Foster-Bell Paul: Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFoster-Bell Paul: Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) — First Reading[Sitting date: 04 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10819. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): E Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou katoa e ngā mema o Te Whare. In following on from that stream of histrionic emotive invective which emotionally played on the heartstrings I suppose of some viewers of the debate tonight I say that any rational analysis of the argument of the member Metiria Turei would actually bring I think a slightly different response.On this side of the House we acknowledge that there is a problem with under-insulated homes in New Zealand and that is why the Hon Dr Nick Smith has advanced a very practical a very balanced a sensible and workable bill as opposed to the bill advanced by Mr Little. Forty-two thousand hospitalisations—if that is the number and there can be a debate around the number of people who are going to hospital due to insufficiently insulated insufficiently warm and damp homes—that problem can only be made worse by increasing the cost of housing for the most vulnerable in society and that is exactly what this bill will do.Once again and as with Mr Twyford’s bill in the last year we have a bill that seems to indicate that the Labour Party believes that it can by fiat decide what the standard and level of housing will be with no cost passed on to the tenants. We know that is simply not the case. If a landlord was obligated to undertake the kind of insulation that Dr Smith was referring to the marginal 2 3 or 4 percent of insulation standard to bring it up to the required code—at an unreasonable cost at a cost that is not reflected in the level of added benefit provided to the tenants as well as to the landlord then of course there will be a cost passed on to the tenant. In some cases that cost will be more than that tenant is able to bear.I am proud to be part of a Government that has a superb track record on the insulation of homes in New Zealand. We have seen 320000 homes insulated and I actually want to pay credit to the Green Party—not the current Green Party but to the Green Party of Jeanette Fitzsimons where we actually had a memorandum of understanding backed up by a Government that was prepared to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure that those 320000 homes insulated under the Warm Up New Zealand: Heat Smart programme went ahead with a further 180000 homes to be insulated under the next tranche of improvements put forward by Dr Smith. That gives a total of 500000—half a million New Zealand homes compared with the mere 50000 that were insulated during those 9 long dark cold years of Labour Government misrule in New Zealand.This bill is abhorrent. This bill sets down with maybe some good intentions a set of clauses that will have the effect of putting up the price of housing for those in New Zealand who are most vulnerable. On the Government Administration Committee as Dr Smith has said we would look forward to having the opportunity of scrutinising this bill because I believe it would under scrutiny collapse very very quickly. But better still let us save the time of the committee and of the House and reject it at this first reading stage. For that reason I will be voting against it.