Turei Metiria: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 24 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11123. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I am disappointed in Nick Smith—I really am—for two reasons: first that we have a building and housing Minister who cannot tell the difference between a rental home and an office—and perhaps that explains some of the problems the country has when it comes to the housing crisis—and second that he would actually so devalue the lives of 500 children every month who are injured when they fall out of and more important through glass windows. I mean this is 500 kids a month. It is about 120-odd a week or 17 a day.So today 17 children will present at hospital with injuries ranging from cuts and bruises from toppling out of a window to severe slicing through their faces arms and legs as a result of crashing though glass windows and doors. That matters to me. Those 17 kids today matter to me the 120 this week matter to me and the 500 this month matter to me. The cost of preventing injuries to 17 kids today and 500 this month is that we require landlords as part of their general maintenance of the house where they have glass doors or windows that reach from the ground to 700 millimetres because that is what the building code requires to put in a visibility strip. It is like a slightly opaque kind of design sellotape. It is not tricky. It is not expensive. You can buy it from any hardware store in the country for a couple of bucks. That is one of the provisions in Supplementary Order Paper 172 in my name. That is all it would take and that alone would help prevent 500 kids a month from going to hospital with bruises and cuts and severe lacerations. I think that is a win for our kids and a win for our families. I think it is a win for landlords.Does anybody want to be a landlord whose tenant’s child smashes though a glass door and injures themselves or sometimes dies just because you could not be bothered getting some tape from Mitre 10 and putting in a glass strip? We do not want any of that happening in this country if we can avoid it. That is why we have regulations to help avoid these kinds of serious and expensive consequences from accidents like this. So I make no apology at all for wanting to protect 500 kids this month and 17 today from going to hospital because they fell through a glass door. So yes glass visibility strips are a critical part of a comprehensive warrant of fitness because they are one of the measures that will protect children from injury and help to save lives along with a range of other measures that are also in these provisions.I was talking earlier about Emma-Lita Bourne and about the fact that the home she was living in which contributed to her death did have a heater installed in it. But it was an inadequate one and no proper ventilation no certainty of being free from mould and no proper insulation meant that that family could not heat their home adequately and save her life. So if we are going to have regulation around what landlords need to provide to keep their homes warm safe and dry let us make sure that it actually will do that by making sure we include fixed space heating effective ventilation and a requirement that it is free from mould.There are other aspects in my Supplementary Order Paper. Effective window latches—this is one of the major issues that were reviewed during the Housing New Zealand test around a warrant of fitness—actually led to massive insecurity of homes. It was a huge risk factor for burglaries which made people feel insecure in their home. These are not difficult things to do. There are some other provisions in there that members can go through like securely locking doors fire egress and of course fire alarms because they do need to be installed as part of a comprehensive warrant of fitness.I would remind us too following on from Louisa Wall that children aged between zero and 3 spend 90 percent of their time in their home—so 90 percent of a child’s time between zero and 3 is spent inside their house. The quality and the condition of that house is absolutely critical to their health. We can make sure through relatively inexpensive measures good quality regulations and careful thought that every single one of those rental homes that these little babies are living in is warm and safe and dry and secure for them to live in. The consequences of not doing so we see being lived out every day: 40000 hospitalisations of children for respiratory illness as a result of cold damp homes.If we want to understand how effective a warrant of fitness can be for that the research on a comprehensive warrant of fitness has shown that in rental homes we can reduce hospitalisations of children by 19 percent—a nearly 20 percent reduction in hospital visits by children because of respiratory illness if we make sure that there is a comprehensive warrant of fitness for their homes. For a child who might be ill and go into hospital three or four or five times in a winter that is at least one fewer hospital visit for that child. In terms of 40000 hospitalisations a year thousands fewer is what we are talking about—thousands fewer children going to hospital because their homes make them sick. That is a win for us. That is a win for policy. That is a win for the Government.There is no cost here to the Government of a comprehensive warrant of fitness. It is not going to be expensive for the Government to require landlords to meet basic safety standards and have good quality homes that they rent out to families. Everybody wins. Landlords have better quality homes that over time they may well be able to rent for greater amounts improving the value of their property. The Government wins by having good quality policy that reduces hospital visits reduces accidents and reduces the financial burden on hospitals and ACC. Families win because they know that their kids are safe in their homes safe and secure warm and dry.So I find it impossible to understand why Nick Smith would pick on petty issues and make ridiculous claims about the provisions in my Supplementary Order Paper when he could choose to do something great for New Zealand families—something that is also great for him is part of his legacy as a Minister something that is great for the Government in terms of taking housing issues seriously something that is great for families and something that is great for the national budget—win win win. These are the solutions that the Greens are putting forward. They are good for the Government good for our economy good for our homes and good for our families. Thank you.