Greens want new standards for rental properties

Green Party MP Gareth Hughes has drawn up the Warm Healthy Rental bill and will try and get it through parliament.

"Everybody deserves warm healthy homes; it's only fair. My Warm Healthy Rental bill will ensure that all New Zealand's rental homes meet basic standards for warmth and insulation by 2018," he says.

Hughes is the Green Party Housing spokesperson and is currently promoting the bill to students.

He says the majority of the 1.6 million occupied houses in New Zealand do not have sufficient levels of insulation or efficient clean heating devices and a significant proportion do not meet World Health Organisation guide lines for adequate internal temperature.

"Adequate housing is an essential that all New Zealanders should be guaranteed. We know that there are a lot of cold damp rentals out there and that lots of people have to live in them because they don't have the money to move.

"This policy will not only protect people's health, it will protect the planet by lowering emissions from energy production.

"Landlords will benefit by having the value of their properties increased when they insulate them, and it will encourage them to take advantage of the $323 million home insulation scheme that the Greens set up.

Further information

Energy Efficiency Conservation (Warm Healthy Rentals) Amendment Bill - http://www.greens.org.nz/bills/energy-efficiency-conservation-warm-healt...

Retrofit interventions to enable healthy living conditions in existing New Zealand houses, EECA http://www.eeca.govt.nz/node/8663