O'Rourke Denis: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 11 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:11023. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): This bill moves only modestly to improve the quality of tenancies by requiring smoke alarms and insulation. But what about the other things? What about heating standards? What about leak-proofing earthquake resistance minimum size of accommodation and so on? Metiria Turei’s Supplementary Order Paper 172 has a long list of other items to ensure a healthy home. I disagree with a few but certainly agree with most of them and I would add a few more by the way. But the point is that there needs to be a discussion on a broad range of minimum standards for rental properties in New Zealand. We have not had that and this bill certainly does not reflect that.This bill in fact really does only three things. First of all it requires smoke alarms and they do have an excellent cost-benefit ratio of $1 for a return of $8.80 to $21.40. That is a superb return and it is well worth the cost. The bill also regulates for the technical needs for smoke alarms and insulation and for the chief executive to take cases direct to the Tenancy Tribunal for persistent breaches of the legislation and to authorise a search of a property to get evidence where a breach may have occurred. The third thing that the bill does is it streamlines the process for the recovery of possession where a property has been abandoned. All of those are very good things. So New Zealand First does support the bill warts and all but we think it should have gone a lot further.The Minister tonight in this House admitted that properties with 1978 insulation standards would never have to be upgraded to 2008 standards. Just think about that for a moment. They would never have to be upgraded to do that. I acknowledge the argument for not requiring the upgrading to 2008 insulation standards with the argument being that the economic cost is unjustified for what appears to be an improvement of only 5 percent in performance but it may be a great deal more—I acknowledge that. But that is not a good argument for leaving all of those properties for ever not upgraded to 2008 standards and for ever to have only those very—I think—substandard 1978 insulation standards.I would accept the need for a fair phase-in period of say 3 years to enable landlords to bring those properties up to standard. But New Zealand First would never accept the total cop-out that this bill will enact for those properties that now have only the 1978 standards of insulation. Furthermore we say in our policy that there could be at least a tax incentive to upgrade to 2008 standards by allowing landlords to expense for tax purposes the whole cost of doing the upgrade in the year the expense was incurred. That would be a very good incentive and would help to make the process affordable. That has been New Zealand First’s policy for the last 5 years and it is one that the Government should adopt.In addition New Zealand First is not satisfied that the standards for heating are at all adequate. There is not much point insulating a property that is not properly heated and not properly ventilated—there is just no point. I think Mr Twyford made that point as well in his speech. This is the major flaw in this bill which is not acknowledged by the Government and it should be. The Government should be doing a lot more about that. In fact Andrew Little’s Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) does require the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment to set minimum standards for both heating and insulation. That is what the Government in this bill has precisely failed to do. The concept in Mr Little’s bill is to require tenancy agreements to state that the 2008 minimum standards are met with significant penalties if that is not true. That is the prescription I think that the Government should be adopting. It is a pity that the Government and the Labour Party cannot get together to put their proposals into one bill because if they did that it would improve both pieces of proposed legislation.The Social Services Committee has recommended some welcome changes to the bill. We support the increase in the penalties especially for not complying with regulations for insulation. These are increased from $3000 to $4000. It is still a relatively modest amount I think but it is a welcome increase. But New Zealand First disagrees with the recommendation for an amendment to clause 6(3) allowing a landlord to state in a tenancy agreement that despite making reasonable efforts they have not been able to satisfy themselves of the extent of insulation in a particular property. That we think would be a cop-out too. It is too easy to do and too easy to claim and it should not be in the bill. Houses without provable and adequate insulation should actually be excluded from the rental market in this legislation. People have to understand that if they are going to put an important service—which is what a rental property is—on the market then like so many other things today they have to meet minimum standards. If they do not then it is not marketable and it should not be allowed. It is as simple as that. However New Zealand First does agree with the suggested change to clause 38 to widen the scope of materials for insulation as long as they would still meet the 2008 standard for insulation. So that is a welcome change.For all of the reasons I have given New Zealand First will continue to support the bill but we think it is very disappointing indeed that it does not do a great deal more as I have said. Most particularly we believe in having heating standards. The bill’s failure to address that absolutely vital requirement is such a serious flaw that the bill is hardly worth having—it is that serious. Also there is a long list of other items that need minimum standards in order to have healthy homes. As I have said Metiria Turei has set out some of those in her Supplementary Order Paper and I have mentioned some in this speech. New Zealand First will also support Andrew Little’s bill to take up some of the slack as I have said that this bill does not even address. But the point is this. New Zealand First would do a lot more than what this bill does and what Andrew Little’s bill would do. I have mentioned some of those things. Many of them should be addressed in this bill right now. This is the opportunity; not at some later stage.New Zealand First will vote in favour of this bill but reluctantly. We expect that a lot more will be done in the future no matter which Government might be in power in years to come.