Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. The National Opposition will be supporting this bill the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Amendment Bill through its very swift and expeditious parliamentary passage probably this evening. We think it is a sensible approach and we welcome the extra flexibility for private landlords—and indeed the Government's landlord Kāinga Ora—to meet their obligations.I do want to make a few remarks about this issue and some of the things the Minister the Hon Megan Woods just said. The first is that she started her speech by saying some landlords have been unable to meet their obligations under the residential tenancies healthy homes standards. And of course some landlords" is an interesting phrase an interesting terminological phrase because actually this bill is all about Kāinga Ora the Government's landlord. As the Minister herself says the latest survey shows 84 percent of private sector landlords—Hon Dr Megan Woods: 85.CHRIS BISHOP: 85 sorry—85 percent of private landlords are in compliance with the standards. Now the latest figures for Kāinga Ora the figures that I've got to 30 September—so what's that six 6½ seven weeks ago?—show that there is only 64 percent of Kāinga Ora homes in compliance with the standards. That's 23000 homes. So there is a big disparity there. Word got around last Thursday/Friday that this was coming—another leak out of the Government; a leaky Government—and the word on the street is that this was just an extension for Kāinga Ora for the Government landlord to make good on its obligations and be compliant—Hon Dr Megan Woods: Sources aren't very good then are they?CHRIS BISHOP: Sources aren't very good? Well they're usually pretty good.Hon Dr Megan Woods: Not this time. You're completely wrong.CHRIS BISHOP: OK—OK. That's an interesting thing OK.Simeon Brown: The Beehive needs a leak test.CHRIS BISHOP: The Beehive needs a leak test!Simeon Brown: That's why they're doing all the scaffolding!CHRIS BISHOP: Ha ha! It leaks like a sieve. Anyway we know what this bill is about. This bill is not so much about private sector landlords—Hon Dr Megan Woods: Leaks like MFAT under Murray McCully.CHRIS BISHOP: Yes yes. Well all Governments have leak issues but this Government is leakier than most. So we know what this bill is about; it's about Kāinga Ora. And the extension to all landlords is a fig leaf for the fact that the Government has not been able to bring Kāinga Ora tenancies into line with the standards.You do have to wonder—COVID is to blame according to the Minister and there's no doubt there is some truth to that but how long and for how many issues is COVID going to be to blame? I make a prediction now: we're going to get through to election 2023 in September October November—whenever it is; whenever the Prime Minister deigns to set the date—and the Government will spend a lot of next year blaming COVID for things. We're debating this bill tonight in relation to the healthy homes standards. It seems to be the cause of inflation worldwide and indeed in New Zealand and many other issues are going to be blamed on COVID. The Government seems to have two responses when it comes to issues that they've done a bad job dealing with: one is to blame the National Party which sort of works for a while I suppose—sort of worked OK for the first term—but as one commentator said the other day the statute of limitations on blaming the National Party has expired. It's certainly expired after five years and I'll tell you for free that it certainly will have expired after six years.Ingrid Leary: Nine years of neglect. Nine long years.CHRIS BISHOP: "Nine long years"—see there we go again! It's still there—it's still there. The "Nine long years" refrain sort of worked when you were coming into Government. It's a bit less effective when you've had five and next year it will be six years to sort out problems. But you know do continue to talk about it; I don't think it's working that well for you but do keep saying it.So firstly they normally blame National and then they blame COVID and at some point the Government has to front up and take some responsibility. So here we are on a Wednesday evening passing this bill through all stages alongside 20 other bills to extend the deadline for Kāinga Ora to 1 July 2024 which is an extra year—currently it's meant to be 1 July 2023—and for private landlords out to 2025. Of course any new or renewed tenancy has to be compliant straight away.So we'll support this; it's sensible legislation but New Zealanders should be under no illusions about what has prompted this: the extension for all landlords is a cover—it's a front—for the fact that Kāinga Ora has been unable to move quickly enough to bring their tenancies up to scratch and as at six or so weeks ago we've got 23000 tenancies that are not in compliance. I think I heard the Minister say they're doing about 600 a week. And she says—this is interesting; it's an interesting prediction. We'll wait and see if this is true or not. I think I heard her say that she thinks that Kāinga Ora will be 95 percent compliant by 1 July next year.Hon Dr Megan Woods: About.CHRIS BISHOP: About—about. Yes OK a bit of wriggle room there.Andrew Bayly: We don't set targets!CHRIS BISHOP: We are going to go through a committee stage. I could move an amendment to put some sort of target into the bill but I probably won't bother. But I wonder what "about" means. Is 90 percent "about"? I suppose it is. But it is still 5 percent. So that's a few hundred homes. But anyway we'll wait and see where we get to on that and no doubt we'll come back in July next year and see how we're going. So we support this but Kiwis need to know exactly what has prompted it. Thank you Madam Speaker."