Doocey MattMATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): That speech was from Ruth Dyson a member of Parliament and a Minister in the last Labour Government which oversaw fewer than 50000 houses insulated. Yet we get the lecture when we have insulated 300000 to date and will go on to insulate another 200000 in the coming couple of years. There is an old saying in rugby Look at the scoreboard" and the scoreboard never lies.I want to do something very unique tonight: I actually want to talk about the bill. We are in the second reading so what I want to talk about is this bill going to the Government Administration Committee—some of the submissions that we heard some of the debates that we had and some of the issues that we identified and discussed that have led to this bill coming back to this House with the National Party not supporting it.Can I first just talk about the submission process. We had 85 substantive submissions on the bill. Interestingly enough we had 7200 standard form submissions. What a standard form submission is is an auto-fill submission where the submissions were filled automatically. These were sent to Labour Party offices from the Labour website. So what the committee looked at was identifying any of those that were unique and distinct. We identified that they were unique and distinct because the submission had additional text to it. We were able to identify 890 submitters. Out of those 890 submitters we heard 31 oral submissions. There was a fair range of submissions as we have heard tonight from local authorities NGOs church groups unions and student groups. I would just like to acknowledge the Hon Ruth Dyson for her chairpersonship through the select committee process as well as the very able deputy chair Paul Foster-Bell for his leadership as deputy chair in steering this bill through the select committee process.What I want to start with in my call tonight is talking about the initial briefing that we had from the advisers once this bill was passed from the first reading and went to the select committee. One of the key issues that came out as we digested this bill and got to the detail of it one of the debates was how much is already in existing Acts or existing amended Acts. When you look at the Residential Tenancies Act of 1986 currently the Act places a general obligation on landlords to maintain a reasonable state of cleanliness and repair. The Residential Tenancies Amendment Act 2016 requires landlords to ensure adequate insulation as well as smoke alarms. This date has been identified for income-related rents as last year actually—July 2016. So thanks to an Act passed by this National Government renters in income-related rental properties have that standard already. For other non-income related rental properties the standard will come into force on 1 July 2019.But let us look at some of the other Acts that place requirements on landlords. Down here it says they have to comply with all requirements in respect of buildings health and safety and others under the enactment. So let us look at the Housing Improvement Regulations. Every living room should have an approved form of heating. Every bathroom should have one external window that can open and a means of ventilation. Every room must have an openable external window natural light and ventilation. I think we can already tick heating off and ventilation. Every house must have efficient drainage. Every house should be provided with gutters and downpipes. Under every part of every house where the floor is timber there should be adequate space for vents for the protection from damp and decay. Every house must be free from dampness. So I suppose we can tick off there dampness—this is under the Housing Improvement Regulations. The materials of which each house is to be constructed must be sound durable and weatherproof where subject to the effects of the weather—so that is the one we can tick off under draughts. So when you look at this bill the six clear standards it outlines—heating insulation ventilation draughts and drainage—are already covered by existing Acts amended Acts and regulations.But there is one—there is one that has not been touched here which talks about indoor temperatures. I think that was an interesting policy debate we got into on the select committee. We heard from the advisers about what would be an adequate indoor temperature. We looked at World Health Organization standards—18 degrees for fit adults; vulnerable and children at 21 degrees as well. But what we landed on was that this is ultimately determined by tenant behaviour yet this bill legislates or regulates the landlord and not for tenant behaviour. The bill has a requirement for the landlord to comply with this bill and not a corresponding requirement for tenants. What we also know is that tenants have a right to the quiet enjoyment of their property. Yet are we saying under this legislation that compliance will open up their property for people to come in at any time to test the indoor temperature? I do not think this has been thought through. What was also interesting is that this bill sets a fine of $3000 and interestingly enough currently the fine for not meeting these is $4000. So under this proposed bill the fine actually is reduced. So as clearly outlined by the Hon Nick Smith this bill is regressive.But let us not just think of the advisers. Let us take the word of some of the submitters. They also talked about the standards for indoor temperature. They submitted that "Attempting to regulate the indoor temperature of a given property for a given tenant will be nearly impossible regardless of how standards are designed." Many submitters also identified in the bill about the outcome that there was potential for wide disagreement around the standards and an inability to land on agreement to the standards. What was clear from the submission process is there actually appears to be a lack of education about what currently is in the law and what currently is under regulation. I think we can use that as a platform on how we educate and how we understand why we have got to this position and I think the Hon Nick Smith clearly outlined the Government's response to compliance.Before I finish I just want to talk quickly about one issue that came up as well around the cost. We know the compliance could be costed at about $100 million and there is always a fear that that cost will then be translated and transferred to the renter. I was at a Christchurch candidates' evening last week for Christchurch East—the member of Parliament Poto Williams; the candidate for Wigram David Hiatt; and I myself was there for National. That was in a room with 60 young people. It was an event organised for Pacific young people. A majority of them were trainee medical staff. That was their biggest concern. We did not raise that as a panel. The young people raised that as a panel—that they were not convinced that an unintended consequence of this bill would not then be the removal of some rental properties or the increase in price to renters.Ultimately this bill is already in law. There are some policy issues that clearly no one could answer and there are clearly some unintended consequences which is why this bill should not be passed."