Prasad Rajen: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Prasad Rajen: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 I will take a short call on the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. In doing so I add my voice to that of Mr McClay who acknowledged the work of the officials. I agree with Mr McClay that the Social Services Committee worked very well indeed and I include the work of Katrina Shanks who chairs that committee in an excellent fashion as well. 
I add my congratulations to one other member and that is Moana Mackey. I really believe that Moana Mackey my colleague is the leading light in this House when it comes to housing matters. She really is the leading light in this House in the demonstration of her understanding of housing and her understanding of the needs of tenants. She has consistently advocated for tenants and for the 30 percent of New Zealanders who live in rented accommodation. She has particularly brought to the House the voices of those who earn modest sums of money and who earn less than $50000. I congratulate her on her work throughout all stages of this bill and say that her advocacy her clarity of thought and her consistency were something to behold. If I were the Minister of Housing I would be very worried. I would watch very carefully how this member develops in terms of her advocacy for housing. The other point I make is simply to acknowledge that this side of the House the Labour Party supports the bill; its birth came from this side of the House. 
The bill modernises and brings into the 21st century the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 and makes a number of very important and valuable contributions. However there really is a missed opportunity here that I will comment on. I do not think that the bill achieves its third aim which is to clarify and appropriately balance tenant and landlord rights. When I spoke in the first reading I said that I would be looking throughout the various stages of the bill to see how the competing needs and interests of landlord and investor were married up with the needs of tenants and their ability to pay. Throughout the process I have participated in I have been trying to see whether that balance is right. At times it has been very elusive. We have not been able to see where the balance is in some of the matters. Indeed those matters are very well reflected in the amendments that members on this side of the House put forward. I think those amendments were very important and it is a shame that the Government was not driven to see their merits. 
When it comes to cleansing orders what was the harm in giving to tenants a very easy way of understanding whether a particular house had a cleansing order? Why was it necessary for this bill to place the onus on the tenant to go and get a land information memorandum in order to find that out? That balance is missing. The provisions regarding key money are imbalanced as well. Why did members on the other side not propose an amendment that charged the purchaser of a house to pay the land agent’s fees? For tenants there is a very different set of requirements. That is not balanced either. When it comes to the increasing of the limits before a tenant can be represented at the Tenancy Tribunal there is a lack of balance and we do not see why that is. 
We can go through and identify a number of those imbalances but I put before this House one particular matter that has not been debated to any extent and that comes from— 
Hone Harawira 
: You’d better hurry. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: —I have a minute—those who are living in boarding houses. From now on there is an authority for boarding-house tenants to be evicted at 24 hours’ notice. Many of them are mental health patients and I hope that regulations will be developed to ask the landlords of boarding houses to make services available to ensure that those who have mental health needs have those needs met or that they are pointed in the right direction to receive the services they require. That might simply mean having available the information about where to refer those people to before somebody is evicted from a boarding house. Many of those people are mental health patients with particular needs. 
Debate interrupted.