Dear John,
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 Māori 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
Hon Judith
Collins http://judithcollins.national.org.nz/
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