Speaker 1: You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks'd
Speaker 1: be so.
Speaker 2: The ACT party is calling for more powers for conger
Speaker 2: Aura to terminate tenancies. Was triggered by a recent ruling
Speaker 2: by the Tenancy Tribunal where get this, a tenant with
Speaker 2: twenty five complaints, six warnings, and police police call outs
Speaker 2: and even an alleged shooting will not have their tenancy
Speaker 2: terminated after the Tenancy Tribunal rule that insufficient evidence was
Speaker 2: provided to justify a diction, basically because all the witnesses
Speaker 2: are too scared. There was an overhaul last year that
Speaker 2: made it easier for Conga Aora to evict tenant, but
Speaker 2: Acts ACT thinks that more is needed and at Party
Speaker 2: Housing spokesperson Cameron Luxton is with me now, good afternoon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, good afternoon. Come, thanks for having me on on this.
Speaker 2: Yeah good.
Speaker 3: Look.
Speaker 2: Is this a one off? Or are we seeing this
Speaker 2: is the tip of the iceberg or a broader problem?
Speaker 3: But the real concern is that it isn't a one off.
Speaker 3: And I'll tell you why, because you've got right now
Speaker 3: tenants who will people in the facility, residents who are
Speaker 3: now fearful after this tendency wasn't terminated through a tendency
Speaker 3: tribunal hearing. They're now fearful of speaking up or that
Speaker 3: they may be victims of violence. I think we have
Speaker 3: to be concerned that this is happening more often around
Speaker 3: the country because fundamentally the problem lies when if someone
Speaker 3: wishes to make a complaint against someone in their neighborhood,
Speaker 3: if they don't have access to a private situation where
Speaker 3: they can give evidence, a private testimony or hearing, well,
Speaker 3: they do expose themselves to repercussions. And that's something that
Speaker 3: we've got to change. So, yeah, you're right, there's been
Speaker 3: some changes in what the policies of kying or order are.
Speaker 3: In fact, act campaigned and got through in the coalition
Speaker 3: government an end to the Sustaining Tendencies framework, the policy
Speaker 3: to keep people in coying lad of tendencies, whether it
Speaker 3: was we're as good or bad for the community. So
Speaker 3: we've got an end to that. But this process has
Speaker 3: shown that kind order needs even more support, or even
Speaker 3: that the neighborhood needs more support, and that if they
Speaker 3: are fearful of repercussion, they should be able to give
Speaker 3: these testimonies so that they can be taken into account
Speaker 3: at tendency tribunal hearings.
Speaker 2: Is it a case that I mean, ky Or has
Speaker 2: got the you know, being given the directions to be
Speaker 2: tougher on this stuff, but you've still got the tendency Tribunal.
Speaker 2: Do we need to do we need an overhaul in
Speaker 2: terms of what evidence they can consider.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that's what I'm That's what I'm myself as
Speaker 3: a spokesman for the act party. That is what I'm
Speaker 3: proposing right now, what I'm calling for. I think that
Speaker 3: the requirement right now that it has that kind order
Speaker 3: has to prove antisocial behavior should be including testimony from
Speaker 3: other residents in the area. And the fact that this
Speaker 3: wasn't the evidence threshold wasn't found by the tendency tribunal
Speaker 3: because no one would go on the record up and
Speaker 3: put their name and face out there for their for
Speaker 3: their neighbors to see. Uh, And that led to the
Speaker 3: Tendancy trubunal finding is not enough evidence in this case,
Speaker 3: even though as you say, there had been more than
Speaker 3: a couple of dozen events, including the distuch charge of
Speaker 3: a firearm. I mean that just shows that we're at
Speaker 3: a point now where the Tendancy Tribunal is the bond
Speaker 3: neck not kind of order?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean you've got the police. The evidence of
Speaker 2: police call outs is not something that's here, say, is it?
Speaker 2: I mean it's this Is this just a lousy decision
Speaker 2: by the Tennessey Tribunal or what?
Speaker 3: Well, I hesitate to criticize.
Speaker 2: The t you can't do that, but I can you.
Speaker 3: Know that's yeah, well that's I mean, there's contumity there.
Speaker 3: But basically what we've got is a threshold for evidence
Speaker 3: which isn't fit for what the current situation is. And
Speaker 3: you know, people all around New Zealand have got kind
Speaker 3: of order in their communities or wanting kind of order,
Speaker 3: wanting to do developments in the communities. Stories like this
Speaker 3: do not help social cohesion in accepting that as part
Speaker 3: of a functioning community to accept people in happily, we
Speaker 3: need to make sure that the settings are right and
Speaker 3: the tendency tribunal settings on having evidence clearly aren't right.
Speaker 2: So this is not so much a kind of aura issue.
Speaker 2: They're the ones who are bringing the case to get
Speaker 2: rid of these tenants. This is this is a tenanty
Speaker 2: tribunal evidence evidence sort of issue, isn't it?
Speaker 3: Well? K Like yeah, like you've said, and I've said,
Speaker 3: the kind Orders had a change in policy when the
Speaker 3: government changed and kind order is a landlord. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: a landlord on behalf of the government, but it is
Speaker 3: a landlord, and many landlords have had issues going to
Speaker 3: the tendency tribunal. I wonder how much more widespread this
Speaker 3: actually is in the private rental market as well. This
Speaker 3: could just be, as you say, the tiberty iceberg. But
Speaker 3: I think the real, the real issue we've got here
Speaker 3: is that a landlord, whether the government or a private
Speaker 3: need to be able to trust that when people when
Speaker 3: they rally enough people around to say, look, this is
Speaker 3: actually a problem for this tendancy and it's causing serious disruptions,
Speaker 3: or even just treating a asset like a publicly taxpayer
Speaker 3: funded house in just this sort of disregard and the
Speaker 3: entitlement that's being shown by people to treat something like this,
Speaker 3: they need to go to the back of the housing queue.
Speaker 3: And that's what we should be at. The king Orders
Speaker 3: should be able to kick out a tenant who's doing
Speaker 3: twenty five issues that have been reported discharge of firearm.
Speaker 3: When that gets reported, someone needs to back out and
Speaker 3: they need to go to the back of the housing.
Speaker 3: So it's not good enough that we have people waiting
Speaker 3: for social housing. Well, somebody is able to do this.
Speaker 2: So you're suggesting that King Aora should simply have more
Speaker 2: power to evict people without resort to the tenantcy tribunal
Speaker 2: or are you suggesting an overhaul of the tenants y
Speaker 2: tribunal as well, including allowing broader sort of evidence in
Speaker 2: terms of the number of anonymous complaints and police involvement
Speaker 2: in the property.
Speaker 3: What I'm calling for, well, look, I think Coying Order
Speaker 3: has had their direction and that is the end of
Speaker 3: the Sustaining Tendencies policy and Coying Order. There should be
Speaker 3: a simple process within the bureaucracy, and I want to
Speaker 3: see a kind of order bureaucracy that's complicated where it
Speaker 3: has to go up through many layers. There needs to
Speaker 3: be a direct way to deal with tendencies quickly that
Speaker 3: are becoming antisocial for the community, because this is a
Speaker 3: wider community issue. But what I'm calling for is to
Speaker 3: say we need to be able to have people feel
Speaker 3: like they can give testimony to the tendency tribunal in
Speaker 3: a private way that protects their anonanimity, because that is
Speaker 3: what is that issue with many people wanting to give
Speaker 3: giving evidence in this case, those people should be able
Speaker 3: to and those people giving evidence in either way, either
Speaker 3: in defense of a tenant or in saying there is
Speaker 3: antisocial behavior having a tendency, those people should be able
Speaker 3: to do it on either side of the case in
Speaker 3: a private way. And the fact that that wasn't allowed
Speaker 3: to happen seems to be from this case a major
Speaker 3: issue from the tendency tribunal being able to make it ruling.
Speaker 2: How can we protect witnesses in a way, because I
Speaker 2: mean also people within the neighborhood, I mean they might
Speaker 2: not want to give evidence because even if it's anonymous,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously the people in the vicinity are going
Speaker 2: to be the ones who those who are being targeted
Speaker 2: are going to think, well, it's probably them or this.
Speaker 3: Lot, Well that's right, and even yeah, and even then
Speaker 3: if you can raise speculation across a whole lot of people,
Speaker 3: so yeah, fair enough, But there needs to be a
Speaker 3: situation where the events can actually be tabled because as
Speaker 3: we're found in this case, there was not There was
Speaker 3: found that that king order wasn't able to produce enough evidence,
Speaker 3: but there's clearly people that felt like they had a
Speaker 3: story to tell about what they've witnessed with this property
Speaker 3: that weren't able to go on the record and say it,
Speaker 3: and therefore the Tendency Tribunal didn't take it into account
Speaker 3: and they said that the tendency can remain.
Speaker 2: Do you think we should actually even have a I mean,
Speaker 2: when it comes to the tents Tribunal, we should actually
Speaker 2: amend the law that if there have been a certain
Speaker 2: number of complaints that can be considered, in other words,
Speaker 2: even if they haven't got the witnesses in front of them,
Speaker 2: if they've been saved. How many in this case we
Speaker 2: had twenty five complaints, six warnings, police call outs as well.
Speaker 2: Should they be able to sort of consider the broader
Speaker 2: evidence without having to get corroborated testimony from individual witnesses.
Speaker 3: I think you definitely want to have corroborated testimony. I
Speaker 3: think it would be a tricky thing to say, let's
Speaker 3: have a certain number of complaints, because you get you
Speaker 3: can have a gang up mentality, we've also neighbors at
Speaker 3: war or experienced it ourselves, and you don't want to
Speaker 3: have the social dynamic of a group of people who
Speaker 3: don't particularly like a neighbors starting that up. But I
Speaker 3: think in this case we've got what seems like a
Speaker 3: very serious issue that looked like the tendency tribunal couldn't
Speaker 3: take into account because of the requirement on making and
Speaker 3: making complaints public. I think that it would be a
Speaker 3: bit of a stretch to say, let's just have a
Speaker 3: set number and as soon as you hit that number,
Speaker 3: you're out. That would be a rife for people taking
Speaker 3: advantage of. But I think just actually in this case,
Speaker 3: having the ability of a tendency tribunal to hear evidence
Speaker 3: on behalf of residence in the neighborhood of the experience
Speaker 3: they've had and make a judgment based on that without
Speaker 3: having to make that public.
Speaker 2: Would be Okay. We're to now then, Because it's one
Speaker 2: thing to say this is what we've changed, it's another
Speaker 2: thing to get a change cracking, and it's not seem
Speaker 2: to get it through the legislative process. This set looks
Speaker 2: like the long haul again, doesn't it? For tenants and landlords?
Speaker 3: Yeah? What's next? I mean, on my behalf, just getting
Speaker 3: out and talking about this and making a point that
Speaker 3: this isn't something that should be accepted in our country
Speaker 3: as a as a start. But you know, Act's got
Speaker 3: the ACT Party and the coalition negotiations got things across
Speaker 3: the line, such as removing the Sustainable Tency policy. We
Speaker 3: didn't get everything across the line, like having to enabling
Speaker 3: the Tendency Tribunal to have private hearings and evidence was
Speaker 3: another thing they didn't get across the line. But look,
Speaker 3: I'm going to talk about I'll be discussing it with
Speaker 3: my National and New Zealand First colleagues and see if
Speaker 3: we can get something moving on that.
Speaker 2: Good on here. Okay, thanks Cameron, really appreciate your time.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it, and thank you for more from the
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