Turia Tariana: Residential Tenancies (Damage Insurance) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Turia Tariana: Residential Tenancies (Damage Insurance) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 What is said in the whare or in this case what is said by members of Parliament is heard by the tahuhu who hear everything that has been said everything that has gone before us and the words of those who are gathered here today. So housing matters have always been of importance to Maori whether as owners tenants insurance agents or inhabitants. 
The current housing profile for Maori is unfortunately not a very pretty picture. Despite the fact that home ownership is a strong aspiration for Maori people such a desire is frequently not translated into reality. We are three times more likely to live in rental accommodation than New Zealand Europeans. Currently 59.7 percent of Maori people live in households that pay rent compared with 21.6 percent of non-Maori. Factors such as higher levels of unemployment lower personal incomes strong urbanisation and concentration in high-cost housing markets like Auckland have all contributed to the disparities that are evident between Maori and non-Maori in the housing market. Other factors such as institutional racism may account for differences in housing allocation. 
In looking at this bill we must be guided by the high rental environment that tangata whenua inhabit. The Maori Party will support this bill going to a select committee in order to enable the large number of Maori who are renting boarding and flatting as tenants to be able to have a say. We seek every opportunity for people to participate and for their voices to be heard. 
We are however also mindful of the numbers of Maori who are involved in the housing sector as landlords investors and owners. We are aware of key housing networks such as Te Tai Tonga Housing Forum led by Rakiihia Tau and Tiopira Hape Rauna who would have considerable experience to contribute to this debate about the universal goal of achieving quality affordable housing with safe and secure homes. These people must have a say as well as the tenants. 
We understand the purpose of the bill as being to amend the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 in order to protect tenants against personal liability for major damage caused to premises that they play no part in causing. The fundamental question however must be why we should automatically assume that landlords should therefore be liable for damage caused to premises that they also have no part in causing. The Maori Party is keen to encourage further discussion on the concept of collective responsibility and ownership and by this we mean the capacity to care for one another. Putting it simply who is more likely to know about the damage caused to premises: the landlord who may not even live in the same town or the tenant in the next room? We must restore the sense of responsibility as individuals and collectives—as a whanau or a group of tenants in a single property who all sit around the same television at night who contribute to the same food kitty and who collectively pay the rent. Why could not these same people also pay to protect themselves? That is the question. Although we appreciate that nothing in the bill will prevent landlords from passing on the cost of additional premiums to tenants as part of the rent could we not see this as an educational process for tenants particularly our young people about the value of insurance and of taking responsibility for one’s property and other people’s property? 
The final issue that we seek further ideas on in the select committee is the low insurance coverage for Maori in the housing sector. If there is any doubt of this one need only look at the nature of the crisis response required after the freak damage created by the floods earthquakes and storms of the last few years such as in my electorate the Rangitikei and Manawatu floods the East Coast floods and the destruction that ravaged through the Bay of Plenty. Indeed one report in 2004 stated that an incredible 111 of the 141 homes in Whakatane that were deemed uninhabitable did not have contents insurance. 
Those are but some of the issues that we hope can be raised in the ongoing debate around this bill. The provision of quality affordable housing particularly for low-income families is a significant priority focus for the Maori Party. If this bill can do anything for these families particularly the 63000 Maori families who have been cut out of the Working for Families package then we will be eager to hear about it. We will support this bill going to select committee to ensure that Maori views are able to be heard and we look forward to that process.