O'Connor Damien: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Damien: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 24 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11138. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): Mostly I am proud to be in this House but sometimes I am absolutely ashamed. People out there must think this is a place of such hypocrisy when they listen to this debate. We have spent tens if not hundreds of hours in recent times debating health and safety legislation in this House to protect the lives of New Zealanders because we had a terrible tragedy in my area where 29 people lost their lives.On this particular issue the Children’s Commissioner came to the Social Services Committee and said there are “42000 [hospital] admissions” and “fifteen children a year die” because they are in cold damp homes. This is an outrage. Where in the health and safety legislation did we say: “Oh it is OK to have a few New Zealanders die?”. Did we say that? No we did not. Yet in this legislation the Government is saying it is OK to let 15 children a year die—quoting the Children’s Commissioner. The Government made a promise to New Zealand children: “We will make your house healthy.” Three years on from that Budget promise this bill will do little for children living in cold damp mouldy housing. It is a wasted opportunity and a broken promise to our children. I do not want to be part of a hypocritical Parliament that on one hand stands up for the rights of working New Zealanders which is good but here today does not stand up for the rights of the 15 children who will die every year because this Government is not prepared to legislate for proper healthy safe and dry homes. That is what we are talking about here.We have a Government that is running a review of Child Youth and Family because there are faults in the care of children who need care. We have got people marching in the streets for the tragedy of poor Moko Rangitoheriri who lost his life because of terrible terrible domestic violence that is rife throughout our country. And so it should be that people speak out but when we get to Parliament where the Government has the right—the obligation I would say—to put in place legislation that does the very best possible for young children in this country it is failing.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Back on the bill.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: It has failed and it is on this legislation.Just as the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy said we had to change legislation to protect New Zealanders in mines and other places the Children’s Commissioner comes into the Parliament and says there are 42000 hospital admissions per year and 15 children dying per year from houses that are not adequately insulated or heated. And this Government says: “Oh no we have got to have an exception. We have got to have an exception for old properties and old insulation methods.” We did not say that in the health and safety legislation. We did not say that some could abide by a lesser standard and that is OK and we will allow those poor New Zealanders working in those conditions to take a greater risk but we are saying that here in this piece of legislation.The National Government has bowed over once again to landlords who are putting children every single day at risk in this country. It is not unusual I have to say. I have battled to try to get lower speed limits outside schools. Somehow whether it is because they do not vote or whatever children do not get the same level of care and protection that they should.This is an opportunity for the Government to show that it really does care and it does not just bring to the House hypocritical pieces of legislation—because that is what it is: moving one step forward but leaving a big gap that most likely the most vulnerable children in our country the ones who can pay the lowest rent in the oldest houses will fall into. But no we are not going to give them a guarantee of warmth of a dry home or of a safe home—never mind the fact that the Government does not even want to give them a home.This is a disgraceful piece of legislation and the Government is not protecting the children in this country which it should be doing each and every day.