Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Building and Construction) : I move, That the Building Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I think, firstly, that the Social Services Committee and, in particular, the chairman, Mr Russell Fairbrother, ought to be handed a bouquet and a vote of thanks for the very expeditious manner in which they have returned the committee’s report and the Building Amendment Bill 2007 to the House. The bill contains some minor adjustments to improve the workability of the Building Act 2004. I take this opportunity to remind the House briefly of how this bill came about and what it contains, and to mention some of the select committee’s recommended amendments to it.

A major suite of reforms is being rolled out over the next few years under the 2004 Act, including: the licensing of building practitioners from 1 November 2007 to recognise existing competencies and raise skills and experience across the sector; an accreditation scheme for councils to improve the performance and accountability of building consent inspection and approval processes; and a new product certification scheme that will be tied into international standards of quality and accountability from next year. The Act is large and contains a lot of detail in these schemes that increases the performance and accountability of councils, builders, and building products. Like any large Act that introduces significant new schemes, this one needs some minor tinkering to get the details right. In developing the Act’s new systems to regulate building products, builders and councils who approve the plans for buildings were consulted widely. Input from industry representatives was valuable in identifying some minor tweaks to the Act that are contained in this bill.

The next step was to introduce this bill to Parliament on 18 July this year, and it was subsequently referred to the Social Services Committee for consideration. My predecessor, the Hon Clayton Cosgrove, set an accelerated time frame for the passage of the bill, requesting that the committee report back to the House before 5 November 2007 in order to allow the legislation to be passed this year. That will allow for the speedy implementation of the new product certification scheme and a clearer framework for the restricted building work regime that is being developed. I would like to acknowledge the work done by my predecessor in introducing this bill, and by the select committee in expediting the passage of the bill through the public submissions process, to make the resultant legislation more accessible.

The submissions made on the introduced bill represented a range of organisations in the building, disability, network utility, and local government sectors. Thirty submissions were received on the bill, and of those, 12 submitters also presented oral submissions. There was general support for the bill’s proposed changes. Apart from the dissenting view from the National Party members there was majority support from the committee for the bill, with some recommended changes to the bill as introduced. Those include redrafting the definition of “restricted building work” in order to clarify that the policy has not changed and to make Parliament’s intent clearer. Restricted building work must be carried out or supervised by a licensed building practitioner. Restricted building work will be defined in detail in a future Order in Council and will be building work that is critical to the integrity of a building. The recommended changes also include redrafting the building consent exemption clause to better deal with issues of normal maintenance durability, including weathertightness and hot water cylinders.

Some additional drafting issues that were not part of the bill came up during the committee’s deliberations and were incorporated into the reported-back bill. For example, the bill now refers more accurately to dam failure rather than to collapse, and the bill gives the Registrar of Licensed Building Practitioners a wider discretion to restrict access to the register. That will allow the registrar to limit access to information about practitioners, such as their date of birth or residential address, in order to protect their privacy.

The Government agrees with all of the select committee recommendations. The National Party, in its minority report, opposes the bill on the grounds of wider concerns about the existing Act in the areas of compliance costs, restricted building work, and accreditation fees.

To conclude, this bill, as reported back from the select committee, proposes a number of positive changes to the legislative framework that underpins the building and construction sector. This bill will ensure that the Act is a robust instrument to regulate for a safe and quality building and construction industry into the future. I thank again the select committee and the officials for their work, and I commend the bill to the House.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : The Building Amendment Bill says everything about how out of touch the current Government is with ordinary New Zealanders. It is a bill that increases the costs of rates for councils all over New Zealand at a time when ratepayers are in revolt.

Hon Shane Jones: How does it do that?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: We have just had the 10th Minister for building issues under this Government—10 Ministers in just 8 years—ask me how this bill increases the cost for the ratepayer. If he bothered to read the bill, rather than simply read the speech that his department gave him to read, he would note that the costs of accreditation are a substantive bill for ratepayers. I will tell the member just how significant it is. Yesterday, the Dunedin City Council announced that it would have to employ another 16 staff in the building consent department at a cost to that council of $1.8 million a year, and the Minister opposite has the cheek to ask where the increased cost is.

Sue Moroney: It was because National screwed up on weathertight homes.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I ask the member opposite whether she supports an extra $1.8 million a year for the Dunedin City Council.

Sue Moroney: What was the cost of the weathertight homes screw-up by National?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The member opposite does not want to answer the question. Let me tell members how stupid that $1.8 million is. Do members know how many leaky homes we have before the tribunal in Dunedin?

Nathan Guy: How many?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Three; and we are going to impose, with this bill, a cost of an extra $1.8 million every year. It will be cheaper to write out a cheque for the three homeowners in Dunedin who are affected, than have this mad bill that simply adds more and more costs.

The second part of the bill that National objects to is that it is another round of petty over-regulation by this Labour Government. You see, it does not matter what part of our lives it is, Helen Clark and her cronies know best. They want to tell us how to live every little element of our lives. Let me give members an example. The Institution of Professional Engineers, of which I am proud to be a member, told the committee—

Russell Fairbrother: Do they reciprocate?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Sorry?

Russell Fairbrother: Do they reciprocate their pride?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I am very proud to be a member, but let me tell—

Russell Fairbrother: Are they proud of you?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: They gave me an award last year, so I assume they are. But I ask the lawyer opposite why we have a stupid law before the House that is now going to require, according to the Institution of Professional Engineers, a building consent for people to putty their windows. A building consent to putty their windows—is that the loopiness that we now have from the Labour Government in its nonsense regulation? We heard earlier from Paula Bennett how we cannot have our kids at Sunday schools without an early childhood licence. Now we have this bill requiring us to go to our council to get a building consent to be able to putty our windows. The institute goes on to say that because this bill says that anything that changes the overall building systems of a house will require a consent, if anyone wants to get out with the paintbrush and paint his or her house, that person will also have to roll down to the council and get a building consent. National says that is nuts.

Labour is so out of touch, not just with New Zealanders but with its own heritage. I remind members opposite of the celebrated Norm Kirk, who built his own home in Kaiapoi. There was a time when the Labour Party celebrated that independence and do-it-yourself spirit of ordinary New Zealanders trying to get ahead in life and better themselves. Norm Kirk, that former Labour Prime Minister, would be rolling in his grave today to know that Shane Jones, one who only sits, but aspires to be leader of the Labour Party, is today passing a law that would have made it illegal for Norm Kirk to build his own house in Kaiapoi, as he did those many years ago. National says that that is wrong.

Hon Judith Tizard: If you can’t tell the truth, tell something that’s lies!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, Judith Tizard, the snobby end of the Labour Party, who never had any respect for the struggling workers—the Kiwi battlers, who want to be able to build their own homes—is today part of the dying Labour Government that is making it illegal for New Zealanders to be able to get themselves ahead in that sort of way.

Hon Judith Tizard: That’s rubbish.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, let me give the member the numbers. Let me just remind the member of Labour’s appalling record around home affordability. Since Labour has been the Government, the cost of the average home has gone up from $173,000 to over $380,000. That is more than a doubling. Let us look at interest rates. When Labour became the Government, interest rates came down, from during National’s period in Government—

Sue Moroney: Look what happened, under the tax cuts, to interest rates. Tell us about that.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I know the member opposite. Those members do not give a hoot about interest rates, because they do not understand the struggle for ordinary New Zealand families out there who are trying to afford to pay their mortgages. Labour’s record on interest rates is this. Interest rates were 6.7 percent when Labour became the Government. Today they are 10.4 percent. What those figures mean is that whereas in 1999 the average New Zealander spent 41 percent of his or her income to pay the mortgage on the average home, today the figure is 83 percent. It is little wonder that the decline in home ownership has occurred every single year that Labour has been in Government.

Hon Judith Tizard: This has nothing to do with your speculators!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Judith Tizard says that it is all the speculators’ fault. Well, let us ask the Registered Master Builders Federation of New Zealand. I wonder what it would say. I ask the member opposite to justify this. The Wellington City Council says that a typical house plan 4 years ago required three A3 plans and 30 supplementary pages of information. With these building laws, which this busybody Labour Government is passing, the Wellington City Council now says that 12 A3 plans and 300 supplementary pages of documentation are required. This is for a standard house.

Hon Judith Tizard: Absolute rubbish.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Judith Tizard would know a lot about building would she not? Well, this is a statement from the Wellington City Council. Let me tell the House what the Registered Master Builders Federation said. It tells us that the increased cost of unnecessary red tape is an extra $30,000 on the average home. I say to Shane Jones, Helen Clark, and the screeching Judith Tizard that that extra $30,000 of your red tape is making it harder for Kiwi battlers in this country to be able to afford their own homes. National says that is wrong. What members opposite do not understand is that when they pass these dopey red-tape laws, all they do is add extra costs. What National wants is a system that will provide for good quality building without this sort of petty regulation, which is only adding costs. I ask members opposite why home affordability has reduced to the second-lowest level in the Western world. That is their record.

Russell Fairbrother: Because of speculation by your mates!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Listen to it! Those members say that they are in Government but that it is those nasty speculators’ fault. Well, that is what members opposite said when they increased the development levies. That increase was meant to go on to speculators but it went straight on to the price of a new home. That is why these figures are so awful. Members on this side of the House say that New Zealanders are sick of Labour messing up our building laws. It is a disgrace that there have been 10 Ministers for building issues in just 8 years. Can anybody in the House tell me how as many Ministers as that will provide any sort of leadership for this important—

Darien Fenton: How many leaders has National had in that time?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: A lot fewer than that. I have to also say to the member opposite that when John Key is Prime Minister of New Zealand he will be more interested in home affordability and supporting Kiwi battlers, than in cheap political shots. What those members opposite do not understand is that they have become so out of touch and desperate to hang on to power that they cannot see the wood for the trees. Legislation like this continues to undermine that Kiwi dream of being able to own one’s own home. Thank goodness National will soon be in Government to give people a fair chance and to get rid of stupid, petty red tape, which this bill represents.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) : One can see why that man was deputy leader of the National Party for 3 whole days! That is how reliable his colleagues believed him to be—3 whole days!

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Weeks.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER: Oh, the member says it was 3 weeks. Wow, that is expansionary—3 whole weeks! That is why the engineers’ association gave him a certificate—it was fearful he would come back to practise as an engineer. The association wanted to give him encouragement to remain in the House so that the crowds would be safe. It thought he would be a safer man in the House, where he can be minded by his own party, rather than out at large in the community, giving certificates to people who are undertaking building construction. The association does not want Nick Smith to go near a building site. It does not want Nick Smith to go near a bridge. It does not want Nick Smith to go near a dam. The association would sooner have him tucked up in the caucus of the National Party, where he lasted all of 3 weeks, he says—I thought it was 3 days—as deputy leader.

And now Nick Smith bangs on about leaky homes. He forgets to tell the people who are listening to him that there will be no additional costs for this regime. The proposed amendments will result in no additional costs. Building consents are an existing process for the 85 territorial and regional authorities around New Zealand. The associated administrative costs will be passed on through building consent application fees. There will be no additional bureaucracy.

Let us just talk about this bureaucracy. It was in 1991 that National, at a time when I think Nick Smith was close to being Minister of Housing, brought in the Building Act that gave us the provision in section 28. Section 28 imposed upon territorial local authorities a responsibility to ensure that homeowners got what they had bargained on receiving. When the rains came pouring down, seeping through the walls and on to people’s carpets, on to Gib board, and on to people’s furniture, when the mould developed and illnesses developed, and when people had nervous breakdowns, did the National members front up to say it was their badly designed regime that gave cheap builders the chance to make a profit? No. Where did the cheap builders go? They disappeared. Where did the politicians go? They disappeared.

In 2002-03 this House held an inquiry into the failures of Nick Smith’s conception of what constituted sound building practices. The inquiry held that the leaky building syndrome, which so many householders in New Zealand are suffering from to this day, had been brought about by the politics of the former National Government, which wanted to have a freeloading style for builders. In fact, the only rules were that a builder had to have a ute, a radio, and a dog. He or she could be a builder—a dog of a builder, like the dog of a politician that is the member across the Chamber.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Why did Labour vote for it?

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER: People did not vote for renewal of that, I tell the member. They put the National Party out of Government because of the leaky buildings.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek leave to table the speech made by George Hawkins, who said in 1991, when the Building Act was passed, that National had no right to claim the credit for it; it was all Labour’s work. This is in contradiction to the statement made by the newer member of the House.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave has been sought for that course to be followed. Is there any objection? There is.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER: The correct point is that the Building Amendment Bill makes minor amendments to the Building Act 2004 to make it more efficient, as was always intended to be the case. Building construction in New Zealand is a complex trade, and giving effect to what people expect to buy when they contract to have a building built is not a matter for overnight legislation. When the 2004 Act became law, it was always envisaged there would be refinements. This amendment bill is entirely about refinements. It does not build a whole new regime.

In fact, National Party members conceded their obdurate approach when, in the Social Services Committee’s report, they filed a minority report and refused to accept the advice they had received from the officials that putting putty in a window and doing other necessary repairs would not require the approval of the building inspector. They conceded that point, but they were not going to back off from the people to whom they are answerable. In the minority report the National members added: “In our opinion, the 2004 Act prohibited DIY work.” Of course, they were then faced with officials who said that they were clearly wrong. But they wanted to have that statement in their minority report so that they could go out and mislead the public about this amendment bill, by suggesting it is onerous, complicated, and expensive.

This bill makes clear that which was not clear in the 2004 Act. The very diligent Minister, the Hon Clayton Cosgrove, worked upon the legislation and watched its progress over the passage of time, and came up with the refining improvements that this simple bill reflects. It is not required that a building inspector look at home improvements. Do-it-yourself is not bad. We now have a sophisticated system of licensed building inspectors, and a regulation regime that will exempt buildings below a certain size or design from the threshold at which a licensed building practitioner is required to oversee the work. That sensible and simple threshold will be controlled by regulation, so that licensed building practitioners can concentrate on the complex work that modern buildings demand.

Under the Act that was passed by National in 1991 we had a growth in style and a growth in building materials that had not previously been envisaged, and that Act was woefully deficient in its ability to protect the ordinary people of New Zealand who, in good faith, recruited a builder to build, often also in good faith, a home that failed to live up to its promise. The fearmongering by the last speaker rings hollow with people in this city who, to this day, intelligent though they are, are traumatised by the huge losses they have suffered from owning buildings that simply were not up to the purpose. Those people had buildings built in good faith, only to find afterwards that they were totally unsuitable for living in, and unsuitable for an investment. Those people, to this day, in trying to remedy losses of $100,000, are being repaid at the rate of $10 a week by builders who are now out of existence. That is the enormity of the problem.

When we look at this bill and the criticisms levelled by the last speaker, we see we must weigh them against the remedy that we are attempting to offer. That remedy is a fine line between do-it-yourself work, involving minimal repair costs and maintenance costs that do not require supervision, and more complex work on building structures. This bill will identify those who do the do-it-yourself work that does not require supervision, and it will also make clear the work that does need supervision. The whole building inspector regime is simplified. The associated costs will not be a cost to the bureaucracy but will be a cost to the applicant. But, of course, the ultimate saving to people who build houses is that they know they will have a house that will remain a sound investment. People who spend money, whether it be $100,000 or $1 million, on their new home want it to last significantly into the future. They want to know that the money they put in will be there when they come to sell the home. That is what this bill develops—not a bureaucracy, not a regime of expense, but a simple improvement to the Act so that people who buy a house know that what they expect to get is what they do get.

A lick of paint does not cover a whole raft of defects. A lick of paint is just a lick of paint, and a building can be taken at face value. The only way to avoid defects is to have the amendments in this bill, so that the licensed building practitioner regime becomes effective and the regulations can weed out those buildings that do not require the attention of a practitioner and those buildings that do. For example, one of the simple changes here relates to towers, which were a concern of some of the commercial submitters. If a tower is a stand-alone tower, it does not come within this amendment. If the tower is part of a building, it does. If we look at dams, we see that some dams are called large dams, and they will require a licensed building practitioner. Others are known as small dams, and they will be the responsibility of the territorial local authority to administer. So this simple bill provides simple amendments like those, whereby we are adjusting the process and fixing up the legislation.

It is a tragedy, and it is a hallmark of the fearmongering of National Party members, to make a speech like the one the previous speaker made, amping up people’s concerns and vulnerabilities on a bill that National had no real criticism of. If we read National’s minority report, we see the National members could not get rid of the cant and could not impose any facts into it at all. In fact, the select committee report extends to all of just 2 pages, which demonstrates the simplicity of this bill. The fearmongering that we hear from members opposite should be left at home. It should not have any place in this debating chamber.

This is a worthy amendment. It is a tribute to the Hon Clayton Cosgrove. It is legislation that the new Minister, Shane Jones, will be able to administer with considerable ease and in a relaxed frame of mind.

BOB CLARKSON (National—Tauranga) : Let us start on the restricted building work. It was explained in the Social Services Committee that a simple building could be built by a DIY builder. That builder would not have to be licensed and would not need a permit to build that building. It was mentioned in the preamble that a hay barn was listed as a simple type of building. Just to give an example, a hay barn built in Matamata needs footings that are 1,800 millimetres deep because of the high wind loading on the Matamata side of the Kaimais. These are the sorts of mistakes they are making. There should be a simple permit, and at least one inspection for that sort of building. So there is the first mistake. Let us move on to the building of houses. If someone builds a house using the 3604 standards, the house will be built in all timber framing and with timber floor beams. If there are no steel beams, for example, a design engineer is not needed to tick off the plans. The 3604 standards are considered to be simple standards. To meet a simple construction, I asked the chief executive of the Department of Building and Housing in the select committee whether a 3604 standard was a simple standard for a simple building, and she said that, yes, it was. She agreed that 3604 was a simple explanation of how to build a house. I am now confused. If those standards are simple, that means a DIY builder can build a house, because it is a simple building. So we have got more damn confusion. This is good news, I think, actually, but however.

This is the problem we get when someone wakes up in the morning with a warm fuzzy feeling and decides to change the rules. Practical people should get together and work out what is going to happen when we change these rules. It appears that the previous Minister did not get good advice from the right people. I say that practical people are the ones we should get advice from.

I am sorry for the new Minister, who will have to sort out this mess. The Labour Government has had four chances at getting the rules sorted out. It looks like there is going to be a mess again. I will give the Labour Government one credit: it is consistent in getting it wrong.

I will now deal with the licensing carpenter section. Why are we doing this? At this stage, only 3 percent of people are DIY builders in New Zealand. In most cases DIY builders do a good job. They read the 3604 standards and they follow the rules. When Australia brought in its licensing rules, the number of DIY builders rose from 3 percent to 30 percent, because the builders dodged joining the licensing system. We will end up with the same result in New Zealand. I thought a carpenter did a trade training course so that he or she would end up as a tradesman carpenter, and effectively end up with a licence to build a house.

Why do we need to make this system more bureaucratic? It will cost carpenters $600 a year minimum, and they also have to do 20 hours of training each year. For example, carpenters did not cause leaky homes, so licensing carpenters will not solve leaky home problems. Forty-five percent of the leaks in leaky homes are around mitre joints and windows. That was not the carpenters’ problem. The type of cladding and timber used was recommended by the Building Industry Authority. That was not the carpenters’ fault. I say it again: licensing builders will not fix the problem.

Ninety percent of the amendments have faults. Let us go back to practical people and sort this mess out. It is very easy to build a house that does not leak. The previous Minister for Building and Construction was attacking carpenter tradesmen. I say to that member that that is rubbish. I say it again: we do not need to license carpenters. I think anybody should be allowed to build a house. What we need is licensed building inspectors. The building inspector should be qualified, or better qualified than any carpenter or builder on the site. Bad inspectors do poor inspections, or, in some cases, no inspections, which is one of the major causes of leaky homes. Let us get some practical rules and let us get rid of all this bureaucratic crap. We are going to end up with a massive bureaucratic problem—

Eric Roy: Oh!

BOB CLARKSON: Who is talking here? I say to that member that I am talking, not him. We were hoping this bill would make it better. The bill also does nothing to improve home affordability. In fact, it will drive up prices. Despite the Government’s argument that the original bill did not restrict DIY, this bill further restricts those who could be considered DIY builders. I go back to our old friend Norman Kirk, who built his own house. He would turn in his grave if he knew what those members over there were doing, that is for sure. I look forward to sorting out this problem with the National Party. Nick Smith and myself will get it all sorted out, and we will change the laws—

Hon Parekura Horomia: You sold all those State houses, Bob!

BOB CLARKSON: I ask that member to keep quiet, because I cannot think. I do not want carpenters to end up lying awake at night, worrying about some new law that is coming in. I think the building industry is going through its darkest hour. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

PITA PARAONE (NZ First) : Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Engari, i mua i te haere tonu o waku kōrero, e hiahia ana au kia mihi atu ki wā tātou Minita, a Shane nā te mea, ko tēnei tana pire tuatahi i hakauru mai ki roto i te Whare nei. Tua atu i tēnā, ka mihi ahau ki a ia tana taenga atu hei Minita a te Karauna. Nā reira, i hoki mahara tētahi o ngā kōrero mai a aku mātua o te hau kāinga. Nāna te wikitōria engari, kei ngāi tātou te iwi Māori te korōria.

[Greetings to you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Before I continue with my address, I want to acknowledge our Minister— particularly Shane, as this is his first bill to come into this House. Further to that, I acknowledge his becoming a Minister of the Crown. A saying of my elders back home comes back to me: “The victory is his, but the glory is ours, the Māori people.”]

I have just taken the opportunity to congratulate the new Minister for Building and Construction on his appointment as a Minister of the Crown and his elevation to a member of Cabinet. In extending those greetings and best wishes, I make the comment that is often said by my old people from home when someone achieves: while his is the victory, ours is the glory. Nā reira, e kara e Shane, ngā mihi hoki ki a koe.

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The importance of this bill is really for the future quality of building in New Zealand, and whatever opponents or people who speak against the bill say, I think we all must agree that it is intended to improve the quality of construction here in New Zealand. The bill gives recognition to the need to ensure that any work is undertaken by qualified people. I am sure that it is like driving a car—if people do not have the qualifications to drive a car, there is the possibility that an accident or some catastrophe will befall us. I am sure the previous speaker, Bob Clarkson, would agree that we need to ensure there is some quality from those who undertake such work.

As the Minister Shane Jones has already mentioned, this bill clarifies points made in the earlier bill. Although we might be critical of the fact that we have to revisit the concerns that were expressed during the passing of the earlier bill, I think it is important that we do actually address the concerns that have been raised. We in New Zealand First feel that this bill does that. It may not do it to the satisfaction of a number of members in this house, but the important part is that it does do it.

The bill regulates safety and quality in our building construction. Although we would like to have safety and quality for little expense, I want to say that I, as a ratepayer, am prepared to pay extra to ensure that quality and safety. I am mindful of a song that was put out in the late 1960s or early 1970s by a group called Hogsnort Rupert. The song was “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven, But Nobody Wants to Die”. I allude to the title of that song because everybody wants safety and quality, but nobody wants to pay for it. Unfortunately for those who do not want to pay for it, this bill will ensure that there is quality and a high level of safety ensured in the building and construction area.

I do not have to go on and say too much more about this bill, other than to say that if we do have further concerns, I hope that they will be raised during the select committee stage, and, if those concerns are such, that people will introduce a Supplementary Order Paper to ensure further discussion.

So, in concluding this short and brief contribution to this debate, I say that New Zealand First will be supporting this bill.

SUE BRADFORD (Green) : The Green Party continues to support this Building Amendment Bill as reported back to the House. We heard a number of submissions at the Social Services Committee from a range of groups including councils, professionals and tradespeople in the building industry, and the proprietors of large dams, all of whom are particularly impacted by this legislation. The bill makes a number of often technical adjustments to the Building Act 2004, particularly around exemptions from needing a building consent in some situations, the safety of dams, and making the accreditation and audit fee system more flexible as part of the establishment of the new product certification scheme.

We were told that in 2006 a large number of stakeholders had been consulted on a confidential basis in the preparation of the bill, including 12 local government bodies, 11 design and practitioner groups, and nine accreditation organisations and other relevant organisations. People from the industry were talked with about how this bill was put together. Since the bill went to select committee I have heard several complaints about a lack of broader consultation, but given the technical nature of the bill and the fact that a number of groups could and did make submissions to the select committee I think we probably did hear a fair representation of views.

Alongside input on the building consent and fees issues already mentioned, we also heard from organisations like the New Zealand Assembly of People with Disabilities and the Human Rights Commission, both of which particularly endorsed the strengthening of project information memorandum requirements. This reinforced the imperative to comply with access provisions right from the early stages of building design, rather than as an add-on at a later stage—even when it is a historic place that is in question. Some local authorities were less than happy with this, as they believe, among other things, that the project information memorandum process should not be a tool to improve accessibility design, and that this new amendment was unnecessary and will add to compliance costs. Given the story that we heard at the select committee from a local disability group in Gisborne, about problems it had had with disability access to its own building—which, because it was a designated historic place, the council decided in the first instance did not even need to meet access regulations—I am glad that the select committee has chosen to stick to its guns in this particular section.

In relation to the changes the bill makes to the way dams are dealt with, the Green Party welcomes the new distinction between small dams and large. It is something that I am sure farmers around the country will be really pleased about. A large dam is now defined as “a dam that retains 3 or more metres depth, and holds 20 000 or more cubic metres volume, of water or other fluid”. The changes being made here will have the effect of ensuring that small dams, which are the vast majority of dams on our farms, cannot be regulated by territorial authorities as buildings and that their owners will not be subject to building consent requirements, thus removing associated compliance costs. The Green Party will continue to support this bill through to its third reading, and commends it to the House accordingly.

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) : Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora tātou e te Whare. Tautoko ana au i ngā mihi o taku whanaunga a Pita Paraone ki tērā o ō tātou whanaunga nō roto i Ngāi Takoto kua tae atu ki roto i te whare o Karaka. Nō reira, mihi atu ki a ia, ā, ki a koe anō hoki e Pita e mihi tuatahi atu ki a ia.

[I endorse the acknowledgments of my relative Pita Paraone to that relative of ours from Ngāi Takoto who has arrived in the Clark household. So greetings to him, and to you as well, Pita, for acknowledging him first.]

I was just standing to tautoko, to support, congratulations from my colleague Mr Pita Paraone to our whanaunga Shane Jones, and to remind everybody in the House whom Shane has not already told that on 30 November in the afternoon at Mahimaru marae all of our whanaungas and Ngāi Takoto will be getting together to give him a good hiding—no, to have a bit of a hākari to honour his elevation to Cabinet!

There are many whakataukī throughout Te Ao Māori that refer to the strength of the whare as a metaphor to this topic under debate—references to the sons of Tāne and references to the trees from the forests of Tāne that provide a strong foundation to withstand all challenges: Ko ngā tama whakatamatama Tāne motu i te nganahau.]

[Sons of Tāne, and trees from the forests of Tāne.]

We would hope that this Building Amendment Bill will ensure that building design and construction will improve the general strength of New Zealand buildings. We remember that this Act came out of a decade of major building faults from 1990 to 2000, and we look to this bill to ensure that regulations are clear and workable. If we look to the 30 public submissions received on the bill, we see that there is pretty strong support for the bill from all the key industry groups. We welcome the terms of the bill to ensure that buildings comply with the disability access provisions of the New Zealand Building Code. We note that the select committee processes added a few technical amendments, fine-tuned the licensing scheme for buildings, and introduced a new whole-of-building concept for significant building projects.

But things are not all sweet, because if we go back to the metaphor of the house and look at the main ridgepole, the tāhuhu, we see other stories that the Social Services Committee did not say much about in its report to the House. These stories include the concerns of the Registered Master Builders Federation of New Zealand that the definitions of “restricted building” are so weak that the building licensing scheme is compromised, and the concern of the New Zealand Society on Large Dams, part of the Institution of Professional Engineers in New Zealand, that the local definitions are out of step with internationally accepted meanings. Federated Farmers in particular are concerned, because some farmers will be caught unnecessarily by the regulations. They will also be up for some rather excessive compliance costs, and it seems that a recommendation they made to change the definitions was ignored, with no explanation given as to why. It makes the whole select committee process a bit of a farce if well-meaning, well-intentioned submissions are ignored, because when a bill comes to the House from a select committee we want our debate to be full, frank, and well informed.

In other areas there was the amendment to schedule 1, which deals with extending building work that is exempt from the requirement to obtain building consents. Some of the submitters, such as Alan Light, registered building surveyor and inspector, said that this bill would impose restrictions on maintenance work, and actually discourage people from undertaking prudent repairs. Rodney District Council also said that extending the definition of building work that is exempt from requiring consents would result in future owners inheriting costly problems. It seems that although both of these theories have merit, neither were given any value in the select committee report, which recommended changes to the amendment to schedule 1 but gave no clear commentary as to any substantive changes or the impact of those changes.

But the bigger problem for us is that this bill will do nothing to address the shoddy state of housing in my electorate—a situation the Minister Shane Jones himself is well aware of. Nor will it do anything to address the neglect and poor state of repair and maintenance of houses in Porirua, which is an issue that has been raised by my party co-leader, Tariana Turia, over the past few weeks. The Building Act of 2004 focuses only on houses built after that time; it does nothing to deal with the massive problems with existing housing that are having such a devastating effect on the health, well-being, and safety of whānau all around the country. The amendments to this bill do nothing to address the state of housing disrepair that too many homes in this country have fallen into. The housing crisis, as the Salvation Army has suggested, is best remedied by creating a New Zealand housing fund to finance affordable housing and affordable homeownership through an annual allocation of up to $1 billion a year for the next 10 years to address the demands for affordable housing. We know that this bill was always limited by not being able to deal properly with existing housing without retrospective provisions to the Act, but we are disappointed that positive solutions from industry groups and other agencies have not been given proper consideration.

The Māori Party will support this bill in support of all those who took the time to present the ideas to the select committee, and we look forward to suggestions by the Minister as to how those solutions can best be dealt with. Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker.

KATRINA SHANKS (National) : I rise to speak to the Building Amendment Bill today. The National Party opposes this bill and put a National Party minority view into the report.

The history of the building industry is actually quite interesting, in terms of the number of Acts and the number of Ministers who have held the relevant portfolio in the last 8 years. A quick look at what has happened in the building industry, and at the lack of understanding the Government has about the industry, is quite enlightening.

I should start back in 2002, when we looked at the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Bill, which was brought in to stop leaky homes. From there, in 2004, the Government brought in the Building Act. That was to improve the workability of building legislation. Then, in 2006, what did we have? We had the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act 2006. And why was that? That was because the Government rushed through the 2002 legislation. It was rushed through, no submissions were heard on it, the Government did not listen to what the people of New Zealand were saying, and, of course, the Government got it slightly wrong.

Then in 2007, this year, what happened? The Government brought in the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Bill—

Bob Clarkson: That’s four.

KATRINA SHANKS: That is absolutely right, I say to Bob Clarkson from Tauranga, who is sitting to my left. Why, in 2007, did the Government bring in the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Bill? The reason was that the last two pieces of legislation going back to 2002 did not quite cut it. Why was that? Once again, it was because those pieces of legislation were rushed through.

So what happened in this Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Bill? Gosh, there were no submissions, were there? The legislation was rushed through, again. Not only that but the Standing Orders were put on hold, I do believe, because the Government wanted to avoid the legislative process that we have in place. The Government put through Supplementary Order Paper 133, then Supplementary Order Paper 134, which split the bill into two bills. Then what did we have at the end of that? We had a Building (Consent Authorities) Amendment Bill that had not been through the select committee and had no submissions. Is this truly listening to what the industry is saying? Did the industry even understand what these bills were about?

Now, again this year, we have another building bill—another bill that hits this industry. The industry has had so much change already. The bill is the Building Amendment Bill, and that is what we are looking at again. So that is one, two, three, four, five—

Bob Clarkson: Six.

KATRINA SHANKS: The member is right. There have been six bills since 2002 to do with the building industry. No wonder the building industry is frustrated with this Government, and no wonder it does not understand the regulations. The regulations are changed so fast, so quickly, and without consultation.

We can say the Labour Government does not understand the building industry—really, it does not. We should look at Ministers that Labour has had in this portfolio since 1999. They are: Mark Burton, 1999; George Hawkins, 2000; Rick Barker, 2001; Lianne Dalziel, 2002; John Tamihere, 2003; Margaret Wilson, 2004; Chris Carter, 2005; Clayton Cosgrove, 2006; Mark Burton, 2007; and now we have another Minister in 2007. And who would that be? That would be Shane Jones. We have had 11 Ministers working on the building industry since 1999. And how many bills have we had? Eleven Ministers have presided over six bills—

Bob Clarkson: We’ve had more Ministers than bills. That’s good!

KATRINA SHANKS: Bob is absolutely right. We have had more Ministers than bills in this industry. This industry deserves to be taken seriously and to be listened to. If it had been listened to the first time, we would not be repealing and amending these bills like they were going out of fashion.

The Social Services Committee did not have much to do with this bill, actually. A few submitters came forward, but not very many. We asked whether the public were aware that this process was in place, and they were. There was quite a lot of confusion with the submitters in terms of what they thought this bill was doing. It is doing just a few things; it is actually quite a small, technical bill. Basically, it is about making technical changes in order to make the bill more effective—certification of builders, the clearer role of central government, licensing schemes, dam safety, accessibility, the connection to the Australian scheme, exemptions, and LBPs or licensing building practitioners.

The Minister assured the select committee that the bill would not affect DIYers—people who work on their own houses. He said his intention was not to limit DIY people themselves. At the very beginning of this select committee process we heard about “cowboy builders”—unqualified builders who do not produce high-quality houses. How will this bill help homeowners who have had tradesman come in who were not qualified to do the job and who built houses that were not quite adequate? This bill does nothing to protect those people, because they are still considered to be DIYers. There is nothing wrong with DIYers; they build their own homes.

Then a submitter came in who thought the interpretation of the law meant that if someone was going to change the putty in his or her windows, he or she would have to get a consent to do that. So the select committee had quite a big discussion over whether one could change the putty in one’s windows without needing a building consent under this legislation. Then we had another discussion, and it was quite an interesting—

Hon Mark Gosche: You’re putting your members to sleep!

KATRINA SHANKS: Well, the member should have been on the select committee, because these people were quite passionate. The National Party members sitting on that select committee actually listened to the submitters, and that is why we have a minority report in the commentary on the bill. Obviously, those who voted for the bill—the Labour members on the select committee—did not listen, once again.

So how many Ministers have we had? We have had 11 Ministers and seven changes of law since 1999.

Hon Mark Gosche: How long has this member been here—three weeks?

KATRINA SHANKS: I do not think so—a little bit longer than that. Even I know what happens in select committees, and even I know what happens to the building industry when one suspends the Standing Orders, as happened in respect of this legislation.

What did the submitters talk about when they came in? We had the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors, the New Zealand Institute of Architects, the Rodney District Council, the Certified Builders Association, Meridian Energy, and someone called Alan Light. What was their big concern? Well, they were quite varied in their concerns, but the big thing was really about licensed building practitioners and whether, if people are building their homes and need to be supervised because certain criteria requires it, those licensed building practitioners would then be liable if that building was leaky or faulty and they had signed off on it. So there was big concern and confusion in that industry as to who would be liable if a building was signed off on.

One of the good submissions that came through was from the New Zealand Institute of Architects. The institute had a lot to say about licensed building practitioners, it brought forward really good points that were quite detailed, and it went into clause 63 a lot in respect of whether the Building Act should be amended to recognise that licensed design practitioners and registered or chartered design professionals are separately empowered by their own legislation. That was really interesting, because it was something that had not been raised at all in our discussions in the select committee. It will be interesting to look at this legislation when it comes back into the House again at the next stage, and to have another discussion about it and talk more about some of these submitters.

I say to all those travelling in Auckland who are stuck in their cars and waiting for the traffic to clear a little bit more, and who are expecting to get home at 7 o’clock, that they should listen on, because there is more to come.