Personal experience of renting has driven an MP to push for a law change aiming to limit rent increases on properties to just once per year.
The Residential Tenancies (Unfair Rent Increases) Amendment Bill, a member’s bill in the name of Labour MP Glen Bennett, would change the existing laws governing how often the rent can be increased.
Currently, the law allows landlords to raise the rent on a tenant once per year.
However, the amendment would make that apply to the property itself, so that if the tenant changed several times over the year, the rent could only go up once.
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“It’s about fairness,” said Bennett. “Most landlords, when a tenant moves out and a new tenant moves in, keep the rent the same. In a year, prices should not spike for tenants.”
However, a recent law change opens up the possibility for landlords to evict tenants at will, and in doing so change the rent repeatedly if market conditions allow for it to be raised.
“An example is that no-cause evictions have just come back in, which means people can move on really quickly, or a landlord can move someone on, and they can put the price up again,” the MP said.
Bennett said his proposed amendment would remove the incentive for landlords to move existing tenants on for purely financial reasons.
He said his own life experience had sparked his interest.
“I was a renter for several years recently. And I saw firsthand the fact that when we moved out of a house, the price changed dramatically from when we were renting it until when we saw it on TradeMe again.”
Bennett, who was the MP for New Plymouth until losing the seat in 2023 and coming back to parliament as a list MP, said the area he lives in is “a working-class part of New Plymouth”.
“The majority of our homes are rental properties, and I’ve seen it time and time again, when one family moves out, the rent goes up, and the new family has to pay far more, and that’s just not OK.”
He said landlords would have a carve-out in which they could raise the rent more than once, but only if “substantial improvements” to the property had been made.
This would have to be more than just a lick of paint, Bennett said.
“Substantial improvements mean a brand-new kitchen, or brand-new bathroom, or maybe it’s a brand-new garage on the back – that’s something that actually lifts the price or the value of the property.”
Bennett’s member’s bill is one of dozens sitting in the so-called ‘biscuit tin of democracy’, into which non-executive MPs can put proposed law changes for parliament to debate and potentially pass.
The biscuit tin itself was purchased from DEKA in the 1980s and has been used to draw bills at random ever since.
Several major law changes in recent decades started life as member’s bills, including the Homosexual Law Reform Act of 1986, the Marriage Amendment Act of 2013, and the End of Life Choice Act of 2019.
Bennett’s comments were part of a Q+A with Jack Tame series profiling prospective member’s bills, with the MP outlining how they want to change the law, and why.
So far in 2025, MPs whose member’s bill include National’s Paulo Garcia, the Green Party’s Kahurangi Carter, Labour’s Priyanca Radhakrishnan, and National’s Catherine Wedd.
Q+A with Jack Tame is made with the support of NZ on Air
