Smith Nick: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSmith Nick: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 31 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11513. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): I move That the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This is a significant bill that will make for warmer safer and drier homes for tens of thousands of New Zealand families.Let me emphasise the four key changes that are made in this bill. Firstly from 1 July this bill will require smoke alarms in every one of our approximately 500000 residential properties. That is a measure that is expected to save between three and four lives per year. The regulations that back it up require that all new smoke alarms that are being installed are the new 10-year long-life alarms. It is expected that there are approximately 120000 homes that do not comply and for which we need to have an effective information campaign over coming weeks to ensure that they comply before the coldest period of winter. It is a good practical measure that I hope every member of this House would support. I point out in the cost-benefit analysis that it is a no-brainer; it is going to be one of the least expensive ways in which we can make homes in New Zealand safer.The second measure in this bill covers the issue of home insulation. It builds on the work of this Government where in the very first Budget we said that we need to get our State houses insulated. We got on with the programme of getting 30000 State houses—every one that could be—insulated. We then set out with an ambitious programme of over $400 million being spent on providing generous healthy-home grants to get 290000 homes insulated. What this bill does is it requires every rental property to be insulated by 1 July 2019 and it requires that the insulation of social houses for which we pay a very high Government subsidy must be done by 1 July this year. That is a further 180000 homes. Put that alongside those other two measures and we are talking about over half a million homes that this John Key Government is going to ensure are insulated.When I hear the feeble arguments from members opposite that this is not enough or it is too slow I remind them that in their 9 years in Government they did fewer than 50000. That is this Government is insulating 10 times as many homes as the previous Government and those opposite have got the audacity to somehow say that these measures are not adequate. According to my officials when fully implemented these measures are going to save 129 lives per year on top of those saved by smoke alarms. So over the next 10 years this bill is expected to save the lives of 1000 fellow New Zealanders and it is a measure on behalf of this Government that I am incredibly proud to sponsor through the Parliament.There is a third measure in this bill. Every member of this House is aware of the pressure that is on our housing stock. One of the frustrations is the issue of abandoned tenancies. What this bill provides for is a fast-track process for dealing with tenancies where the tenant has abandoned the property. Why is that a good thing? Well actually everybody is losing from abandoned tenancy homes sitting empty. The landlord is losing because they are not getting rent; the community is losing because those homes are sitting empty when others are desperate to get in there. The measures in this bill are part of a wider street—lots of things—that we are doing in housing and this is just one of those common-sense sensible provisions that get those houses that are abandoned by tenants back into the rental market as quickly as possible.In my view the fourth provision in this bill is equally important and is the sort of sensible legislation that this Government is advancing. I know that every member of this House will be concerned about some of the slum landlords—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable Minister. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It is good to come back to the House to speak on this bill that is going to save 1000 Kiwi lives over the next decade with the measures to require smoke alarms; insulation which will greater enable the enforcement of our existing residential regulations; and the provisions that will enable abandoned properties to be able to be returned into the rental market more quickly. They are all good practical measures that this National Government is implementing in this important area.I want to take a moment to rebut three of the Opposition concerns on this bill. The first is that they claim the insulation requirements are not tough enough. The bill and the associated regulations require all new insulation work to be done to the 2008 standard. It requires that any older insulation be in fit and proper working condition. It also requires that landlords must from 1 July include in their tenancy agreements a statement of the standard of insulation under the floor in the walls and in the ceiling. Members opposite have argued that this bill should be extended beyond the 180000 homes that are uninsulated and include those homes that have got insulation either under the 1978 standard or the 2001 standard.Phil Twyford: How many of them Nick? How many?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Some hundreds of thousands. The problem is that the 1978 standard gets an 83 percent reduction in heat loss. The 2001 standard gets that up to 87 percent. The bit that Labour members miss is that every cost that we impose on the housing rental sector gets passed on in rents. We need to be careful that we do not impose more costs than there are benefits.I challenge members opposite: why when it comes to catalytic converters in our cars do we put a new standard on existing but do not require every one of these members opposite—who I will swear will not have cars that meet today’s standards—to go back and retrofit? Why when it comes to earthquake standards do we have a view that says: “No we are not going to require older buildings to meet today’s standards.”? If you follow the rhetoric of members opposite they say that cost can have no part in the equation—that you just have to meet today’s standards. Well they should tell that to owners of earthquake-prone buildings because they would bankrupt the country. They should tell that to people who have got older log fires. In our view it simply does not stack up that these are free goods and that the costs that we would impose on lower-income tenants would be more than the few percentage gains that we have.Here is a further point: this bill is going to require 180000 homes to be insulated over the next 3 years—that is 60000 per year. Members opposite say that is too slow. Hang on a moment these are the guys who did 50000 homes over 9 years. They did 50000 over 9 years and they say that 60000 per year is not enough. They cannot be taken seriously.The second criticism that members opposite have had is that they are saying this bill should tackle issues of ventilation of heating of sanitary plumbing of things like safe wiring and of dampness. All those issues are covered in the current housing regulations. The issue is enforcement and the enforcement provisions of this bill will make sure that we are able to deal with those slum landlords to ensure that they meet the standards that are already there. There are only two areas of Labour’s bills on this topic that differ from the Government’s and that is with regard to temperature and that is with regard to the issue of having to have notices on their glass windows to ensure that they are safe. We think that is over the top. We think that is into nanny State. Yes people may wish to put those in place. It should not be illegal to have a property.The last point I make is that I turned the radio on this morning and Mr Little said: “Every bill that Nick Smith has introduced is rubbish.” On that basis I challenge members opposite to vote against this bill. They will not because they know that this is a good bill. They know this is a bill that will save lives. They know this is a bill that will make our homes safer warmer and drier. They know that this is the right sort of practical approach that typifies this Government: of getting on in an economically rational way reducing incidences of diseases like rheumatic fever that we are successfully achieving and achieving more with insulated homes than any Government in the history of this country. That is why it is a good bill that despite all of Labour’s rhetoric it will support and get through this Parliament because it will make for a better country with warmer safer and drier homes.