The BFD | Collins’ Comments February 2021

Hon Judith Collins
judithcollins.national.org.nz

It was great to be back in Parliament last week following a successful weekend for the Waitangi Day celebrations. I will be looking forward to speaking next year and I am grateful for that.

There are many other issues for us to bring to the Government right now. The National team and I are well prepared to raise questions about the Resource Management Act reforms, the Maori Wards and the need for emergency legislation and action to address the housing shortage.

February COVID-19 Levels 2 and 3

Right now I hope you are able to manage your lives, your work or business and your family’s education through the level 3 lockdown imposed in Auckland from midnight on Sunday 14 February. The rest of the New Zealand is in level 2.

As we know a MIQ border worker and some of her family have tested positive for Covid-19. I hope you stay safe and I thank everyone who has been tested as a result of these new community cases.

Residential Tenancies Act 1986 Amendment

On 11 February 2021 the Labour government’s changes to Tenancy and Landlords obligations came into force.

Despite our best efforts to push back on the new reforms further, landlords will be able to increase rents only once every 12 months, rent bidding will be banned and so will no-cause terminations, so landlords can no longer give tenants 90 days’ notice unless they provide justification.

The landlord can still control things like pet ownership, expected length of tenancy and whether tenants smoke or not and may ask about these, but details like nationality, marital status, employment history and what rent the tenant paid in the past can’t be collected.

Tenants have increased rights like making minor changes to the dwelling but they must ask to make the changes and landlords must not decline if the change is minor.

It will be unlawful not to provide a tenancy agreement in writing and landlords will need to retain and provide new types of information.

The Tenancy Tribunal can hear more types of cases and make awards up to $100,000. This is a change from $50,000.

For more detailed information on all the changes see www.tenancy.govt.nz/law-changes/ and

More information about the reform of the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 (Ministry of Housing and Urban Development) and

Residential Tenancies Amendment Act 2020 (New Zealand Legislation website)

Further reforms will come into play in August this year including provisions around termination of the tenancy if family violence or landlord assault has occurred.

Report from the Climate Change Commission

Recently there has been quite a lot of coverage on the Climate Commission’s interim report released by the Labour government in late January 2021. It highlights what we need to do to get New Zealand’s act together on climate change. Did we really need this expensive report that the Labour Government commissioned back at the end of 2019 to confirm what is already known?

National knew back in 2016 that replacing our vehicle fleet with electric or alternative fuels to fossil fuels, was a good, progressive idea. The National government introduced and financed a policy that assisted big companies like Air New Zealand and Progressive Enterprises and bodies like Wellington Council to electrify their fleets. If this had been continued by the current government it would probably have resulted in creating a New Zealand-new second hand electric car market as well as reducing air pollution by now. But this policy did not continue after the 2017 election.

The National government signed up to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in May 2017. And it also declared a Pest Free New Zealand target and it also wanted the seas around the Kermadec Islands to be declared an ocean sanctuary.

Our current Government scrapped the ocean sanctuary and has done little in regard to New Zealand’s obligations under the Paris Agreement except they legislated against further mining and exploration for oil in Taranaki and offshore on the West Coast.

Back in 2017, on my first day as Energy Minister I discovered the cost to the economy of buying international carbon units to offset our own emissions will be $14.2 billion over 10 years.

(Carbon trading is the process of buying and selling permits and credits to offset carbon dioxide emissions.)

The Labour government is claiming that the costs of compliance with the Climate Commission’s recommendations are costed at somewhere between $2 and $11 billion but it appears to be a guess.

We have another report but there is no policy. There is nothing suggesting the Government will support people into replacing fossil fuelled cars with alternative energy like electric. There is no encouragement for scientists to work on environment enhancing projects either.

So we have another Commission and a Report – watch this space.

Maori Wards

National does not oppose communities establishing Maori wards, but the rate payers affected by the decision should have a say in it. Why is the Government rushing legislation through under urgency and only allowing a week for public submissions? These closed last Thursday.

The Government should use urgency for enacting emergency powers to address the housing shortage or civil defence emergencies like earthquakes and pandemics.

It appears that the Labour Government is failing to consider the feelings of local communities when it comes to decisions on the constitution of local government, but that’s exactly what is happening.

This is a significant change to the constitutional law and the democratic rights of New Zealanders. Why didn’t Labour campaign on this at the election if it is as open and transparent as it claims? Why does this legislation have to be urgent as most legislation takes at least six months to go through the all the Parliamentary stages?

Will RMA Reform Bring Meaningful Change?

The Government appears to be moving slowly on solving the housing shortage and its plans to protect the environment. House prices have risen more than 40 per cent since Labour became the government four years ago. They are showing no urgency when it comes to making it easier to build houses in this country.

We have offered to work with Labour on emergency legislation, similar to the special powers used for the Christchurch rebuild, to accelerate house building across New Zealand.

We have offered to form a special select committee and to work in a bipartisan way on RMA reform with the government, but this has been rejected.

The RMA legislation that has been drafted by Hon David Parker will probably take three years to go through Parliament. After that local councils will need to amend their local plans, so it is unlikely that faster consent processes will occur until the late 2020s.

The proposal for housing developments to be “within biophysical limits and have positive environmental outcomes before proceeding”, may actually make it more expensive and complicated to build houses without achieving the environmental gains the Government seeks.

Our National policy would replace the RMA with an Environmental Standards Act, and an Urban Planning and Development Act. The primary aim is to fast-track building houses in our cities while protecting our natural spaces.

I support everyone making submissions on legislation that is going to affect many of us, so please either contact the national.org.nz website or go to www.parliament.nz and click on Get Involved and Make a Submission.

Wishing everyone a Happy Chinese year of the Ox,

Judith Collins