Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Madam Speaker thank you. It's a good day for mega-landlords. If you are one of the 900 people or legal persons who own the 22100 homes which are owned by this special class of large property investor then 90-day evictions clauses—that's the policy for you. You'll be excited by this bill but for everyone else this will have a big impact on our communities on not only housing but on education and on the ability for people to put down roots into their communities and to make a contribution. So this is not the bill that this House should be voting through tonight. This in fact is something that all members of this House should reject because it does not do anyone any favours not just the renters for whom their rights are being taken away by this bill but everyone who has to live alongside people who are being disenfranchised in the very homes that they live in and in the places which they call home which are meant to be safe for not only them but for their children. This is not well-thought legislation. It is also being rushed through and it's something which I hope we will see some wisdom about later and come back to this House and amend.The problem with this bill is that it's also part of a suite of bigger packages which go alongside rules which take away renters' rights and make it easier for landlords to get rid of tenants that they see as problematic. That together we've heard from the Prime Minister in question time today is meant to put downward pressure as he said it was called on rents. Now the problem with this is that the Reserve Bank the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and Treasury have all presented reports which are publicly available which say that actually rents are not determined by downward pressure on landlords' costs or by taxation but they are in fact determined by the amount of money that people have to spend on them—by people's incomes. So making that claim repeatedly in this House that this kind of legislation will bring rents down is simply false. It's not true that this kind of legislation which would see more people out on the street which would see more vulnerable families displaced from their houses and will ultimately increase homelessness is the answer to rents.Grant McCallum: Yours increased rents—your policies increased rents.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Not the word you".ARENA WILLIAMS: What is the answer? It's putting more funding into Kāinga Ora and the ability to build more houses. But instead we have heard an obstinate refusal from that Government to put any of the extra funding that's required into Kāinga Ora to build more homes. In fact those programmes are paused and it's that kind of decision making which is short-sighted and we should see for what it is which is taking away renters' rights with no ability to provide the housing that New Zealanders need to live the kind of lives that they want their parliamentarians to be enacting for them.This kind of thing leads to bigger problems. For people who are not renting we should see this as leading to further absenteeism in schools. We should see this as the kind of movement around communities which displaces people and stops parents from being able to keep their children in the school which they had started in and also keeps parents from being able to contribute to community sport to their churches to their local organisations which need volunteers but will not have them if people have to constantly move around.You heard from my colleague Mariameno Kapa-Kingi who said that actually this is an issue of equity too that the people who are most frequently displaced in Aotearoa New Zealand are whānau Māori that these people find it the hardest to find long-term secure warm dry homes. These are exactly the people who we should be supporting into those homes so that they can continue to make a contribution to their communities so that they can put down roots and find the kinds of lives that we want them to be able to live.But instead this kind of legislation says "No we don't care about that. Instead we're going to prioritise the 900 people and legal persons who own 22100 homes between them." That is the size of the city of Nelson owned by mega-landlords in New Zealand and this kind of policy makes it easier and cheaper for them to run that like a business. Housing should not be treated like a business. Housing is a right and the renters whose rights are being taken away by the National Government should hold them to account at the next election. Consider these changes alongside those housing changes at Kāinga Ora which are actively promoting tenants being kicked out of their homes. These changes are not going to make a positive difference in our society and I do not commend this bill."