Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Chair—tēnā koe thank you. It's my first speech in this particular debate and I am particularly pleased because I wanted to thank the Minister for her contribution and I also wanted to speak to my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) which directly amends Schedule 5.So firstly I just want to say that the Green Party is broadly supportive of the bill and that it's been quite tiresome to listen to David Seymour's stand-up comedy act this evening as well as all the conspiracy theories about local elections. I think that if those parties to my right actually cared about local democracy and democracy they would be supporting a further SOP from my colleague Golriz Ghahraman SOP 69 which of course would ensure that those—Hon Member: We are supporting it.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Oh great well that's good. Great. Glad that you're supporting it.Hon Member: Maybe be a bit gracious.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I don't know if the National Party is but that's good. It's good if you care about overseas voters having their right to vote extended when they haven't been able to come home to New Zealand.But back to Schedule 5 and the changes to the Residential Tenancies Act. We're supportive of the direction and the intention of what the Minister has outlined but we do think it should go further and that's why we've proposed an amendment that would also enable a rent freeze so there could be no increase on rents while we're in a situation of alert level 3 or 4 which was the case last year in 2020. We think this is particularly important as there's been such an extended period of time that Aucklanders have been in level 3 and level 4 and that those people who are the most vulnerable and who are renting are seriously struggling particularly if they have relied on a benefit or if they have precarious or insecure work—if they weren't on a full-time work contract they might not be eligible for the amount of wage subsidy that the Government is expecting will flow through and assist people in those difficult circumstances.It's pretty difficult to justify why landlords should be able to continue to put up rent if during a period like this when clearly people don't have the ability to find a new place to live; they don't have the ability to go out and change where they're living necessarily it's definitely restricted; and their ability to earn an income is very much restricted. Of course we have seen in some parts of the country quite extreme increases in rent over the past year. This is despite record-low interest rates. Yes house prices have been rising but that's not necessarily a reason for rents to go up. It's really important that we look after those who are in a situation of renting because I think they are the people who are the worst off really in this whole pandemic. It's the owners of property have done very very well out of the stimulus that has led to huge increases in property values. The Government has put out a reasonable amount of financial support for businesses as well as workers and of course we think that financial support could go further for beneficiaries in particular or for those who are in those difficult circumstances. But the bare minimum we think of what could be done is just to ensure that a rental freeze would apply during a level 3 and level 4 lockdown.