Davidson MaramaMARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Huri noa ki a mātou katoa. Oh my goodness so I'm really proud to stand up tonight and support the Residential Tenancies (Prohibiting Letting Fees) Amendment Bill which will prohibit letting fees. I'm still a renter unlike many of the Opposition speakers—probably all of the Opposition speakers—that are standing up tonight to say how bad it is that we are going to be trying to save some of the upfront costs to renters.Over 50 percent of our country is now renting but actually for those on a lower income it's more than that. It's more than 50 percent. It's getting to 53 percent or 55 percent but for Māori and Pasifika it's even more than that. Actually for Pacific people it's 67 percent of Pacific people who are renting. Also disabled people are more likely than non-disabled people to be renters. So this is good that we are putting a line in the sand and saying we are going to try and fix some of the mess that the previous National Government left behind for us to clean up especially where it concerns renters.So the fee is typically one week's rent plus GST. Do you know how much of a massive upfront barrier that is to the groups I've just talked about? Lower-income people Māori people Pacific people and people with a disability are already struggling with the rental process in a highly competitive market. Students everywhere all around our country are already struggling and then they are having to pay an extra upfront fee which absolutely has no criteria around it—no framework around it. It's just what they want to charge particularly in a competitive market. They can get away with charging because there are so many people trying to find a place to live a place to put down roots. They're willing to pay a weekly rent they're willing to look after the property and treat it as their home and they are simply trying to find a place to live.The letting fee that is being charged by the agency is for services that will benefit the homeowners the landlords and the property owners so it is there that the fee should fall. It is there that the fee should fall. It is for showing people through the house. It is for advertising the property. It is for going through the vetting process for finding tenants. It is for the benefit of the homeowner and it's not going to be magicked away—no it is not. It is not. It is still going to be paid. If that is a service that landlords are wanting then they will shop around and they will have a look at who is offering what and at whether or not they are going to choose you as the agency to find a good tenant for their home. And the good tenants are nearly all of us by the way. The good tenants are nearly all of us by the way who just want a place to put down our roots look after and call our own.Now I just want to take a couple of issues with some of these previous speakers' comments—particularly picking up on I think it was Mr Simon O'Connor. He said that what you really have to look into is making sure that the private market can cater. Well how did that go? How did that go for you after nine years? Wait wait I know how it went. You had a private enterprise you did—with motel owners—and $50 million was paid to motels. That was your rental tenancy agency—$50 million was paid to motel owners to put up people who you had to shove away especially during an election year because you had no other place to put them. That's how your private enterprise went.So no I'm really proud of this and also it's just one thing that we are going to keep going on. We are going to introduce other measures alongside this abolition of the tenancy letting fees because it's not one thing on its own. We absolutely are also going to in this term establish a progressive homeownership scheme as part of the Greens' confidence and supply agreement with the Government. All of those other bits of legislation and policies that have to come in alongside abolishing letting fees are what will lead us in whole to a whole better direction where this country and this Government actually believe that providing people with a warm safe affordable secure home is part of our job and is a right that everybody is entitled to in this country. That's the direction we are turning in.We are turning away from the direction which says Houses are a business investment. Houses are for speculation." This is the direction that we are turning to: houses are for homes first and foremost for children for old people for everybody to be able to have. You can go to school in that community for more than a year because I am aware that earlier this year Auckland University of Technology commissioned research that found that 212000 Kiwis are transient—that's 5.6 percent of the population. But actually for 4000 people they had moved seven or more times over three years from 2013 to 2016—that's a possible letting fee every time they were moved on from their rental properties. I was one of those who knew first-hand that you could simply get moved on from a renting property because the market was a good time for landlords to put up the rent and it was easier to put up a rent by a lot more if you just moved someone on—just move them on so you can charge at least $100 extra. That's another letting fee for the family who have had to move out of that home. For some 4000 people they had to find a letting fee possibly up to seven times over three years.This is what the previous Government did and this is what this coalition Government is trying to fix. We are showing that commitment here tonight putting a line in the sand. We are going to start making lives better for a whole at least half of the country who are renting. Renting should be a dignified valid choice for us and homeownership is decreasing. So the choice in having to rent should be a good option should be a safe secure warm dignified option where tenants are seen as dignified citizens of this country alongside everybody else whether you own a home or not. This is the direction that this legislation is signalling from us tonight.I just want to say: is it virtue signalling? Who cares? We're giving people a better chance to get in to good rental homes. We are starting with abolishing rental fees. So whatever labels you want to throw at that throw all you can because your record speaks for itself—the previous Government's; not yours Mr Assistant Speaker not yours at all. The record of the previous Government speaks for itself and it failed. This country today as one of the wealthier OECD countries is having to bear the stigma of having one of the worst homelessness rates in the entire wealthy country selection and that is a fail. So we're going to fix that.We are going to make sure that renting is a valid dignified option. We are going to make sure that if people do have to move they're not going to be landed with the extra burden of finding hundreds and hundreds of dollars and absolutely for different parts around the country it's worse—it's worse for different parts around the country. There's no need for that.We don't absolutely need to accept that rents will increase because of abolishing the letting fee. We have to say this at every speech because they're in denial and because that's their only argument this Opposition over here. Their only argument is that rents will increase. So we're going to have to keep batting it back. That is their only argument though. The overseas international examples have proven that there is no evidence to show that rents will increase. Even in Scotland only two percent of rents increased immediately after banning letting fees and our own Treasury has said "Yeah no other market forces are going to make the difference to rent increases." And this from an Opposition that pretends to know about the market—to know about the market. Simple supply and demand will help dictate what increases rents and we're working on that. We're building more homes including State homes. Supply and demand are included in the variables of what will increase rents. Stop the alarmist false calls to rent increases because we are trying to do something good here. I'm really proud to stand with my colleagues and support this bill. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker."