to get to Parliament. The previous Labour Government first started a review on residential tenancies in 2004. Unfortunately it took 4 years to get the bill before the House. In 2008 the first bill came before the House. When National came into power we looked at the bill and did a bit of a review on it. In 2010 it is here for its third reading; it came to the select committee that I chair last year in September 2009. So it is a pleasure to be here supporting this bill today. 
Obviously the residential tenancy market has undergone significant change in the 22 years since the Residential Tenancies Act was last looked at. In fact one-third of New Zealanders live in rental properties today which is quite significant. It is quite a big change from 22 years ago. So it was important that this Act was addressed. Both landlords and tenants have been asking for issues around residential tenancies to be brought forward and addressed. These reforms are long overdue. 
This bill provides a modern framework that addresses the needs of today’s residential property market. The bill defines the rights and obligations of residential landlords and tenants in a clearer and much fairer way. 
The review of the bill identified five primary issues with the current Act which we believe this bill will address. Currently there is insufficient compliance enforcement and dispute resolution. There is a lack of knowledge around landlord and tenancy rights and the obligations that ought to be conferred. It leaves open mixed capability to manage property and tenants. It allows too variable a standard of rental housing and it lacks the opportunity for a stable tenure of longer-term tenants. It was important that this bill came to the House to address those issues. 
In light of these concerns the bill makes positive changes and will encourage the development of a rental market to provide stable quality housing to those who live in rented homes. It will enable landlords to manage their properties more effectively giving them certainty around obligations. 
Many of us stand here today representing our electorates. My electorate is Ohariu which I represent for National. We have a big area of rental properties which may surprise many people and we also have many many landlords. So this bill is quite relevant to all those constituents in my electorate of Ohariu. 
The committee looked at certain slightly contentious areas more closely than others. One of those areas was the disclosure of cleaning orders. We are unfortunately in a society where P is manufactured in residential properties. When that manufacture is identified the question was what to do if there are cleansing orders. The committee had a big debate around whether one has to disclose that information to tenants when they come into a tenancy and whether the fact that it sits on a land information memorandum was enough for the tenants to research it and find that there was a cleansing order on the property. We looked at this area in quite a lot of detail. The select committee came to the conclusion that we would rather landlords went out and got the properties cleansed and did not hide the fact that there had been drugs in that property for fear of never being able to let it again. So we decided they would not have to disclose that to the tenants in a formal way; it would still be on the land information memorandum of the property. This was to ensure that there was an incentive for landlords to identify whether their houses had been used as a P lab and whether they have had them properly cleansed. We had confidence through the cleansing process and the cleansing orders that tenants would not be at risk at all. 
We had a big discussion on what we should do about abandoned goods. We heard from representatives from universities which was interesting. Obviously students especially in Otago are renowned for leaving their property all over the place. They pack their bag leave the flat and leave everything there. So we discussed what we could do for the landlords and the tenants to make it fair and equitable for everybody. We put some practical solutions in the legislation around the cost of removal and what the price of those assets—if we can call them assets—would be. We discussed what to do with the couches the cars on the front lawn and the mattresses on the front porch and how to determine whether the landlord has to store them whether he or she should pay the cost of storage and whether he or she can dispose of them. We put some criteria in place in terms of what a landlord could and could not do. 
We looked at letting fees and temporary or transient accommodation. We excluded camping grounds which were caught up in the legislation. Retirement villages were also caught up in it. We opened up the legislation a little bit to boarding houses to give those tenants a lot more rights. We had a great debate on many of these issues. We feel that we have got it just right to make it fair for tenants and for landlords. I commend this bill to the House.