Faafoi KrisHon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you Madam Chair. Could I acknowledge the Minister in the chair the Hon Kris Faafoi for his willingness to engage with the Opposition as we ask these questions. He also acknowledged at the start of the second reading speech that there have been thousands of people who have expressed concern about this particular measure and in particular the fact that there are a large number of small investors and landlords who are warning that this bill will drive them out of the rental market. So I do have a few quick simple questions of the Minister and I hope he'll be willing to answer them. The first is very simply: what is his response to those submitters?Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing)): Look I think there—and I'm not sure if I mentioned this in my opening remarks a lot of this debate has been at the extremes and again I'm going to get into trouble because I like Mr McKelvie for quoting him. Because the vast majority of landlords and tenants are not going to be affected by this but there's been a fair bit of debate stirred up in the community and the media. There are still legitimate reasons why a tenancy can be ended by a landlord within this bill. What we are removing and what we are steadfast in removing is the no-cause terminations which for any tenant has hung over them for the last 35 years that essentially means that regardless of your conduct and what you do in the house or the property sorry your tenancy can be terminated for no reason whatsoever. Now if you are a tenant who isn't paying rent on time repeatedly or if you're a tenant that is repeatedly having antisocial behaviour or if a landlord has a good reason to move on like selling the property or renovations to the property those mechanisms still are within this bill to end a tenancy. In fact with the help of New Zealand First we've added another way to finish a tenancy if a landlord is assaulted or their family's assaulted because obviously that will be the right thing to do. So my message to them is: please don't necessarily listen to the hype around the changes within this bill because if you do have tenants that are acting the fool repeatedly then you still have the right if you can prove it and evidence it to end that tenancy. If they're not paying rent again on a regular basis you still have the right to end that tenancy. But what we don't think—and again it's only been used in 3 percent of tenancy terminations no-cause terminations. So the mass there doesn't necessarily match up because certainly landlords have been furiously emailing us wanting to maintain that right—have only used it 3 percent of the time. Again I would acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of landlords and tenants have good relationships but we do need to make sure that we've got a regime that when there is trouble on both sides we have remedies for it and I would acknowledge that we have a Tenancy Tribunal that has been able to deal with these issues for well over 30 years. Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): I hope that the Minister is right in saying that the overwhelming number of landlords and tenants have good relationships and I'm sure that is true. I certainly know of many who have and as I mentioned when I was a tenant I believed I always had a good relationship with my landlord as well. But I do think that he's fairly naive in his suggestion that those landlords and small investors who submitted to the Social Services and Community Committee and who have subsequently written to MPs haven't studied carefully what is in the bill because they have. They have looked very carefully at the provisions of this bill and that is why they have expressed such a strong concern that they and many others they know will be deterred from providing rental properties in the future. So my next question to the Minister which is related to the one he's just answered but is different is: what is his prediction for this bill's impact on the supply and availability of properties in the private rental market?Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing)): I don't have a crystal ball but what I do have is some data over the last couple of years—and again I'd just like to remind the House that this is not a process which started last week. Minister Twyford started quite extensive public consultation on this process and the amendment at the beginning of our term. I think it was over 4000 submissions to that public consultation. So both landlords and tenants have known about this process for some time. The best data that I have available to me is that during that period where landlords knew that this was our intent has actually seen the number of investment properties increase slightly. It's not as high as 5 percent but I don't think it's as low as 1 percent—somewhere around the 2 or 3 percent mark. So in that time property investors despite knowing this Government's intent around rebalancing the Residential Tenancies Act—the figures show—have continued to buy investment properties. So I believe we'll have to watch it closely but I don't believe a scaremongering around a mass exodus of property investors in the rental market is going to happen. Let's not forget there are 600000 households in rental accommodation at the moment and I believe overwhelmingly whether you're a mum and dad investor or whether you've amassed a large rental portfolio property investment is still something that New Zealanders hold dear. I think New Zealand landlords will see this legislation once the dust has settled is still giving them the power to do what they need to do in a small number of situations.