Davidson MaramaMARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Thank you Madam Speaker. The Greens are proud to see the introduction of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill and I'm very pleased to stand up and support the bill in the House today and commend Minister Faafoi for bringing it to our attention. We know that homes primarily are for living in that everyone needs a home and that that is the sole responsibility of what good Governments should do for people. It's to provide a sense of stability and calm and security which everybody should be entitled to—stability and calm that every person deserves—and that Aotearoa can most certainly provide whether we rent or own our own home. So we need to ensure that our rental laws are fit for purpose and that they recognise first and foremost that a home is a building block of our lives. We should be able to rely on this feeling and this sense of being able to put our roots down as we go about sending our children to our local schools as we develop relationships and friendships in our local neighbourhood and as we go about the ordinary living tasks of everyday life: our laughing our cooking our sleeping and loving family. So the problems here then have been obvious for far too long with the original renters' laws that were brought in back in 1986. What the reliance on that original legislation from the 1980s has meant is that previous Governments have been allowed to continue to see housing viewed as something left to the market instead of a core public good. This legislation starts to correct the imbalance of power between tenants and landlords that has been having a harmful impact on communities and families actually for far too long—for far too long. Some speaking in opposition in this House to this legislation are hypothesizing a harmful impact on landlords and they—Dr Duncan Webb: Catastrophising. MARAMA DAVIDSON: —catastrophising; absolutely Dr Webb—are not speaking into the decades of harmful impacts that relying on outdated legislation and market levers have caused to ordinary folk around our entire country. We don't expect the market to be able to provide for core public goods such as education and health and drinking water. In fact even when we have tried to leave a little bit of the market to those services that hasn't gone very well. So a market is designed by its nature for profit and not for people. We cannot expect it to be concerned with social or environmental outcomes. So this legislation is starting to correct that imbalance. Now some of us in this House—not all of us—may remember cassette tapes if I may from the 1970s and 1980s. Not everyone will know what this is today. This is a cassette tape from the 1970s and 1980s. This is from the time when the legislation was first introduced and it's also the last time that housing prices made any sense in this country. Many people do not know what a cassette tape is. Many people today do not know what sensible house prices are either. Back then when this legislation first came through I think around 26 percent of children lived in rental homes. Now 43 percent—probably inching closer to 50 percent on more recent figures—of our children with their whānau live in a rental home. So it's time long past time that we responded. I wanted to mention that Leilani Farha the sort of UN expert on the right to housing called this not a housing crisis but a human rights crisis and that's exactly what this has been for people in our neighbourhoods for far too long. We are changing the fact in this bill that you can be removed from your home for no reason. So for those who are scaremongering and catastrophising that this will restrict landlords from having suitable tenants that is not the case. That is not the case at all in this legislation. One is still able to maintain good cause and good reason with fair notice to be able to move tenants on through their tenancy but what we can no longer put up with is tenants not knowing whether any minute now they can be served with a no-cause reason—no reason—just if someone feels like increasing the rent for example. This is what I got told when I was in Dunedin this week. If they've had a conversation with other investors and they've agreed as investors Let's hike things up a little here Let's do it together."—this is what I'm being told when I'm talking around the country. We are removing that ability to simply say "Oh I feel like putting the rent up. We won't offer a reason for the tenants. We are just going to give notice and move them on." That under this legislation is actually unlawful now. That is now unlawful. It's not just not allowed; it is actually unlawful. So these are good things. These are significant steps actually in starting to correct the power imbalance that has caused harm—never mind hypothetical harm—that has already caused harm. So the reforms in this bill are necessary because things have changed because more and more people are renting because less people are able to feel that they are living in a home where they have put down secure roots. I'm one of the few people who still rent a home and believe me we are trying to change that—it's rough out there. But I come with a status a high income and privilege. That means my landlord is quite understanding and we have a good relationship because we are probably ideal tenants if we think about it. But not everyone has this privilege. Not everyone is able to feel that they're pretty safe in the home that they're renting. This is a fundamental change that we are seeking in this legislation and we have to do more. So the excuse coming from the Opposition to keep the massive imbalances in place is that landlords are going to exit out of the market. Well that's because this bill on its own isn't what we are saying is the solution to supply and affordability so that wipes that excuse for standing up for people who rent right out of the water. These are important changes: extending notice periods for asking tenants with a good reason to move on making sure that we can put up pictures. My mokopuna is about to start walking soon so we're making sure that we can make some safety changes and minor changes around the house for those sorts of safety reasons—you know the things we're thinking about are like going to make our door so it's a little bit harder to just run out on to the front road. These are ordinary things that many many landlords and tenants have already been able to establish but we've got it here and are recognising it in some legislation now. This is why the Greens are really pleased to consider this legislation as part of the step. We need to go further and faster and alongside reforming rental law we have to keep increasing public and affordable housing and make sure that our rental homes are in good condition. I'm very proud of having worked hard on this bill over the past year and a bit and I am looking forward to seeing it progress through the House because when we have a sense of feeling settled in our communities we can better engage we can better contribute and we can feel like we have got a hopeful future. Kia ora."