One thing all these property-owning politicians don't understand about renting in 2023 is the nail-biting, hair-tearing, frustration of typing out your entire life story in triplicate. Just to go to to a viewing for a house they'll show to dozens of potential tenants, so most of that digital paperwork is a complete waste of time.
If you actually get the lease, that's another round of exhaustive data entry labour you're performing for the property management company, unpaid of course.
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One way a government could fix this is to have Tenancy Services set up a digital tenancy portal, where people only have to fill out their information once. One run entirely by a team on their staff, hosted in a NZ-owned, onshore datacentre. Tenants could then grant landlords and property mangers temporary permission to view it as needed. Only the information it's reasonable to ask for would be shown, depending on whether they're applying for a viewing or a lease, etc.
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Me:
> Only the information it's reasonable to ask for would be shown
Here's why I specify that. The forms we have to fill out to view a rental property are often used to extract personal information that's totally unrelated to renting a home. If you don't answer all their questions, however unreasonable, it's anyone's guess whether or not you get to view the property. But the implied threat is obvious.
This is one reason I suspect they're #DataFarming on the side.
Strypey