Davidson MaramaMARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): The Green Party will be opposing the Residential Tendencies Amendment Bill (No 2). Of all the things—of all the things—that a Government could be doing right now with purpose and urgency and energy to directly address the very urgent problems that are happening in our communities of all the things—my goodness what is happening? What is happening? We have got 40000 children a year being admitted to hospital because of illnesses linked directly to cold damp homes. We have got 16000 deaths a year—Metiria Turei: Hundred.MARAMA DAVIDSON: —1600 deaths a year—thank you Metiria Turei; one is too many but 1600 is what we have—of elderly people linked to cold damp houses. We have things we can do right now to address those problems but of all the things we have Nick Smith's little minor bill.We do agree with some parts of this bill. For example on its own we do agree that the positive step to make it easier to prosecute people who take advantage of the housing crisis by renting out properties that are unfit for residential purposes is a good step. On its own we would support these parts of the bill but this is Nick Smith's style. He sneaks in these things that seem like an on-the-edge positive step. He sneaks those into a bill and in the meantime forgets about all the other urgent things and urgent solutions that this Government has the power to put in place right now. Instead he sneaks through something that is just skipping around the edges. So I have a huge issue.We are talking about residential tenancies. We are talking about renting here. Māori and Pacific homeownership rates are plummeting. They already were not too flash but they are plummeting. They are plummeting. Te Matapihi believes that political inaction is the reason for a huge decline in Māori and Pasifika homeownership and so do we. The Green Party supports what Te Matapihi is saying because between 1991 and 2013 Māori homeownership has declined down to 32 percent and Pacific 38 percent. If we are talking about legislation to improve our communities and our country and looking at renting and looking at renters what on earth is this? Rau Hoskins of Te Matapihi says 9 years of political inactivity is what has caused these plummeting rates of Māori and Pacific homeownership. We need bold action. We need bold action and what we have got here is this legislation.I want to pick up a little bit on the meth testing. I have been knocking on doors and walking around my community in Manurewa and I have been talking to neighbours of people who have been evicted next door or a few houses down who are really upset when they talk to me. They say: Marama those people were an amazing family. There was no way that they should have been evicted from their home." We have to weigh up the harm that we do when we evict people. Evicting people is a big call. Evicting people is a big call and we have to be prepared to understand what we do.This meth testing has an underlying problem. The advice from the Drug Foundation is that representatives of the meth-testing industry—hello—are overrepresented on the panel developing the standard. The Drug Foundation worries that the bill will legalise those silly standards and will result in a whole lot of harm. Bottom line: there is no science for setting a contamination level for meth use. We just cannot be sure. So we have to weigh up the harm. Yes we do want to have safe homes—absolutely—but we also need to weigh up the harm in evicting people from their homes when we are not clear exactly who was responsible for any meth contamination and when we are not clear exactly how to measure the harm that can be caused by any amount of meth. So yes we want to ensure that our homes are safe from meth. But we have to in this House understand the impact that evictions are having on real lives—on families on children on the elderly. We have to understand that here and it is our job to weigh up that harm.Our houses are too cold but the problem with that is that because of the dire situation of this housing crisis too many tenants do not want to complain about that—too many tenants are going to hang on to whatever condition their house is in. Even if they do make the bold decision to try to raise that awareness to a landlord about the condition of their home more times than not there is not going to be good action. We need to put that leadership from here in the House on to the minimum standards for what a warm healthy safe home should look like. There are too many instances where damage is raised by the tenant and the least possible action is done that the landlord can get away with if at all.When we heard some of the submissions from some of the advocates including the Sisters of Mercy from Manukau they talked about how more often than not their tenants would choose not to make a complaint because they would have to join the line with 30 40 50 other applicants for a house. That is how we are ending up pushing people along this spectrum right down to the bottom of homelessness. We have to be really clear about making sure that we have got minimum standards—making sure that we have got strong legislation so that all landlords can do the right thing. There are many who do but those few that do not do the right thing they have a real impact on many families—many families. That is the sort of legislation that we need to be getting through.We need to have secure tenancies so that renters can feel free to make a complaint without the threat of being evicted out of retribution. We need to wipe leasing fees. Can we just have some legislation right now around that because in this unstable housing environment tenants and families and people are having to come up with leasing fees. It is a big ask and those leasing fees are getting more and more and more at the moment. We have to put legislation in place to restrict rent increases and come up with a formula that is not going to make it so shaky and unstable and destabilising for families to just put down roots and live. These are the things that the Greens would do.We have so many more homes that need good insulation—so many more homes that need good proper insulation. If we want to talk about standards and levels of insulation let us just say that one tamariki who gets sick and admitted to hospital from housing is one too many. Let us just say that one annual winter death of any elderly person is one too many. Let us put those standards—let us insulate according to that. Let us aim for that. Why not? Let us be inspiring and bold and visionary.The Greens too understand that we have to address this speculation environment—this privileging of speculation that we have at the moment when homes are for living in. Homes are not supposed to be so heavily the business that we have got going at the moment; they are supposed to be for living in for putting down roots. Homes are for living in not for business trading and we know we have to do the legislation that will address that.These are the bold things that a Minister of housing should be doing right now. I was told in an inequality hui that I attended in Hawke's Bay yesterday that the advocates in the community are just tired—they are just tired. They want us to fix this—they want us to fix it—and we can; we have got the power and we have got the tools. We will not be supporting this bill. We want something brave and bold that will actually address the causes. Thank you."