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In an excited Facebook status posted last Wednesday evening, OUSA President Francisco Hernandez announced the early drafting of a bill that would enable the Dunedin City Council (DCC) to create and enforce a housing warrant of fitness. He aptly called it “GREAT NEWS!!!”

“We’ll be engaging key stakeholders and policy experts for feedback before opening it up for public consultation on 15 August at a Housing Summit during OUSA’s Housing Week,” Hernandez said.

“With the accelerated timeframe, I’m increasingly optimistic about the chance of this bill hitting the floor of parliament before the end of the year.”

The “key stakeholders” include the Property Investors Association, the Southern District Health Board, the DCC, the University, local MPs, OUSA and OPSA. Hernandez admitted that because there is no dedicated “tenants’ association” in Dunedin, there would be nobody representing the interests of non-student tenants.

Because local bills are sponsored by local MPs, OUSA has been in preliminary talks with Michael Woodhouse to get the bill through Parliament without sucking up to chief fuckwits Peter Dunne and John Banks. Woodhouse has said he is “broadly supportive” of the bill, but wants to see the legislation before giving it further consideration.

“We will of course be proactively engaging with Woodhouse as we will be with all the Dunedin North MPs,” Hernandez said.

Friday then saw the release of the University of Otago’s plans for a “Warrant of Fitness for rental houses,” yet Hernandez was unsure whether this was directly related to OUSA’s efforts or not.

The University’s scheme, which comes under their Housing and Health Research Programme and sees a collaboration with the New Zealand Green Building Council, aims to establish “a minimum standard for rental accommodation and encourage improved housing performance over time.”

The two organisations are planning to create the Warrant of Fitness by merging their respective housing assessment tools: the Healthy Housing Index (HHI) and Homestar. Making this available to local councils, central government, landlords, tenants and homeowners would create a pass/ fail assessment to confirm whether homes meet “fit for purpose” health and safety standards.

“While there are costs of implementing such a system, the costs of inaction are considerably greater, and are already being borne on a day-to-day basis by many individuals and whānau,” Otago researcher Dr Julie Bennett says.