O'Rourke Denis: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 08 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8633. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First will support the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill even though it makes only a very few improvements in the face of a situation that cries out for much much more improvement than we see here. But even a little is worth something so let us hope that more will come in the future. On reading Shamubeel Eaqub’s book Generation Rent earlier this year I was impressed by the differences it described between New Zealand’s rental market and legislation and those of other countries with much better developed rental markets and much better legislation. There were at least three differences that were pointed out. One was fair rents. It is obvious that New Zealand does not actually have a fair rents regime at all when you compare it with what you see in other countries. Secondly New Zealand does not have secure tenancies in comparison with what you see in other countries. New Zealand’s tenancies tend to be short term and tenants have very little protection against eviction. Thirdly there is the question of quality of rentals which this bill does something but not enough to address. There are far too many old dumps being let in New Zealand to people who cannot afford to buy their own homes and have to rely on the rental market. That is the truth of the situation. So this bill makes a couple of very minor improvements which are welcome but not nearly enough. Much more needs to be done and it needs to be done in all three of those areas I mentioned.The message I want to give to the Government is this: many people are now finding that homeownership is utterly out of reach for them and that is a result of the lacklustre performance of this Government over 7 years as far as housing is concerned. Just about everybody knows and acknowledges that. The result is that many many more people now have to accept that they will never own a home of their own and they will need to rely on what is actually an inadequate rental market. There are too few rental properties to rent and too few of them are in anything like adequate condition. So the Government needs to move firstly on regulating rentals especially where landlords have been profiteering and especially in those situations for example in Auckland because of the housing crisis there and also in Christchurch because of the effects of the earthquakes there. In both those situations the market failed rents exploded people were hurt and the Government did nothing.The second area in which it has to move is security of tenures. It is too easy to get rid of tenants in this country so that they do not have another home to go to. And more and more long-term tenancies are going to be needed because people will not be able to afford to buy their own home. The Government needs to do a lot more to encourage that but again nothing is being done.And thirdly the bill needs to move much more to improve the quality of rental properties so that people have a genuine alternative to owning their own home. And we are not seeing that. We are not seeing improvements on heating standards; we are not seeing improvements as far as leakproofing is concerned; and we are not even seeing improvements as far as minimum standards for earthquake resistance size of accommodation—and the list goes on and on.Not nearly enough is being done in any of those areas. Not nearly enough is being done in any of those areas. Most of all the number of quality rentals available is far too little and this Government’s response to that seems to be: “Let’s sell thousands of State houses—that’s a good idea. Or let’s shove off responsibility for social housing to community organisations—that’s a good idea.” None of that is a good idea. What is a good idea is that this Government needs to invest much much more in social housing in New Zealand. I have listened to some of the figures being bandied about by the Minister for Building and Housing and others; it is still not nearly enough because the problem is huge and it needs a much greater response from the Government.This bill does do a couple of good things. It does require smoke alarms and insulation—great. And the cost-benefit ratio of that is excellent—great. And there will be fewer deaths per year resulting from fires—great. And it also improves enforcement powers—powers to regulate on the technical needs for smoke alarms and insulation. It empowers the chief executive to take cases direct to the Tenancy Tribunal for persistent breaches of the legislation it empowers the chief executive to authorise a search where needed to get evidence of a breach and it empowers the chief executive to require landlords to provide relevant information. All those are good steps forward but they are very minor compared with the size of the problem. The bill also streamlines the processes for the recovery of possession by landlord where there has been a tenancy that has been abandoned—great. All those things are again good but not enough.Overall New Zealand First does support the bill but we simply say this: we say that a whole lot more is needed if this country is going to provide homes for people first by making them more affordable which is not what this bill is about; and second by creating a tenancy market that provides a genuine good-quality alternative for people who will never be able to afford their own home. We in New Zealand First do not think that a warrant of fitness approach is the right way to go; we think that has got some problems. But we do think that there is a lot more that can be done in all three of those areas that I have already mentioned. Regulating rentals will make a big difference in ensuring that there are better ways as to how rentals should be fixed and ensuring that rentals are fair so that people can afford them with or without Government assistance. Secondly security of tenures also needs attention. The Government simply does not seem to have thought about that at all. In fact that is a very important issue. What New Zealand does need is a situation where people as an option choose long-term tenancies—tenancies in which they can feel secure and homes that they feel are permanent for them even though they are renting them or leasing them. That is a situation that you see in other countries especially Germany and other European countries and in the United States where there is a huge dependence on that end of the market. But in New Zealand we are not seeing enough of that because the legislative and regulative regime does not support it. So the Government should move on that.This bill moves only on the quality of tenancies and only in two very tiny ways. They are good ways but they are not nearly enough. The result is that there are far too many substandard tenancies as I have said—old dumps that people are letting instead of a quality service. Those people tend to be amateur landlords just buying a house to let as a way to improve their retirement prospects. But that is not good enough. We need to encourage professional letters of long-term rental properties so that we get a better option for people who will depend on it. There are countries overseas with much more sophisticated rental markets and much better legislation which this Government could take notice of and do a whole lot more than it is to ensure a better quality rental market for people who will need that in the future. Finally although we are supporting this bill—we say “Great we’ll vote for it.”—we do want to see a whole lot more done by this Government and it has not done much over 7 years. Let us face it. It needs to do a whole lot more in the future to improve New Zealand’s housing market and especially the rental market in this country. What it is doing to date is actually retrograde and is not improving anything at all. So let us see a bigger effort by the National Government. Let us see some really good ideas. Let it have a look at what happens overseas borrow some ideas and do a lot more than we are seeing in this bill.