Turei Metiria: Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 18 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2417. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): It must be hell on earth to be a backbencher in National after listening to today’s contributions. I have heard such rubbish from the backbench of National and that last one really did take the cake. I am going to be generous though and say that it is hard when you are new and it is hard when you get this huge amount of information from Steven Joyce’s—somewhat defunct now because they are all up in Northland—research unit that is giving you all this rubbish to say and you have got no other choice but to say it. So I have some sympathy but it must just be impossible to walk out of this House feeling like you have made any kind of useful contribution if you have to spout that kind of rubbish.We have heard all sorts of alarmist extremist claims about why New Zealanders are not entitled to have a decent standard of housing because that is all that this bill—Phil Twyford’s bill—does. It simply respects the fact that New Zealanders are entitled to a decent standard of housing—and in the rental market of course they are paying good money. People pay good money for the houses that they rent but the standards are so low that frankly toasters have more regulatory controls for safety than New Zealand houses do. This bill is one attempt to try to fix that to provide some guidance and some criteria so that if landlords want to be in the profit-making business by renting out this particular piece of property there are some standards that they should meet because the consequences of no standards are so obvious for everyone to see: severe health consequences for our kids severe health consequences for older New Zealanders and increased energy costs for families and for older New Zealanders.We know from the report that was done on the home insulation scheme that the Green Party and Labour first worked to implement and the Green Party and National then worked to implement that one of the major advantages of the early years of the home insulation scheme was that lives were saved. Primarily it was the lives of older people in this country because they were the ones who were struggling particularly those living on their own to pay power bills and who were suffering severe health consequences as a result of living in cold damp homes and it led to early death. These are the reports from the Government’s own agencies about the benefits of decent standards in New Zealand housing. So I ask New Zealanders: please just do not listen to National members—I really do not even know why they are even here if they are going to make ridiculous arguments like that—and instead look at the evidence.A million New Zealanders rent in this country and 400000 children live in rental accommodation. It is a business. Rental accommodation is a business and a business needs to be decently regulated. I will just also remind the country that National was the party of the leaky homes right? It was the party that deregulated the building industry so that it was perfectly legal and legit for your house to be built and then rot around you and nothing could be done.Hon David Parker: Maurice Williamson.METIRIA TUREI: Maurice Williamson is still in the National Party backbenches. How he has managed to survive that long back there I do not know especially after that debacle. So when New Zealanders are listening to National talking about housing just remember that the leaky homes debacle which New Zealanders are still paying for and still struggling with is a result of deregulation and a reduction in the standards that existed even then.Now we have an opportunity to improve the circumstances of New Zealanders’ housing for families for kids and for older people to make sure that they can actually get the value of the power bills that they are paying and National is yet again saying no to New Zealanders: “Your standard of living your health and your well-being are not our concern.” What is the point of National? It really does beg the question.I do want to acknowledge Jeanette Fitzsimons in the implementation of what was then the Heat Smart programme and the home insulation programme and others who worked with her on that in the years since. We can still continue to build on that. National might want to vote down this bill but Labour and the Greens will continue to push for and promote increased standards for rental housing. We know that it is so important to our kids and our people. Labour the Greens and other parties in the Opposition will stand up for families and New Zealanders. Thank you.