Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Minister of Consumer Affairs), on behalf of theMinister for Building and Construction: I move, That the Building Amendment Bill be now read a first time. After the bill has been read a first time it is intended that we will move that the bill be considered by the Social Services Committee. There is also an intention to move that the Social Services Committee be instructed to report back to the House by 5 November and that the committee have authority to meet at any time when the House is sitting, except during questions for oral answer, during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week when there has been a sitting in the House, despite Standing Orders 192 and 195(1)(b) and (c). This is necessary because the legislation needs to be enacted before 30 November 2007, which is this year. It is important to make minor adjustments to the builder licensing regime before it starts to be phased in from November 2007, and we need to adjust the accreditation and fee-setting framework before the end of this year to allow for the implementation of the new product certification accreditation scheme.

With this amending legislation the Government is improving the clarity and effectiveness of the regulatory reforms set up under the Building Act 2004. This Act was passed as a response to the systemic issues that led to major building failure in the 1990s and, in a wider sense, to an expectation that New Zealand would re-establish our world-class reputation for quality-built buildings. The Act is the primary instruction for ensuring that New Zealanders’ homes and buildings are built right the first time.

The Labour-led Government is rolling out a major suite of reforms under the Building Act 2004 that includes: the licensing of building practitioners from November this year, initially on a voluntary basis, to ensure that competent people carry out building work; a registration scheme for accredited building consent authorities from November this year to improve the performance and accountability of building consent, inspection, and approval processes; and a new product certification scheme that will be tied in to international standards of quality and accountability from 2008. Accordingly, the Act is large and contains a lot of detail of these schemes, which increase the performance and accountability of councils, builders, and building products. The Act, like any large Act that introduces significant new schemes, needs some minor adjustments in order to get the details right.

The Act provides lead-in times so that we can talk through implementation details with the stakeholders and can fine-tune some of the systems and processes before they roll out. The suite of new schemes will be rolling out through to 2013 and we do not need to make any dramatic changes; rather, this bill contains minor changes to improve the workability of the Act across a number of areas to ensure the policy intent is matched by how the schemes are being rolled out in practice.

The bulk of the provisions in the bill contain corrections to minor errors, omissions, and inconsistencies that have been identified in the lead-up to the full implementation of the Act. I will touch on a few examples of these minor adjustments to the bill. The bill clarifies and reorganises building consent exemptions, in particular to ensure that the weathertightness remediation work proceeds with an appropriate building consent. It will also clarify that other matters exempted from building consents under the Building Act 1991 continue to have those exemptions. These include culverts, motorway signs, and certain pylons that are built by network utility operators, such as Transit and Transpower. It is not intended to change these policies from the 1991 Act and the bill will clarify this. For example, farmers should still be able to build small dams without needing the red tape of building consent applications.

The bill will fine-tune some elements of the scheme to license building practitioners that is due to be phased in, firstly, with voluntary licensing from November this year. Having listened to the sector leaders and to builders on building sites, we are clarifying the issue around liability. The Government has no intention of having licensing change the existing liability framework. This bill sorts out any potential confusion by making sure that there are no unintended consequences of new tort liability for licensing building practitioners.

The bill also sets up the framework for future regulations to define the limit of restricted building work that would be carried out or supervised by licensed building practitioners. The bill integrates the start-up dates for when it will become compulsory to employ licensed building practitioners for restricted work. Instead of splitting the dates across 2009 and 2011 for different trades, the requirements will all come into effect in 2010.

A minor amendment is needed to provide accreditation bodies with sufficient flexibility in the way they will charge fees. Currently, regulations allow accreditation bodies to charge fixed amounts only for applications. The amendment will allow future regulations to include hourly and daily rates, as well. The Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand will then be able to be approved and appointed as the product certification accreditation body so that the scheme can proceed as planned.

The bill makes some minor adjustments to the future dam safety scheme by aligning it better with the way that similar dam safety risks are dealt with overseas. For example, the bill adds intermediate new categories for earthquake-prone and flood-prone dams. These dams may develop emerging risks over time—for example, as a result of unusual levels of rainfall. Regional authorities will be able to require that a dam’s safety classification is reviewed in those situations. The bill also adds an incentive for dam owners to become accredited. Accredited dam owners will not need to provide annual dam compliance certificates. The bill also fixes a drafting error that inadvertently arose in 2004 by clarifying that small dams should be regulated by regional authorities as “dams”, not regulated by territorial authorities as “buildings”. It makes sense that all dams are regulated by the same people—those in regional authorities who have expertise in this area.

The bill introduces a new requirement for territorial authorities to make a statement of project information memorandum reports for public use buildings, flagging that there are accessibility requirements in the Act and the building code. This new flag within the existing project information memorandum process will assist in ensuring that people with disabilities can enter and enjoy public buildings, such as office buildings, retail shops, or sports stadia, by improving compliance with accessibility requirements at the building design stage.

There are further minor amendments and a large number of technical drafting corrections that will ensure that the Building Act 2004 is a more robust instrument to regulate the safety and quality of the building and construction industry into the future. This bill will also help fine-tune the Government’s key reforms of the New Zealand building sector under the Building Act 2004. These reforms are transforming the building and construction sector for the better, and this bill will help to maximise the effectiveness of the reforms as they are rolled out in the next few years. The building and construction sector is a large and important part of the New Zealand economy and it is vital to the lives of all New Zealanders in one way or another.

The Building Act reflects the Government’s commitments to ensuring that New Zealanders enjoy quality homes and buildings that meet our needs. For many of us our home is our greatest asset. The bill contributes to the Government’s aim of making sure that all buildings are designed, built, and inspected at the right time, which is the first time. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : I put it to the House that the Building Amendment Bill is another sad chapter in the crisis of home affordability that we have in New Zealand. I want to share two very important basic statistics with this Parliament.

First, the latest statistics show that today it costs more for a section than it cost for a house when Labour became the Government. Let me just say that again; it is an extraordinary statistic. This is the worst Government in New Zealand’s history in respect of home affordability. Now, the second—

Darren Hughes: What is the point of the member’s statement—that land values shouldn’t go up?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I know that Darren Hughes does not care an iota for the families in Ōtaki that are struggling to own their own homes, and I want to ask that member to please explain why, during Labour’s tenure in office, it now costs more for a section than the amount that would have bought a house in 1999. Today in New Zealand, the average price of a section is more than the amount that would have bought a house.

Hon Parekura Horomia: Who says?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Parekura Horomia interjects, asking: “Who says?”. Statistics New Zealand says that. The Government’s own department provides the figures that show the appalling situation that we have in this country.

The second thing I want to point out—and maybe those members opposite will trust the census data—is that when Labour came into Government in 1999, 71 percent of New Zealand homes were owner-occupied. In every year that Labour has been in Government, homeownership has fallen back, to a level of just 66 percent now. That drop of 5 percent represents 120,000 fewer New Zealanders who own the roof over their heads. To members opposite, I say that is a tragedy.

I also say that Labour pretends that somehow it is not part of that problem. Well, the very Act that we are attempting to amend with this bill is actually part of the problem. Let me explain why that is the case. When Labour brought in the new Building Act in 2004, what was the very first decision it made?

Jacqui Dean: What?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Labour trebled the building levy. The building levy is a bit like a tax—and we are used to Labour putting taxes up—on homeownership. It went from $6 million a year, I say to Mr Hughes, to $18 million a year. I also want to point something else out that members opposite probably do not know, which is that this Labour Government amended the Resource Management Act in 2003. It removed the checks on the development levies that councils charge. Do members opposite know that the development levy imposed on a section price has gone from an average of $8,000 a section to $24,000 a section? And Labour wonders why house prices have gone through the roof! It needs only to look in the mirror.

Then, when we look at what is proposed in the bill, we get some idea of the mess that we have in our building laws. What I find extraordinary is this. This is the first reading of the Building Amendment Bill, intended to fix the botch-ups that Labour made in 2004. The ink is not dry on this bill, yet we have a Supplementary Order Paper to the bill. What sort of incompetence do we now have on the Government benches that we have that sort of mess in the legislative process?

Let me go through some of the detail in this bill. The first issue is that of do-it-yourself building—and I want to commend my colleague Bob Clarkson; he has been championing the cause of do-it-yourself builders. I want to read to the House the Hansard of Bob Clarkson’s questions to the Minister, because the Minister has said over and over again that the Building Act 2004 does not prohibit the do-it-yourself builder. Well, is it not strange that we now have a bill that amends those very clauses, so that we can allow the do-it-yourself builder to operate? Members on the Opposition side of the House have always said to the Government that it shot the wrong guy. It was not do-it-yourself builders who were responsible for the leaky homes debacle. It was always an error and a mistake to ban those people, but there is a sneaky little provision in this bill to address that issue. National believes that the right to get the hammer and nail bag out and to build a house is a pretty fundamental right. We think—

David Bennett: Norman Kirk did.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Norman Kirk would have been outlawed from building his own home by this Labour Government.

Darren Hughes: Rubbish!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Darren Hughes says that is rubbish. Well, I say to Darren Hughes that Norm Kirk was not a licensed building practitioner—is that not a lovely bureaucratic term—when he built his home in Carew Street, Kaiapoi. He would have been prohibited from doing that, and I say full points to Bob Clarkson, because the Minister has thrown up the white flag.

I also say this: the sneaky little clause here is only a partial guarantee. All that this bill does is to give the power, through an Order in Council by the Minister, to change the definition of restricted building work. So any future Labour Government could go back and ban the Norm Kirks of this world. We say that measure is a step in the right direction but that it is still wrong, and we want to see some changes in that regard.

Then we come to the area of the Supplementary Order Paper. In every area of the huge bureaucracy that Labour has created around building regulation in New Zealand, it is already behind schedule. For example, the Minister for Building and Construction, Clayton Cosgrove, has gone up and down the country, saying that every local authority has to meet his requirement to be an approved building regulating authority by 30 November. Over and over again he has said that no, there will be no move, and then today, at the last moment, in a Supplementary Order Paper on a bill at its first reading—have we ever heard of anything as stupid as amending a bill on the very day that it is tabled—he proposes to change that timetable. He is running late. Then there is the licensed building practitioner regime. It was to come into effect in 2009; now he says that will be in 2010.

Here is the real daddy of them all in this bill: we are going to require that building consent authorities be regularly audited. That is OK, but who will pay for the costs of that? This bill says the Government will make the rules, the Government will do the auditing, and the bill will be sent straight to the ratepayer. Members of the House up and down the country have been wondering why rates are going up, and they have even set up an inquiry into that. Well, I say to members opposite that they should look in the damn mirror! The reason that rates are going up is that they keep passing these sorts of bills, which just add to the costs and the bureaucracy of the building industry.

The last point I make to members opposite is that they have created a bureaucratic paper-war nightmare for the building industry. At the end of this debate, I want to table details of the amount of paper that was required in order to get a building consent for a garage in 2002—eight pages. Do members know how many pages, under the stupid Building Act that this Government has passed, that a person must have now in order to do that? It is 45 pages. We are burying the industry in bureaucracy and rules. We need to pull that back, and we need to improve home affordability. But, sadly, that will happen only under a John Key - led National Government.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) : That was the voice of the man who alone delivered to this country hundreds of thousands of leaky buildings. That was the man who, as Minister in the last National Government, ushered in a hands-free, no-responsibility Building Act. That was the man who put—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I notice that the member on his feet is making all sorts of accusations about my former role as a Minister. I seek leave of the House to table a speech by the Hon George Hawkins, given at the time the Building Act was passed in 1991.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action? There is objection.

Darren Hughes: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That was a deliberate attempt to break up the speech from my colleague Russell Fairbrother. That sort of request to the House should have been made at the conclusion of the member’s speech. I think it would be only fair if Mr Fairbrother got to start—[Interruption] Mr Smith should not interrupt me during a point of order. I think it would be fair and reasonable for Mr Fairbrother to be able to start his speech from the top.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you for providing some assistance to the Speaker, Mr Hughes. I had considered that myself, before you actually raised the issue. Frivolous interjections designed to break up speeches are not a good thing, and they lead to disorder.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER: We have just heard from that member the reason why so many householders in this country have lost their homes because of leaky buildings—it was the “I don’t take responsibility” speech. He says that because George Hawkins gave a speech some long time ago, it absolves him, Dr Smith, from responsibility for hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders losing their homes, their incomes, and their lifetime savings because of his total failure to take responsibility for regulating the industry.

What is worse is that Dr Nick Smith is the man whose free-for-all leaky home Building Act was preceded by volumes of building regulations. Before the Building Act came in, the building regulations, the building compliance codes—as Bob Clarkson would know, because he used to jack his car up with them—were in many volumes, which took a desktop or a table to house. That man, the last speaker, said National could do away with that, bring in the Wild West, and let anybody have a go. In his time a builder was a man who had a utility, a dog, and a radio—that is all a person had to have in order to build high-rise buildings.

In 2002 and 2003 we had an inquiry into the tragedy of leaky buildings. That man did not sit on the inquiry, but Dr Wayne Mapp did. Many, many decent people and qualified architects came before the inquiry and said that the leaky homes syndrome was part of a worldwide trend caused by legislatures abrogating their responsibility to pass laws to govern the construction of every family’s major asset. In 2002 and 2003 the country knew what had gone wrong.

But what did we have last weekend? Did we have the National Party saying it had learnt from the inquiry of 2002 and 2003? No, we did not. We had the leader of that party—who wishes he were leader of the Labour Party—Mr John Key, saying on 4 August that a high legislative priority for National will be to amend the Building Act to pull back the red tape and instead drive quality through greater commercial accountability. John Key has been reading the speeches of Dr Nick Smith in the early 1990s. That was the mantra that gave us the Building Act of 1991. That was the mantra that gave us the tragedy of the leaky homes syndrome. That was the mantra that drove many hard-working couples, professionals, trades, and businesses to near bankruptcy as they moved into homes and buildings where the water came in before their own furniture did.

What do we have under this very responsible Minister, Clayton Cosgrove? We have legislation that takes up this Parliament’s responsibility to set up an infrastructure that will guarantee that people who are buying a home do not need to also be engineers, architects, and lawyers just in order to stay dry inside their homes. The Building Act that we now have, and the weathertightness legislation, enable ordinary people to invest their savings in their houses, and to get on and live their lives, safe and secure in homes that will last longer than that man’s term of Parliament.

Darren Hughes: Well, certainly as deputy leader.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER: Certainly as deputy leader.

I am delighted that this bill is coming for consideration to the select committee that I chair. We will call for submissions, and I can guarantee that the submissions will mostly concentrate on the provision that says it is not appropriate to exempt durability matters such as weathertightness repairs from building consent requirements. What is wrong with that provision? Nothing is wrong with it; it is basic. We have more complex building styles than previously, and we have buildings built by people who did not have the advantage of trade training, which was removed by that man and his Government in the 1990s. Those builders did not have the experience of formal training. It is important, therefore, as those men and women have acquired their skills on the job rather than by formal training, that issues such as durability and weathertightness always remain subject to building consent requirements. However, what this bill does do—and I would imagine, from what the last speaker said, that we will receive submissions on this, as well—is to ensure that councils can apply their discretionary powers to exempt work from a building consent in a manner consistent with the principles in and the policy intent behind the first schedule of the Act.

So this finely tuned amending legislation—the Building Amendment Bill—which is having its first reading in this debate, gives us two things. One, it ensures durability. Who, when buying a home, does not expect it to be durable? I ask Mr Clarkson this: who, when investing in a home, does not expect it to last? Who, when buying a home, does not want it to be dry? Those fundamental requirements for a building will now have to be part of the building consent requirements. Who can object to that? Nobody. But secondly, of course, there is the discretionary power that Dr Nick Smith was baying for in his last speech, so that work does not need to be subject to the building consent requirements if the work is consistent with the principles and policies in schedule 1 of the Act. This bill is finely tuned legislation that builds on the Building Act passed in 2004 by this House, an Act that had learnt its lessons from the weathertightness inquiry of 2002 and 2003.

It is strange, is it not, that that last speaker should stand up and lambaste this Government for the effect of market forces? The Opposition is clearly trying to find its way into the centre road.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: It’s not market forces—it’s your taxes and levies!

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER: The member asks “What market forces?”. Mr Smith should say that to his land agent colleagues. Market forces push the price of land up, because there is demand for good-quality land. That is the open market. I do not necessarily agree with it, but surely the member’s basic principle is one of open market accountability. [Interruption] It may not be Mr Smith’s principle, but it certainly is his leader’s principle. John Key wants commercial accountability to replace any guarantee to homeowners of weathertightness and durability. Commercial accountability is another key phrase that means the market rules. Commercial accountability, which that leader wants to replace the safety and durability requirements of the Building Act, means just that: anything goes, and only when people are caught out do they pay for it.

BOB CLARKSON (National—Tauranga) : I am very pleased. I think that past Minister has got it all mixed up.

Russell Fairbrother: Not yet.

BOB CLARKSON: But I am pleased to see he did not die from coughing there for a while, because we want him to last for at least this term.

In regard to the Building Amendment Bill, I say that National will support it to the select committee and will be debating it with vigour. We look forward to it. I get sick of this Government bringing bills, amendments, and variations to old bills to this House. We waste a lot of time debating bills that do not have a good end result. A good example was the dog-chipping bill. For some strange reason, dog chipping has not stopped—

Russell Fairbrother: Dog chipping isn’t in this piece of legislation.

BOB CLARKSON: I will start again, since the member interrupted. For some strange reason, dog chipping has not stopped dogs biting people.

Why do we waste time debating bills that are badly written in the first place? We now have another case of the building laws of 2004 not being up to standard and causing major costs and confusion in the building sector. Why can we not get bills right in the first place? I expect the problem is that we have a Minister who is a public relations officer. He would not know anything about building. I was going to say that he is also a consultant, but I had better not give him too many credits. He knows nothing about the building industry. Mr Cosgrove quoted that I do not know a screwdriver from a chainsaw. I will say that Mr Cosgrove does not know his arse from his elbow. [Interruption] I forget the term for that now, but it is not rude. We will debate it, if members wish.

I would know a lot more than Mr Cosgrove ever did. I have been building buildings for years. Some of the clauses in this amendment to the Building Act will add thousands of dollars to the cost of houses. We are desperately trying to build affordable houses at the moment. These amendments will put affordable houses further out of the reach of the family unit. Let us talk about the clause in the bill that deals with licensed building practitioners. We are expected to license tradesmen as building practitioners. I thought being a tradesman was a licence. I am a tradesman—a fitter and turner. I consider I have a licence to build steelwork, and all that sort of stuff. I cannot understand why a tradesman is not automatically licensed. There should not be any argument there. A tradesman carpenter obviously is there to build houses.

Why are we putting more costs on to tradesmen, who end up having to transfer that cost on to the houses they build? I suggest that it might be better to license the building inspectors. I am not talking about the building consent authorities, which will be certified, etc; I am talking about the people who are employed by the consent authorities. These inspectors were the people who did not, in many cases, check the building of houses that were incorrectly built a fair few years ago. There are many cases where houses built under the control of tradesmen and hammer hands were not built correctly. This problem should have been picked up by inspectors. There will always be builders, tradesmen, and various others who cheat the system. We need licensed inspectors who know what they are doing, to stop building buildings of a poor standard. I will make sure that the select committee has a good debate and listens to submissions as to whether we are getting these amendments right.

To finish I will turn to the DIY builders. I have no problem with DIYers building their own houses. I have not seen a leaky building that was built by a DIYer builder. Why are we attacking DIYer builders? Let us deal with the facts. The problem is with the inspectors. The Minister has got it wrong again. The Minister wants more rules, more regulations, and more bureaucrats. That is pretty normal in the Labour Government. Let us hope that the select committee convinces the Minister that he has got it wrong. We originally built houses that did not have all these rules and regulations. Let us get into the real world. Let us get the Building Act right.

PITA PARAONE (NZ First) : Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I stand on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call in the first reading of the Building Amendment Bill. [Interruption] Do not worry about my leader; the real issue is that at least my leader knows which party he is leading.

I come back to the point of the debate. Given that this country has suffered from leaky homes, and given that in recent months some householders have had to endure flooding and inclement weather, I would have thought this House would look at this bill as a form of helping those people who have had to endure the effects of those events on their homes and, in some cases, their livelihood. I believe that this legislation is responsible. It is aimed at addressing the issues that people who have already spoken in this House have mentioned. It ensures that homes that are given certification are, in fact, durable. It ensures that we as a nation are not confronted by the leaky home syndrome, which some families are still having to suffer the consequences of.

One speaker talked about affordability. I do not have any difficulty with the issue of affordability. I think that if we as a country are able to provide houses that our citizens can afford, well and good, but they need to be quality houses. How do we ensure that? I know that it has been part of the Kiwi psyche to do things for ourselves, but is it not important that people who buy homes that had work done on them by DIYers can know that the work was carried out by people who had the qualifications and necessary skills to do it?

Bob Clarkson: Hang on; DIYers do it better a lot of the time.

PITA PARAONE: Maybe so, but is it not important that people who are buying a home built by a DIYer know that, in return for the money they are expending to purchase it, they are getting a home of the quality one would expect from a qualified builder?

The bill clarifies and recognises building consent exemptions. In particular, it ensures that weathertightness repairs are not made without a building consent.

The bill makes minor adjustments to the future dam safety scheme. I know that that recognises some of the difficulties that some regional councils, particularly the smaller regional councils around the country, are facing in terms of having enough time to gain the required accreditation. The dams that we are talking about are in the South Island. I was born and bred in the area covered by the Far North District Council, and although it does not have any dams of the same magnitude as those in the South Island, I am sure that the notion of dams was given some thought during the recent flooding in that area.

The bill also clarifies the language and rules relating to the upcoming voluntary licensing of building practitioners. Licensing will not change legal liability, but will mean increased accountability and competence. Who in this House would argue against that? New Zealand First supports any move to improve the clarity and effectiveness of the regulatory framework governing the building and construction sector. It will be of benefit to all New Zealanders. We believe that it will go some way towards putting back ordinary homeowners’ confidence in the New Zealand building industry, in the wake of recent bad press and, for example, the leaky homes fiasco. It will ensure that the Building Act 2004 is a robust instrument for regulating a safe and high-quality New Zealand building and construction industry into the future.

I know that one of this Government’s concerns was the ability of local bodies to obtain the necessary accreditation in order for them to continue to issue the documents that are required to allow building to proceed. Experience has shown that, to date, only one local body has been able to reach the original 30 November deadline. What happens if we retain that deadline and the rest of the local bodies around the country are not able to meet it? We will not see development; we will not see all the concerns that this bill addresses progress in this country. The Government has decided that, through this bill, the time should be extended to 30 June 2008. Again I ask who in this House would argue against that.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: It is a mess.

PITA PARAONE: Well, this bill addresses the issue and tries to tidy it up. Why would the member want to oppose that?

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Why wasn’t it in the bill?

PITA PARAONE: Well, that might be so, but we have to deal with the realities at this point in time.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: It is incompetent.

PITA PARAONE: I would not agree with the member that it is incompetent. At least this Government is addressing the issue, rather than just finding petty arguments to oppose the bill—yet at the same time not oppose it.

I commend this bill to this House. New Zealand First supports the referral of this bill to a select committee. Why? We have always believed that the people of New Zealand should be given the opportunity to discuss legislation that comes before this House, and referring it to a select committee allows that to occur. I commend this bill to the House and New Zealand First will be supporting it.

SUE BRADFORD (Green) : I am taking just a brief call this afternoon to confirm that the Green Party will be supporting this bill, pending any amendments that may become desirable as a result of public submissions and consideration during the select committee process. We can see that this bill is a genuine effort by the Government to respond to problems and issues that have arisen in the building sector since the passage of the Building Act into law in 2004. As one of the members who have now sat through the consideration of two weathertight homes amendment bills, I cannot help but offer support to any measures that strengthen the security homeowners may want to feel around work that is being done to rectify the damage to leaky homes.

I also understand that the Government has made considerable effort to consult key organisations within the building industry and to consult local government, to ensure that these amendments do genuinely address the problems and realities of the construction sector. Now if that has not happened I am sure, as somebody who is on the select committee, that we will be the first to hear about it during the submission process.

I find it considerably ironic that Dr Nick Smith from the National Party should be critical of the Government over this bill in relation to arguments about housing affordability. It was under National in the 1990s that the leaky home crisis flourished, as relaxed regulations and inspection led to the situation we face today. Many homeowners are still suffering the horrendous consequences of that situation, which, in a very tiny way, this very small bill tries to address.

The Green Party supports the Government’s desire to get this bill through the House with as much speed as is practicable, as long as interested parties do have a fair chance to submit on its detail. Accordingly, we commend the bill to the House.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Otago) : This is such a mess. This Building Amendment Bill is a huge, expensive, costly, embarrassing mess for the Government. I met recently with a building inspector—well, we used to call them building inspectors when that was all they did—in my own electorate because I was interested in the implications of these new amendments to the Building Act. This guy brought in a folder of work associated with these new amendments to the Building Act. We sat for about half an hour and he described to me what the engineering department of his small local authority was having to go through to comply with the requirements under the new provisions of the Building Act.

Of course, we know what those are, and we know the effect of them. We know that the number of building inspections, the requirements, the form filling, and the bureaucracy from all parts of this process have escalated. We know from talking to the building inspectors and also from talking to builders the huge increase in time and cost that these new provisions of the Building Act are imposing on the building industry. This, of course, adds to the cost of housing—well, why would it not? We have to lay the blame for this squarely at the feet of the Government. It worries, does it not, about housing affordability, yet all the provisions within this Building Amendment Bill work directly contrary to that, and for that it should be ashamed.

I would like to note that the Government says that these new requirements to the Building Act will overcome the many leaky homes we have in New Zealand, but when I asked my building inspector in Waitaki how many incidents of leaky homes we have had in our small local authority, do members know what the answer was?

Mark Blumsky: None, I don’t think.

JACQUI DEAN: My colleague says he thought the answer was none. The answer is, in fact, none. There was no problem in the lower South Island in Waitaki.

Bob Clarkson: That’s because there was snow on the roof!

JACQUI DEAN: Yes, there is snow on the roof—I thank “Bob the Builder”—and yes, the homes built down in the lower half of the South Island can cope with snow, rain events, and strong winds. There was no problem in the lower South Island that needed to be fixed.

So I have been extremely concerned at the impost in terms of cost, timeliness, and delays for councils, private builders, and developers. It is funny, is it not; to me, developers are people who are investing in our communities, yet to some of my Labour counterparts across the House they seem to be some kind of dirty word. Well, I can tell members that we do not subscribe to that view over this side of the House.

But the main problem I have seen for small local authorities is the requirement to comply by November. I tell members that a number of small authorities have been under considerable stress in trying to comply with the requirements of this legislation to be accredited by November 2007. Of course they would not be able to. It might surprise some members over the other side of the House who have not actually worked in the outside world that local authorities have to do a little more than comply with the regulations under this and many other pieces of legislation. They have to continue with the normal work of local government in the engineering and planning departments, which sometimes in some authorities are all together in one room, and that might surprise some members on the opposite side of the House. They have other things to do, quite apart from scrambling to comply with the requirements under this building legislation. I know this because people have come to me and complained about the added costs and the added bureaucratic requirements put on them by a Government that does not understand the effect of its legislation on small authorities. I am talking only about small authorities because that is what I know.

Members can imagine my surprise—and I guess they will imagine it—when I received in my in-box a press release from the New Zealand Government. It looks to me, from my reading, that Minister Cosgrove has done a huge flip-flop in terms of this building legislation—

Mark Blumsky: A big one—it’s a major one.

JACQUI DEAN:—a biggie! Minister Clayton Cosgrove stood in front of the Local Government and Environment Committee and said that local authorities would comply. He was confident that local authorities would have no problem in complying with the requirements of the building legislation. In fact, so confident was he that he was prepared to put a date—November 2007. Of course, Minister Cosgrove cared little for the effect that that kind of confidence would have on local authorities because, unfortunately for Mr Cosgrove, just because he says that it will be so does not mean that it will be so. That is not because local authorities do not want to be compliant, but because they simply cannot be.

So we have here today—and I am quite excited by this—a press release from the New Zealand Government that represents a major, major flip-flop and a reality check for the Minister. Local government cannot, despite its best efforts and despite $3 million worth of assistance—and I will say a few things about that in a minute—comply with the Minister’s wishes. That is not because local government does not want to comply, because it has tried to; it simply cannot. Minister Clayton Cosgrove needs to get off his cloud and get real.

So here we are, with the Minister for Building and Construction, Minister Clayton Cosgrove. I am going to give members a treat, because I know they cannot read the press release I have here. I am going to give them a treat and read it out, and then I am going to tell members what it really means. I am going to work past the spin. I know that the Labour Government is very good at spin, but I can see through it and I will share my findings with the House: “Building and Construction Minister Clayton Cosgrove plans to give local authorities more time in which to become accredited and registered as building consent authorities …”. Well, hello, Minister—he has finally seen the light. “Mr Cosgrove today introduced into Parliament a simple amendment to the Building Act …”—another amendment, yet another amendment.

Now, here we come to the interesting part: “Mr Cosgrove said councils are making good progress …” Really? That is not what they tell us. “… and have shown a lot of commitment,”—well, we would expect that of them—“with 71 of the country’s 73 territorial authorities having applied for accreditation …” Well, that means only that they have applied. The reality, reading between the lines, is that only one council—one council—has achieved accreditation. The rest of the councils are absolutely scrambling.

Now here we get to the $3 million Government assistance package. I challenge the Minister to front up to us—to front up to the House. He has thrown $3 million at this accreditation package, yet local government still cannot apply. So the Minister needs to answer some questions on this, and I do hope he does. How was that $3 million allocated to local authorities? Does that show that merely throwing money at a problem will not necessarily fix the problem? I think that the Minister needs to front up and say why he felt he should throw $3 million at local authorities—if, in fact, that is what has happened.

We have seen before, in the term of this Government, that assistance packages have been announced, but then, when those packages have been looked into, we have found that they have not actually been delivered; or else the Government has announced assistance packages, but when we have looked into them we have found that nobody can actually fulfil the criteria to get the money. I can cite several examples of that, to do with drinking water standards and small sewerage schemes. So I would like the Minister to front up as to how he allocated that $3 million. Clearly, the scheme has not worked. Clearly, this press release from the New Zealand Government today shows a huge back-down, and exposes the terrible, expensive mess that is the Building Act.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) :Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker, tēnā tātou katoa e kare mā. Ā, i a tātou e hoki mai ana ki roto i te Whare nei me tuku ngā whakaaro ki te hunga e rongo nei te āhuatanga o te pā pōuri i tēnei rangi. Ko tērā te pēpē e takoto mai rā ki roto i a Ngāti Raukawa, otirā, tērā aituā i pā mai ki a au ki roto i te Waiariki. Me pēnei rawa te kōrero, waiho rātou kia moe. Anei tātou e hui nei i tēnei rangi, tēnā koutou, kia ora tātou.

• [An interpretation in English was given to the House.]

[Greetings to us all, fellow colleagues. As we return to this House our thoughts are with those grieving a loss on this sad day, that baby lying in state among Ngāti Raukawa, and the one in my electorate of Waiariki. Allow me to say this: leave them there to rest. Here we are meeting today; greetings, and thank you.]

The stated policy objective of this bill, as stated in its explanatory note, sounds pretty good: “to improve the clarity and effectiveness of the regulatory framework.”, as it is currently. The Māori Party, of course, supports such a worthy goal. If there have been problems identified in the “workability of the Building Act 2004”, it seems pretty sensible to address them with this new bill.

But then we read on: “The Act’s purpose”, as stated in section 3, was to “address the systemic issues that led to major building failure from the mid-1990s to 2001:”, and to “significantly reduce the risks of building failure in the future.”

This is where we start to get a little more interest up—“systemic failure”, states the korou. Perhaps this is the bill that will finally do something about substandard housing and the major building failure that has led to low-quality, high-maintenance homes falling to bits. We are talking about the type of housing that the Auckland District Health Board has described as affecting physical health through allergies, pest infections, poorly functioning heaters or stoves, and toxic chemical exposure. Its 2005 research identified that the numbers of Auckland people living in garages and caravans are likely to be severely underestimated. The type of housing we are talking about, from the research of the Building Research Association, is identified as having one in four buildings in poor condition, and one in five with serious defects. This is the type of housing that my colleague Hone Harawira talked about recently—an ongoing reality of housing stress for Māori: overcrowding, substandard housing, and poor heating, and all further impacting on Māori health.

There is enough evidence to confirm that housing is an important determinant of health. Indeed, the Building Act and code of 2004, administered by the Department of Building and Housing, made explicit its expectation that quality housing would be “free from nuisance and unsanitary conditions”. We know that a number of current pieces of legislation give voice to that same expectation, so that any risks to illness or injury are minimised.

When I think of systemic failure, I am thinking of the following: the Housing Improvement Regulations of 1947, the Health Act 1956, the Residential Tenancies Act 1986, and, the latest, the Building Act 2004. If all those Acts give their commitment to quality housing, how can it be that far too many New Zealand homes are still affected by dangerous conditions, dampness, poor light and ventilation, inadequate drainage, insufficient disposal of waste, a lack of heating, and so on, and so forth—the list goes on.

The answer, it seems, lies in this whole notion of systemic failure—of the very Act we are talking about today. In the Building Act, a distinction is made between new and existing buildings. New buildings are required to meet much higher standards of health and well-being than existing ones. There are some limited provisions in sections 121 to 123 of the Act to investigate sanitation, dangerous conditions, and earthquake safety in existing dwellings, but these provisions are seldom called on.

In the Social Policy Journal’s March edition this year, Chris Cunningham, along with Sarah Bierre, Philippa Howden-Chapman, and Louise Signal summed up the current limitations upon the legislation. They stated: “Existing housing is rarely subject to the regulatory provisions of the Building Act, except in extreme cases.” They continued: “The cost for local authorities in taking a case to court is high, and uncertainty of the outcome of a hearing can influence the decision to prosecute. The lack of alternative accommodation for the occupants of a house can also influence the way that housing quality regulations are enforced.”

So what we are really talking about today is the fact that building failure in the future can be avoided if we concentrate on the houses we build today. Although this all seems pretty logical, of course the Māori Party cannot help but ask about the building failure that has characterised Māori housing forever—the building failures of yesterday and the days before that. We know that over two-thirds of the current housing stock in New Zealand was built before standards requiring insulation in new buildings were introduced, in 1977. Minimal housing regulations, low spending on maintenance, an over-reliance on the weatherboard style of housing, and inadequate consideration of energy-efficient heating means that housing quality is likely to be a problem of national concern for years to come.

Sixty-four years ago the Minister for Native Affairs, Rex Mason, stated: “Māori housing is the worst blot on the administrative system of New Zealand.” How much has changed today? Well, it may well still be the case that Māori can be expected to be excluded from the mainstream of Government administration and housing, as has happened again and again in the past. A study released by the Centre for Housing Research and Te Puni Kōkiri last year, called Māori Housing Experiences: Emerging Trends and Issues, highlighted a distinctive feature of being Māori that may account for the disproportionate rates of substandard housing. The study pointed out that Māori often accept substandard housing and living as a result of their wishes to be closer to whānau.

I am struck by a new term that is introduced in this bill, “the significant building project”, to facilitate a whole-of-building concept. Well, for Māori every project is considered through the eyes of whether it will facilitate a whole-of-whānau concept. In practice, it means that our cultural assets, the values and strength we place on whanaungatanga, are having explicit economic and employment costs.

Taking responsibility for caring for one’s whānau, contributing to community development, and restoring the cultural strength of a people, should not mean that Māori have to put up with inadequate lighting, ventilation, provisions for disposing of wastewater, hot and cold water supply, and wall and floor lining dampness and so on.

We cannot leave the Building Amendment Bill without also making some reference to the traumatic impact that adverse weather conditions have had on so many homes in rural areas where Māori are living. The bill introduces changes in consent requirements for culverts, small dams, plumbing, and drainage work. We believe that it is very important to explore the implications of those changes, given all of the recent flooding disasters that have confronted Aotearoa. We know that disasters will be more likely to occur with greater regularity as we experience more and more impacts of global warming. We have seen some of the warning signs about people potentially being forced to leave areas that have been caught out by flooding—much like the forced evacuation of areas that Work and Income has instigated with its creation of “limited employment locations”.

We have raised issues in this House about the concerns tangata whenua have, and their desire to seek to continue to live where they want to live—around our marae, our rivers, our mountains, and our lands, despite the suggestion from the Minister of Local Government that they be relocated. We hope the Building Amendment Bill will consider options to ensure that building consent processes, certification, and building practitioners are all committed to acting against systemic failure across all levels of building failure, today and tomorrow. Kia ora tātou.

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) : I rise on behalf of United Future to take a brief call on the first reading of the Building Amendment Bill. United Future is happy to support this bill going to the Social Services Committee. We think it provides an interesting opportunity to hear from those involved in the building industry. I quite recently mentioned in the House an interesting conversation I had with one of the senior members of the master builders association. We were talking about home affordability, which is an issue that United Future feels very passionate about. A very interesting comment was made to me that needs exploring. That was that homeowners building their first home could quite possibly and reasonably save up to $30,000 on the cost of their house if we had a better regulatory system, simpler building consents and compliance mechanisms. With that reduction we would still have a system that is robust and safe.

The concern that the association expressed to me was that in the wake and in the shadow of leaky homes, we had gone into a regulatory frenzy in trying to address what had gone wrong, but, actually, what was needed in some cases was a reduction in regulation. What I notice about this bill is that the explanatory note claims there will be no new costs. That is good. I also notice, under the heading “Industry”, that it is believed that the consequence of this bill would be “reduced compliance costs for network utility operators and others who work across council boundaries.” We also note that there is an expectation that this will reduce compliance costs for do-it-yourself property owners doing minor and low-risk building work that does not require a building consent.

Again, that all sounds extremely positive. However, the current experience of many homeowners and prospective homeowners is that there is a huge amount of inconsistency across our 85 councils in regard to building consent. The consequence of this is huge amounts of delays. I had a member of my community in my office in Whakatāne recently, who could not understand two things. He could not understand why the council was not liable for the delay it had created, because it had acted, given advice, and caused foundations that had already been laid on a building to be dug up and done again on faulty information, and, when that was finally challenged, it was proved that the owner had worked to the correct dimensions in the first place. There was a huge amount of delay and cost to the owner, who could not understand why the council was not in some way liable for that cost.

The second gripe he had was that there was an identical building—because this was a kitset building—going up just down the road that the council had sat and watched go up. That building seemed to get its consents through in a very timely way, and the building was virtually finished before a spade had barely been put in the ground for an identical building. We did some writing to the council, we did some advocacy, and I think the outcome was reasonably acceptable to him, other than the fact that he was deeply disturbed at the level of cost that he still had to bear, and there was no willingness or ability, by law, for him to get any compensation for that.

United Future is keen to hear what comes out of the select committee process. We certainly believe there is room for improvement, and we hope this amendment bill delivers that which we believe the community is calling for.

JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) : I am pleased to take a call on the Building Amendment Bill. The National Party will support it going to the Social Services Committee, but for this reason: to expose this hopeless, incompetent failure of a Minister. I have to say that Minister Clayton Cosgrove will go down as one of the worst, incompetent, hopeless Ministers that one would see in a day’s march. Mind you, if we look at the members opposite, we could say that about any of those members. I will tell Pete Hodgson why this guy is an absolute incompetent failure. I will put this on the record of this House.

In this country the number of houses that do not have a compliance certificate is the same as the number of houses in the city of Wellington. Over 250,000 houses in this country are not compliant. Why? It is because so many rules and regulations have been made by this Minister, his Department of Building and Housing, and by the Labour Government. People are now saying there is too much compliance and too much cost.

But what is even worse is that although this Minister’s department employed 31½ people in 1999—I do not know what it did with the other half; it was probably Mr Cosgrove—today the department employs over 300 people. The department has different sections. One makes the rules and regulations, another vets them, and another audits them, and then passes them back to the first one because the rules and regulations are not quite right. They go round in circles.

There are a couple of really bad outcomes from all of this. In the building of houses—Bob Clarkson will confirm this—at least 600 different materials are used. I ask members to listen carefully, because this is really something. The Department of Building and Housing is required to certify those 600 materials that go into homes. Can anyone guess how many it has certified to date?

R Doug Woolerton: 10.

JOHN CARTER: No, four.

Hon Members: Four!

JOHN CARTER: It has certified only four of the 600. Today, under this hopeless Minister, we think we know about the leaky home problem but, believe you me, we are creating a leaky home problem for the future that we have no idea about.

Some of the materials coming into this country and being used are not certified at all. I am sure the Ministers sitting across the House will be interested to know that copper pipe imported from Australia has a certification of 50 years. Copper pipe imported from England has a certification of 60 years. But copper pipe imported from Asia has no certification. Testing done on copper pipe from Asia, which is going into our homes right now—in particular, spec homes—estimates that it will last about 7 years. So in 5, 10, or 15 years’ time someone will flush the dunny, and mum, in the kitchen, will get a shower! If we think we have a leaky home problem now, believe you me, we have a serious problem coming up. Parliament needs to understand that.

This Minister and his department, the whole 300 of them, are doing nothing about the problem. It has got to the stage where local government officers are so concerned that they have decided to start up a certification regime, irrespective of what the Department of Building and Housing is doing. So the Building Officials Institute of New Zealand says that because the issue is so serious and because the Department of Building and Housing is so incompetent and has managed to certify only four of the 600 materials, the institute has decided to take on the certification. I say: “Good on it!”. We have to have at least some people who are competent, because this Minister and this Government, and the department that they employ 300 people in, are not. They are causing failure.

What is even worse is that people in the building industry in this nation are starting to despair. If compliance issues, red tape, the lack of support, and all the other problems put before the building industry are not improved, then competent builders will be exiting the industry. It is getting to the stage where it is beyond their ability to survive. The delays, red tape, and frustrations in the building sector are tangible. One can feel it.

Of course the building inspectors in local government, who are on the other side, are feeling just as bad about it. It is unbelievable the expectations, and the rules and regulations in bound volumes, that these people have to try to administer. What is even worse is the whole situation where the Government is making rules and regulations—rules on rules, and rules on rules on rules—that people cannot understand, cannot follow, cannot comply with, and cannot keep up with, so they are avoiding them. We are seeing the building of houses that are not legal. We are seeing the building of sheds that are not legal. We are seeing people exiting the industry. We are seeing houses that are not compliant. Those houses will become leaky homes. The whole thing is a mess.

If there is any good thing about this bill, it is that at least it will give people the opportunity to come out and start talking about the shambles that we have in the building industry. I see the Ministers across the House are hanging their heads in shame, and so they should be. They know that if there is one area that is an absolute mess under this Government’s administration, then it is this one. They know that the building sector is not the only area, but it is typical. It will require the incoming Government to start cleaning it up.

It seriously worries me that if it were just about someone’s house, then that is bad enough. If it were just about that fact that somebody has not put in their investment and has ended up with a property that has no value because this Government has allowed the use of materials that will fail, then that would be bad enough. But what is starting to happen, because of the regime of compliance and red tape, is that we are stifling development and opportunity in this country. We are putting in unnecessary costs, and unnecessary rules and regulations, and inhibiting the ability of this nation to move ahead. It is another example of nanny State deciding that it knows best, that it knows how to run things, that it can organise individuals’ lives, and that it can organise a whole industry.

It does not have to be like this. Seriously, it does not have to be like this. There are better ways. There are ways in which we could restructure the whole thing so that we would avoid the leaky home syndrome, and so that the industry itself is responsible for the work it does. After all, if the car industry manufactures a car, then we do not expect the Government to step in and fix up any problem if it breaks down. I do not think so. The industry takes responsibility.

But this Government is so incompetent that it is allowing the industry to build houses that are not compliant, then it says that the taxpayers and ratepayers will pick up the bill. That is not right. Unfortunately, the Government has such a stupid regime in place to try to address the issue that the only ones who are getting fixed are the lawyers. It is not the houses, not the individuals, and not the communities. That is because this Government is going about things in entirely the wrong way.

If there is one good thing about this bill, then we knew, did we not, that this certification system would not to work. I certainly did. My colleagues on this side of the House have been saying so all along. We have said that unnecessary costs were being put on to local government, ratepayers, and taxpayers. On top of all that, we end up with a frustrated building industry and a frustrated community.

The only good thing to come out of this bill is that people will have the opportunity to make public submissions, assuming that the Government allows public submissions on the bill, and people will have the opportunity to tell the committee how frustrated they are, what a failure the system is, how complex it is, how much red tape there is, and why the building industry has got to the stage where, quite honestly, it does not want a bar of this. They will be pleased to have the opportunity to make a contribution to this bill.

• Bill read a first time.

Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) on behalf of the Minister for Building and Construction: I move, That the Building Amendment Bill be considered by the Social Services Committee, that the committee report finally to the House on or before 5 November 2007, and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions, and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 192 and 195(1)(b) and (c).