Pugh Maureen: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePugh Maureen: Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 24 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11140. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MAUREEN PUGH (National): It is my pleasure to stand and speak to this the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill in its Committee stage today. I want to take this opportunity to note my thanks to the Hon Nick Smith for being the driving force behind this sensible and practical piece of legislation. I am sure that the rest of my colleagues on this side of the Chamber join me in congratulating the Minister on sponsoring such a great and practical bill.I live down the road from a small place called Ōtira. Back in the day Ōtira grew into a tent city as workmen inhabited it to work on the Ōtira Tunnel. In that tent city the women and children grew and worked and survived in canvas houses and some of them who were lucky enough had wooden floors. So we have come a long way since those days and the standards have improved over time and continue to improve. This legislation will provide yet another way for us to improve the living standards of those people who depend on rental properties—I am talking about 450000 New Zealanders who live in those rental accommodations. This legislation is going to ensure that they are warmer drier and safer.Currently the Residential Tenancies Act requires landlords to keep their properties in a reasonable state of cleanliness and repair and they must comply with a variety of standards. These include meeting the standards in terms of ventilation cooking facilities heating and so forth. Today I would like to talk about smoke alarms. That has been a great topic of conversation today. It is one of the key objectives of this Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill and it is designed to reduce fire-related fatalities and injuries in residential rental properties. As the Minister has noted already today the highest incidence of those fatalities and injuries is in rental properties. Smoke alarms will be a requirement as of 1 July this year.Insulation will be installed progressively over the next 3 years and landlords will be required to disclose the extent of insulation in tenancy agreements. This offers openness and transparency to tenants as they enter into tenancy agreements. However social housing landlords who receive income-related rent subsidies must install floor and ceiling insulation from the commencement date of this bill which is 1 July. These measures as we have heard from the Hon Nick Smith today will save 129 lives a year.I would like to go on to talk about some of the main changes that were made at the select committee stage. The Residential Tenancies Act will now have a higher maximum payment for two unlawful acts in order to help address the natural power imbalance between tenants and landlords. The maximum amount payable by a landlord to a tenant in the form of damages for failing to comply with regulations about smoke alarms or insulation has been increased from $3000 to $4000. This is an encouragement to landlords to ensure that they comply with this potentially lifesaving requirement.The other issue that came up at the select committee relates to retaliatory notices. We heard that some tenants are reluctant to bring complaints against their landlords for fear of eviction. We also heard that some tenants found the 14-day time requirement to appeal too short and were submitting too late. This time requirement has been extended from 14 to 28 days. The maximum penalty for a landlord who does give a retaliatory notice is going up to $4000.A third change that was made in the select committee process was to forbid and prohibit cash payments in return for work that was required on rental properties. A fourth change was giving landlords a specific right of entry for installation of smoke alarms and insulation which brings it in line with repairs and maintenance. Thank you.