Collins JudithHon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. Now not everything that the Hon Jenny Salesa said was wrong. I thought she said a few very good things. She just seemed to take a very long time to say not much and very fast too and very loud—the microphones do work.Anyway what I wanted to say about some of the things that the Minister said—she acknowledged that one of the biggest determinants of rent increases and rent prices is actually demand and supply. I thought that was excellent because I think she is the first Minister in the current Government to understand that so well done. She obviously should be the Minister for housing instead of the current one.Chris Bishop: This bodes well. She should have a chat to the PM.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: She should have a chat to the PM—yes absolutely.So one of the things that I'd like to say to her is: since Labour came in to office how come rents have already increased $25 a week?Chris Bishop: How much?Hon JUDITH COLLINS: It's $25 a week. So why is that under a Labour Government? Clearly there's something wrong. When she has talked tonight about trying to get people into rental houses she's talked an awful lot about building houses for people to live in. Well they're actually not quite the same thing. Yes they're houses. Yes people can do either but they can't do both at once.So one of the things that I think she's missed is the point that landlords are already feeling under assault by this Government and particularly by the current Minister of Housing and Urban Development. Almost every word that comes from that man's mouth is an insult an attack on private landlords. He's the biggest landlord in the country he's the one with the worst reputation as a landlord—the Housing New Zealand landlord—and strangely enough he's the one who wants to make life very difficult for private individual mum and dad landlords.We've heard a lot tonight about prohibiting letting fees and why we should be doing that. Well the National Party will not be supporting this. We're not going to be supporting this because we agree with another comment from Jenny Salesa and that comment was that these costs are paid—they're paid all right—by the consumer. So if in fact the rental letting fees are not paid at the start of a tenancy they will be paid through the course of a tenancy. She has acknowledged that tonight. She said it's better for people to pay a little bit extra every week rather than all up front. Well that might be right if they're people who chop and change their tenancies but it's certainly not right if they're people who are very stable tenants who stay in tenancies for years. All of those people she seems to be quite happy to allow to have more rent that has to be paid because they're paying for the cost of the other people who chop and change their tenancies every five minutes.So actually I think there are a few things as I said that I thought she recognised really well tonight and that's because she seems to recognise the area—know the area—much better than the current Minister Phil Twyford. But what this does do is it's just another discouragement on people who are constantly being bagged by this Government whether it's in terms of—[Interruption]DEPUTY SPEAKER: Excuse me. Can we not have conversations in the aisles thank you.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Oh thank you Madam Deputy Speaker.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Take it outside.Kieran McAnulty: Carry on.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. Oh thank you so much Mr what your name is" over there. Thank you very much. Thank you for your permission to speak!Hon Members: Kieran McAnulty.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: McAnulty—I knew there was a name there somewhere. Now anyway I should come back.I've met with the landlords association of New Zealand and I met with the ones in Wellington and most of the people there are people who on average own 1½ rental properties—on average so one two or maybe three. Their message to me was that every single time Governments including ours and this current one—this short-term one-term Government—put more onus and more regulations on landlords the more they want to leave. They want to leave the market. People who say "Oh well they shouldn't have two houses."—well they're providing a rental home for another family or for in some cases four younger people living together just hanging out together and being flatmates.Those are the sorts of things where people forget that they're just humans. They're not "landlords"; they're humans. They're people. They're people who have in many cases saved their money. This is their retirement income. They don't have confidence in the sharemarket in many cases because they've been burnt over the years. They want to be able to look at their retirement income and say "That's my retirement income."—that they have something else other than the house that they live in. They're also sometimes people who have sold their family home and have bought two smaller places instead—one to live in and one to rent out.I know people like this. These are just ordinary decent New Zealanders and every single time the current Minister of Housing and Urban Development opens his mouth about landlords it's to bag them and that's unfortunate. It's also really unfair and this is just another piece of legislation about that. So when he says—and Minister Salesa has said—"Well these costs shouldn't be—we should stop this cost now." it's because they often get managers in or they get someone to do the letting for them because they don't feel in many ways able to deal with all the issues around letting out the property because they are mostly mum and dad investors.There are some people who say "Well they shouldn't be in the market. They should get out of the market and be professionalised." They're also the people by the way who say to a tenant when they can't pay their rent "Oh take another week." or "Here's something off." or even "Take clothes for kids." or "Take furniture for them." These are the sorts of things that mum and dad investors tend to do. They tend to care. When we have legislation like this that doesn't discriminate against good and bad landlords that just discriminates against all landlords and is yet another—and you see all the language around it. All the language around the publicity on it the press releases and the language in the speeches on it—it's all about—Priyanca Radhakrishnan: I want to get back to the bill.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —these nasty horrible landlords. I heard somebody up there. Was it Clare Curran calling out? Somebody on that side—one of those people—is calling out and saying "Oh but they pay the bill." [Interruption] Oh no it's somebody else somebody coming up and saying "Well they have to pay the bill." Well actually Jenny Salesa understands who pays the bills: it's the consumer who ends up paying the bill.One of the things that I think is really interesting for people who have never understood about this is that every time we put on regulations every time we put on rules every time we impose costs understand we may be doing it for all the right reasons but understand it's the end consumer who ends up paying every single time. They always do. And when we have fewer people now willing to be landlords we have the situation we have now where rents go up. Rents have gone up $25 a week on average under this Government—only one year and they've managed to do that. At the same time we are having landlords exiting the rental market because their view is that this Government is going to do them over and is making it too hard to rent out properties.Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Fake news.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I think it is really important to understand that there are consequences for the constant attacks of Phil Twyford on mum and dad investors. Those mum and dad investors don't have to be there. They can take their money out and that's what he's told them to do. He's told them to take their money out and go and put it somewhere else. That's what he said to them. Unfortunately I don't think it's fair for his own colleague to call him fake news like that but I do think it is important that people understand that telling mum and dad investors "We don't want your money; if you don't like it get out of the market."—that's the sort of language that's the sort of sentiment which is going to mean that there are going to be even more people waiting for State houses on the State waiting list. It's already gone up 1000 under their watch. What a disgrace."