Little Andrew: Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) — First Reading[Sitting date: 04 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10823. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): I appreciate the contributions of members tonight—well most of them. This bill is very simple and in fact it is drafted in a very similar format to the Government bill so the complaints about lack of specificity or substance if they are going to be levelled at all need to be levelled at the Government bill too. It provides for regulations to be promulgated for standards in these particular areas and it goes beyond insulation. As other members have said there is no point in having a well-insulated house in the depth of winter if there is no source of heating. Nor is there any point in having insulation if the windows do not open there is no air circulating and the mould is allowed to build up. It is pretty simple.Hon Dr Nick Smith: Already in the regulations.ANDREW LITTLE: These will be the regulations that have led to 42000 kids being hospitalised every year for respiratory diseases and bronchial infections. If the Minister for Building and Housing has not got it yet his regulations are not working—they have to change. I think he does accept that because his own legislation actually calls for a change in the regulations. My bill is no different; it just does a better job than the Minister’s.I was intrigued by the honourable member David Seymour’s contribution and I suppose I summarise it by saying this: the latter-day libertarian has a particular principle they live by now which is: “Do as you wish be as greedy as you like because in the end the State will pay.” That is what his contribution amounts to. It is not about people picking and choosing how much more they want to spend. The truth is that most of the people who have written to me are already struggling to make choices between putting food on the table and meeting the medical costs of their children. If he is concerned about where cost is going to be imposed—Mr Seymour it is already being imposed on you and me and every other New Zealander as we see 42000 children admitted to hospital every year having their respiratory infections and bronchial conditions attended to. It is very simple.I want to say this to Mr Foster-Bell too who was concerned about—or at least tried to trumpet—the great achievements of his Government and its insulation programme. The question he must answer and indeed the Government must answer is why on achieving office did National cancel the $1 billion programme that had been legislated for by the previous Labour Government—Chris Bishop: Oh what rubbish. It was not legislated.ANDREW LITTLE: —and supported by the Greens which was about insulating and installing heating devices in the houses that needed them? It is all there in black and white Mr Bishop. It is all there for you to see. We know it is true. I can tell by the size of your reaction that it must be correct because you get agitated only when we are right about something and you have confirmed that.So we come back to what this bill is about. It is about New Zealanders standing up and saying in the 21st century that we want decent minimum standards for rental housing in New Zealand and we want a standard that is going to protect the kids in those houses from getting sick from getting unwell and from getting unhealthy—and actually at the same time making sure their parents are OK as well. That is all this is about. Let us do it for New Zealand. Let us do it for those who do not have a voice. It is not about those who sit in Epsom—the leafy suburbs of Epsom—and tell the rest of the world what is good for them; it is about this House now taking this opportunity to say we can do better. We can do better for the children and their families in this country and have decent healthy homes—warm safe dry homes. It is nothing less than any citizen in a modern country like ours in the 21st century should expect. I look forward to the House’s support for the bill.