Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I'm very pleased to take a call on this piece of legislation because it's very important. I want to acknowledge the speaker who just resumed his seat Simeon Brown who actually did something important in this debate: he acknowledged the role that real estate agents play in our economy. It's actually quite an important role and it's been underestimated—in fact totally ignored—by the Government in drafting this bill and in the way they've debated tonight.I want to acknowledge Greg O'Connor who spoke earlier who gave one of the finest speeches I've ever seen from an MP who's eight beers deep. It was a brilliant example of somebody doing his best to fill in 10 minutes with no ideas whatsoever.This Government is going to face a time of reckoning. It's going to face a time of reckoning when the people sitting at home listening to this debate ask the question: Has this Government actually made my life better or have they played a series of shell games where they have shifted costs around but they haven't made my basic situation any better?" Members of the Government—including Kieran McAnulty who spoke earlier today and managed to fill an entire speech with half a thought if we're being generous—should read Henry Hazlitt the economist who wrote Economics in One Lesson. I don't have great hopes for the Greens but I think some of the Labour members could get through Economics in One Lesson. If they did they would read that the bad economist looks only at the short-term effects on some groups. The good economist looks at the long-term effects on all groups.If anyone with half a mind applies that reasoning to this legislation they simply have to ask themselves if it's not possible to charge a letting fee on a rental who is going to pay the costs of advertising tenancies and of showing the property at all times—they'd have to be convenient so that people can see them and fit in with their work and their other commitments? Who is going to pay for the reference checks that have to be done? Who is going to negotiate all those little details in the real world of a tenancy—can I have a pet; what is the term; what are the renewal dates; does the fireplace actually work? These are all the things that tenants in the real world—as the Labour Party members should well know—have to face. Who is going to pay for dealing with all of those minor issues that are the reality of renting in New Zealand or any country for that matter?Well of course it's going to be letting agents. Of course letting agents are not fairies they are not Tinker Bell they are not magic. They don't work for free. They do not have a money tree. They expect to be compensated—like every other worker the Labour Party's supposed to stand for—for their work. They expect to be compensated.If they can't be compensated from a letting fee then how do the Labour Party members and the New Zealand First member down there expect them to be compensated? Of course they are going to pay higher rents to pay for the arrangement of finding a new place to live. As Hazlitt said the bad economist looks at the short-term effects on some people; the good economist looks at the long-term effects on all people. This is a shell game that is transferring costs from here to there but it does not make people's lives any better.The ACT Party proudly opposes this legislation because we are committed to making people's lives better and we know that the people at home listening tonight understand better than the Labour Party—Kieran McAnulty: "We"? "We"?DAVID SEYMOUR: —better than Kieran McAnulty—that they will not benefit from a shell game that shifts costs. They will vote this Government out because they will know they've been had by a Government with no real ideas. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker."