Turei Metiria: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 08 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8631. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): The Green Party will be supporting this legislation to the select committee on its first reading. This is not because we think that it does a good job—there are some things in it that are better than other things—but because it is at least a confession and an admission by Government that rental housing in this country is in a state that is unacceptable and that there needs to be some kind of minimum standard. For many years now the Green Party has been arguing very strongly for insulation improved insulation standards improved weathertightness—all of those things.For many years the Government has simply refused to accept that there is a serious problem. Government members have argued that it is an issue that is between the tenants and the landlords and is borne out in the price of the accommodation that people who own rental properties are just ordinary people trying to make a little bit of a buck not professionals engaged in a business and so therefore should not have any additional burdens. They have argued that the reason why children are hospitalised for health issues and respiratory illness related to cold damp homes is really an issue for those families and for the poverty that those families face rather than an issue of housing. On and on excuse after excuse after excuse.Finally we have after years of campaigning a very successful home insulation scheme that was developed by the Green Party which we worked on and proposed together with Labour and it was then actually implemented alongside National. It was a very successful Green Party initiative to have 300000 New Zealand homes insulated. Two-thirds of the funding for that scheme was then taken away by National so the scheme has not been able to deliver as it should have since then. But after years of being aware of the research that shows that a comprehensive home insulation scheme works both to provide significant benefit to the Government’s coffers and to health of New Zealanders and in view of the fact that for many years now there has been significant research on the poor quality of New Zealand housing and its impact on health we finally—finally—have some kind of admission from the Government that something needs to be done.It is with extreme disappointment though that I read the bill which essentially does as little as possible. This is the barest minimum standard for insulation that you can put in place beyond having no standard at all. To have legislation in the House that putsin place as the minimum standard for rental housing the 1978 standard for home insulation—having all of the information and research about the poor quality of New Zealand housing and knowing the need to do something real because if we do not lives are lost this Government can only bring itself to put in place a 1978 standard.This is a miserable bill. It means that the 1 million adults who rent in this country and the 400000 children who live in rental properties in this country are yet again being undermined by a National Government that really is not here for them at all. Those people who rent those properties have no face when it comes to National. National members cannot see them. They do not know their lives. They have no interest in the impact that the National Party decisions are having on their lives and the well-being of their kids.We have heard some of the statistics already. Each year 40000 children are hospitalised for respiratory illnesses related to cold damp housing. There are 1600 deaths in the winter in New Zealand that are directly related to cold damp housing. We know the names of some of those people who died. Emma-Lita Bourne remember—just last year? Emma-Lita died because the house she was living in was so mouldy and cold and damp. Te Ao Marama Wensor’s kids are continually getting sick because she still lives in a cold damp and mouldy home.These names these people are real. Their lives are valuable and we should have a Government that puts their lives and the lives of thousands and thousands of New Zealanders just like them at the forefront of their policy decision-making. If National did that—if it put Emma-Lita Bourne at the forefront of its decision making if it put Te Ao Marama’s children at the forefront of its decision making—it would mean we would have a bill to discuss today that had a comprehensive warrant of fitness for rental properties which would demonstrably save lives. If it had been in place then it would have saved Emma-Lita Bourne’s life. If it had been in place then it would have protected Te Ao Marama’s children from the hospitalisations and the illnesses they suffered. But we do not have a Government that puts children first. We have a Government that puts industry first puts making money first and puts anything and everything else it can think of first and above the needs of our kids. As a result our children will continue even if this bill is passed in its current form to die from entirely preventable illnesses because they live in cold damp rental homes.We have looked at this legislation in some detail in the time that we have had. We agree with the smoke alarm proposal in the bill—it is a very practical proposal. But the failure to address seriously the insulation issue means that lives are still at risk and it is very hard to understand why the Government would spend all this time and this money putting forward legislation that simply does not have any evidence that it will be effective.The opposite side of that of course is that effective legislation is advantageous not only in that lives will be saved—children who might otherwise die will not die and older New Zealanders who might otherwise die in the winter will not die; that in itself is a good thing and is one of the reasons we are here to help prevent these kinds of preventable deaths—but also in that there is huge economic value in taking the best route not the worst.There is some great information provided in papers by the Child Poverty Action Group where it sets out some of the economic benefits of taking real action to improve the quality of rental housing. It talks about over a 20-year period—sort of over the lifetime of a reasonable house—$450 million being able to be saved through safety benefits; that is the reduction of hazards that lead to injury and death which are a huge cost to both the health system and to ACC. A comprehensive warrant of fitness for rental properties would save New Zealand—the taxpayer—$450 million in safety benefits. That is nearly half a billion dollars.A comprehensive warrant of fitness for rental properties would save some $420 million in health benefits for New Zealanders. Health benefits mean reduced costs on a health system that is already creaking under the weight—because we would not have the 40000 hospitalisations for children and we would not have families continually having to bear the cost of taking their kids to the hospital and to the doctor and there would not be all the subsequent economic costs that those families have to bear. The sum of $420 million could be saved for the New Zealand taxpayer if we had a comprehensive warrant of fitness and that is just in health benefits. Just those two elements alone—the safety benefits and the health benefits—mean that New Zealand could save a billion dollars over that 20-year period and countless lives.I have appreciated the passion and fury around some of the debate that has been had this afternoon but my own feelings are just of deep deep disappointment in this Government because of its failure to take the lives of children and New Zealanders seriously. Thank you.