Building Amendment Bill (No 3)

I want to take just a brief call to outline what the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) is about, and to address some concerns that were raised during the second reading, after the bill had been reported back from the Local Government and Environment Committee.

I think the most valid of the concerns raised by Labour at the time was that this is only a piece of what is required, and that a more comprehensive and fuller bill should have been brought to the House. Can I say in starting that I actually agree with that. I think a more extensive bill covering a lot more issues would have been preferable. However, the decision finally was taken to at least get those things done that we could do now, and to get those things that would take a little bit of a while longer put on to a slower track, which we are going to call the Building Amendment Bill (No 4). It is waiting for its first reading—it has already been introduced into this House. Yet even more work, which I think is quite problematic, is going to be brought in in another piece of legislation. So, yes, indeed, this bill is only—and I emphasise only—part of the total picture. The hardest part, which I am very strongly of the belief needs to be dealt to, is the liability regime, which underpins the building and construction sector. I actually do not think there is sense in maintaining the joint and several liability, and I would love to see us move to proportionate liability. That is way more problematic than I first thought, and the Government has now passed that piece of work on to the Law Commission and asked it to report back to us how we could implement it.

But this bill, the No. 3 bill, is a building block for the entire Building Act reform. What this bit is about, in a nutshell, is to do with risk-based consenting and a whole risk-based approach to the way we build buildings, rather than one size fits all. Up until this bill, we have treated every one of the buildings built in this country in the same way. They have to have the same level of inspections, and they have to have the same level of scrutiny put on them. So if you are building a very simple, single-storey, timber-framed, two-bedroom, almost gottage-type building, you are up for the same levels of inspections and consenting processes as you would be if you, as a builder, were building a multi-storey, extensive building with unusual materials. So this bill is about saying let us reduce the necessary level of red tape for the buildings that are at the lower end of the risk curve, but maintain that level of scrutiny for the buildings that are at the high end or at the very high end.

But you cannot make that change unless you can do something to acknowledge the skills of the practitioners doing the work. I know I have said it as a joke a number of times, but I stand by it: up until this week, all that an individual needed to do to be a builder in New Zealand was to have a cellphone, a dog, and a ute, and you could easily go out and build a house, and people did it all the time. Well, that changed on 1 March, 5 days ago. I know that it was 1 March, because today is my birthday and it was 5 days ago that the law changed. From 1 March a person needs to be a licensed building practitioner to do what we call restricted building work. That is brought into effect by this legislation. We say that restricted building work is building work that is critical to the structural integrity or the weathertightness capacity of the building. So a builder will still be able to move the kitchen cupboards around in a building without being a licensed practitioner, and still be able to do some renovations to wardrobes or the bathroom, or whatever. But when it comes to the restricted building work on a new building—that is, the structural integrity and the weathertightness aspects of a building—the practitioner will need to be a licensed practitioner, just as we ask people flying our 737s, which bring us to Wellington all the time, to be licensed pilots, and just as we ask our brain surgeons who are operating on a brain tumour in our heads to be qualified surgeons.

I will not take too much longer; I just want to go through what this bill is about. So we have a risk-based consenting regime and we have got a regime that brings into effect licensed building practitioners. The first concern that was raised with me as Minister was: “If you make it that only licensed building practitioners can build, then you will take away the ability of the do-it-yourselfer to build their own property.” Well, no. There is an exemption for a do-it-yourselfer in this legislation. So somebody who does not want to have a licensed practitioner do it or to be supervised by one can build, under very unique conditions. They will be allowed to build only once every 3 years. That is because examples from other jurisdictions, like South Australia, showed that a do-it-yourself exemption meant that people just built and sold, built and sold, built and sold, and, of course, you were not then a do-it-yourselfer; you were in the marketplace. So we put in place that exemption. It will also be recorded against the property, so that any future buyer will know. Under the buyer-beware regime of this country, a buyer will say: “Well, I don’t mind. I know the guy who built it. He’s a fantastic carpenter”—or whatever—“and I can live with it.”, or “Boy, I’m a bit worried about this. For that reason alone, I think it’s got to have a discount on its price.”

I look forward to detailing any of the specifics of Part 1 of the bill, but I repeat that it is only a part of the bigger Building Act review—a building block. To those members who have a criticism of it for being only that, I fully accept that, but there is more to come. As members know, there is a No. 4 bill already on the Order Paper to be read a first time, and there will be another bill later this year. It will become the No. 1 bill, because we will go to the new numbering. Secondly, what I want to say to members of this House is that if they have any concerns about the sector, they should go out and ask people in the sector whether they are in favour of it. I have talked to just about everybody: master builders, certified builders, the Building Industry Federation, the Construction Industry Council, PlaceMakers to Mitre 10 to Bunnings—you name it. I cannot find people who are opposed to it. They think this is stuff that was started under Labour, under the good auspices of Shane Jones and what he was trying to do to the Building Act—and I give him some credit for that. This bill is just taking that work and bringing it to fulfilment. I look forward to the debate.

We on this side of the Chamber thought long and hard, when the Local Government and Environment Committee was preparing to report back to the House, about how we would vote. It is really more in sorrow than in anger that we reported back that we would not be voting for the second reading of this Building Amendment Bill (No 3), and our position remains the same. The reason I make that comment is that, as the Minister for Building and Construction has acknowledged, there has been a high degree of cross-party commitment to the Building Act review process, going back to the mid-2000s. Like the Minister, I want to acknowledge my colleague Shane Jones and the efforts he made as the Minister to build a broadly supported process of review that moved us on from the 2004 Act in the direction of a lighter and more finely tuned and targeted regulatory framework for our construction industry that would deliver the outcomes we all want: safe, healthy, durable buildings, and, particularly, safe, healthy, and durable houses for New Zealanders to live in.

So we listened very carefully to the submissions to the select committee. It may be true that the Minister has been to Bunnings, and Mitre 10, and everywhere else around the country and has asked them what they think of the bill, but the submitters, one after another, including all the major industry bodies, came to the select committee and expressed major reservations not about the Building Act review but about this bill. One after the other said this was an ill-advised, piecemeal approach that actually threatened greater risk to the industry and the consumer than needed to be the case. They said that what was required under the principles of the Building Act review was a root and branch reform that dealt with issues of not only risk-based consenting but liability and consumer protection, and that to advance, as this bill does, with a couple of very specific aspects of the review, without the accompanying measures dealing with liability and with consumer protection, risked actually putting the consumer in a more vulnerable position. I do not think anybody in his or her right mind, after the experience that this country has had with leaky buildings over the last 20 years, wants to put the New Zealand consumer at more unnecessary risk.

The basic argument that we have heard tonight, and I think we will tease it out in the course of this Committee stage, is that one of the main things that this bill does is it sets out to more clearly define the responsibilities of the different players in a way that is, basically, a sort of guidance. But, nevertheless, it will undoubtedly be used as direction in future court cases, as the law develops. This bill sets out to define the responsibilities of the builder, of the consumer, of the designer, and of the building consent authorities. No one, I think, objects to that in itself. The thing is that what it does is circumscribe the current responsibilities and liabilities of the building consent authorities. Everybody knows that the defining feature of the construction industry in liability issues, through the whole leaky homes saga, has been that the councils, which make up most of the building consent authorities, are the only ones that have deep pockets, and they have been left—and the ratepayer has been left—as the last man standing. In many, many cases they have been the only source of any kind of redress or compensation for affected homeowners.

The problem with scaling back the liability or responsibility of the councils as building consent authorities is who is left to step into the breach. Under the reallocation or the defining of responsibilities under new sections 14A to 14F in clause 10 of the bill there is no equivalent reapportionment of responsibility and liability to other partners. We heard a lot of considered opinion from submitters that the effect of sections 14A to 14F is to scale back the liability of the building consent authorities, but there is no equivalent re-placement of responsibility and liability. Many of the industry bodies, many of the practitioners, and a lot of very wise heads in the industry came to us and said it was a mistake to go down this track of reducing the liability of the building consent authorities without properly embarking on consideration of a change from joint and several liability, which is the legal status quo that we have in New Zealand. It means that a party can end up carrying the can for a much greater share of the liability than they would do if that liability was determined only by the share of their contribution to the actual construction project. And it is that principle that has meant that the last man standing, whether it is a council or anyone else, has often carried the can way in excess of their actual responsibility. A lot of people in the industry believe that, and I was glad and interested to hear the Minister say that he would like to see the question of liability addressed and dealt with—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: No, I wouldn’t. It is very hard.

—and to move away from joint and several. Well, I heard the Minister say that he would like to see that happen.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Yes, I would; I just said it’s very hard.

He says it is very hard. Well, that may be so, but is it good lawmaking? Is it sensible stewardship of the New Zealand construction industry and the rights and the well-being of hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who go down the track of building their own homes or having houses built? Is it right to subject them to a reduction in their protection and liability in the way that this bill does? That is what was meant by people who came to the committee, and by us when we said with the Greens in our minority report that this bill is a piecemeal approach, and the real risk is that it is the New Zealand consumer who will be disadvantaged.

Labour is broadly in support of risk-based consenting. That is something that has been the subject of a great deal of discussion through this process, and we will talk some more about that later in this debate. Enhancements to the licensed building practitioner scheme are welcome. But let me say this finally about the timing issue and the criticism that this bill is piecemeal: the reason that this bill is being rushed through the House right now in piecemeal form—the reason it is being rushed through—is that it has to be there because the licensed building practitioner scheme kicks in in March this year.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Who put that through?

Who put that through? Who put that in place? Whose responsibility is that? This House is being asked to now pass a highly deficient, piecemeal bill because of a time frame that was put in place by this Government. It would have been much, much better to have a more comprehensive approach—perhaps staged, with the process broken up into bigger chunks. But what we are seeing here is a really imperfect and unfortunate piece of legislation.

It is always a pleasure to carry on from Phil Twyford, because he is normally very considered and a pleasant member in the House. He puts things forward in a sensible, appropriate way. On this occasion I appreciate the comments he has made about the Building Amendment Bill (No 3), but his sense of timing is not quite right. I realise that towards the end of the last Government it was difficult for Labour members always to be at every select committee meeting, and Phil, you missed the last meeting of the Local Government and Environment Committee. Indeed, as you say, a lot of the submitters did express concern over the very points that you have come up with, but I thought actually that the member was there when we arranged, at their request, for the Construction Industry Council to meet with officials. We asked them to discuss with one another outcomes that would satisfy and overcome the concerns, and indeed they did that. They did that with considerable success. So the concerns that Mr Twyford expressed so eloquently were in fact overcome in the view of all the participants. It was something of an achievement, I felt, but the officials have said that it was a very cordial meeting and they were able to address the concerns.

This bill is indeed a building block, one of a suite of bills that is going forward to bring the 2004 legislation up to the required standard for today. The legislation is largely supported by the industry that it is designed to affect. There has been a very good level of consultation, and if I may I will make a sort of gratuitous remark towards our Minister, Mr Williamson, and say that these amendment bills were always a pleasure to receive at the select committee, because they were well considered, well drafted, with good dialogue on either side. This is an industry that employs 1,100—1,070; sorry, 171,100—employees.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: That’s easy for you to say!

Thank you. I remember speaking to the chief executive of the Registered Master Builders Federation, who had conducted a series of meetings throughout the country with his members, and he said it is astonishing to behold them as they come along to meetings. They are normally in groups of three or five. They wear shorts, and they are hard men physically. They are keen-minded people, and they want to get on with the job and do it professionally, and they are very considered. They are serious people, and they view this seriously as well.

We acknowledge too the work that was done by the previous Minister Shane Jones. A lot of work was done, and this bill, to a large extent, complements it and brings it forward closer to completion. There are several aspects of it, particularly four key changes. There is clearer accountability for building practitioners, building consent authorities, and consumers, and this is nowhere better summarised than in a frequently repeated statement to the select committee, which was that people should draw up plans to the building code and then builders should build to that plan. The difficulty emerges where the builder looks at a plan and thinks that perhaps he can do a variation on it, or perhaps that it does not quite work out the way it has been prepared, and he does his own initiative. Then, indeed, when planners are doing the planning for the design, they should take into account the code. As long as those three sequences are followed, there will not be a problem.

The new building consent system is risk based, and the Minister has spoken about that, which spares me having to detail it any further. The code of ethics for licensed building practitioners is to encourage professional behaviour. Occasionally we have gone through a very difficult period in building, and it will be good to have the code of ethics established and to have recognised levels of professional skills. In terms of the do-it-yourselfer I recently attended the New Zealander of the Year, and listened to an address from a previously elected New Zealander of the Year. He talked about building his own house and how it was one of the larger achievements of his life, and said that he regretted that that was not a possibility for people nowadays. Well, this bill goes some way to lift the exemptions from people doing that, which will be useful.

It is always a pleasure to follow the ex - member of Parliament for West Coast - Tasman. He talked today about this bill, the Building Amendment Bill (No 3), being a building block, and I have to say to the member that you cannot build a strong house when you have got a few blocks missing. In fact, you are likely to have a weakened house. You are likely to have a house that is a bit suspect, and you are likely to have one that will collapse at some stage in the future when the pressure comes on. That is one of the reasons why Labour will not support this bill from this point on.

We did support its referral to the Local Government and Environment Committee. We, of course, were in broad agreement with the direction of the Building Act review, because, after all, the Building Act review took place under a previous Labour Government. We put out a discussion document entitled Proposal for an owner builder exemption to the restricted building work regime. It was released in June 2008. We had submissions, and it was closed in August 2008. I think a lot of this work was actually done by Clayton Cosgrove and Shane Jones in their time; they know a lot about it.

But what we are worried about is that this bill as it comes back is not a comprehensive bill. It is a piecemeal, higgledy-piggledy bill. It has certainly got some elements in it that we would support, but it is not what was expected when the review took place. I often think of something that my mother used to say to me: “If you’re going to do something, do it right first time.” Minister, I know how much you do care about getting things right in the building industry. I have dealt with you over leaky buildings. I have dealt with the Minister for Building and Construction over leaky buildings and I know from conversations we had about my own constituents that the Minister was really keen to get it right in terms of trying to fix a problem that arose from the 1990s, when we did not get it right in terms of the building code. I commend the Minister for that—for making a genuine effort to get it right. Having learnt our lessons from that time, why not have a comprehensive bill that covers the issues that came out of that review, rather than take parts of it? Of course, it was from the submissions that my colleagues became very concerned that we were not taking the right approach. I follow on from Phil Twyford, who said that what we really do want is to ensure that we have safe and healthy houses, and we do not unnecessarily put consumers at risk again.

We also think it is unwise, Minister, and risky at this time to have a piecemeal piece of legislation and measures when the industry is facing a surge in demand from the rebuilding of Christchurch, the repair of leaky buildings, the huge skills deficit we have, and the uncertainty as to whether there will be sufficient builders even entering the new building scheme. I am sure, Minister, that, like me, you read the briefing to the incoming Government from the Construction Development Alliance. There was something that stood out to me in that briefing to the Government. It said: “Since the peak of the property boom there is as many as 25,000 jobs have been lost in construction, with over 750 of the sector’s workers leaving New Zealand for Australia and other countries in March 2011 year alone, and there is strong fears that the sector is going to struggle to meet the construction of Canterbury alone.” So we believe it is risky, at this stage, and unwise to legislate in this piecemeal way.

Minister, we are saying you should relook at it. Send it back, as the submitters said. Withdraw the bill. Bring it back to the House with a comprehensive package of reforms. I know that the Minister will be reluctant to do that, but he does want to make progress. Of course, many members in this House would want to make progress on this very important area, but, Minister, get it right: do it once, do it well, and ensure that we get the best piece of legislation possible. By doing that, we will not go through the errors that we made in the past with such legislation. We will not leave big loopholes and problems for the future. I think it is fair to say that no members of the House want to put consumers at risk. We do want the best possible legislation. As I said, do it once, do it right. If it is worth doing, get it right.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I am pleased to take a call on Part 1 of the Building Amendment Bill (No 3). It is my first call as the Green Party spokesperson on housing, and the first of many in this area, I hope. I would just like to begin by addressing the context for Part 1 of this bill, and it is fair to say that the context for this bill is that we have a crisis in housing in New Zealand. It is both a crisis in the affordability of housing and a crisis in the availability of housing. The amendments that this bill makes to the Building Act are relevant to how we are going to address that crisis of affordability and availability.

On the affordability side, I think we have a situation where homeownership, and indeed the privilege of being able to build one’s own home, is a distant dream for more and more New Zealanders, particularly those New Zealanders of my generation who are starting families and looking for the security and stability that often comes along with homeownership, but finding that it is out of their reach. We have a housing affordability crisis, especially in Auckland. I note that new figures from Statistics New Zealand prepared for the Auckland Council show that up to 85,000 households in Auckland are currently paying unaffordable rents. That is partly a consequence of the unaffordability of homeownership as well. So that is 85,000 households who are in what we would describe as housing stress, and that is when you are obliged to spend more than 30 percent of your income on your housing costs, on your rent or your mortgage. Statistics New Zealand estimates that 45 percent of Auckland households are in this state of housing stress and pay more than 30 percent of their income on rent or mortgage. So it is extremely problematic.

On the other side of the coin we have a crisis of housing availability. We have over 10,000 people on the Housing New Zealand Corporation’s waiting list, yet we have a narrowing of the priorities of who is considered for social housing. We have a Government talking the talk on expanding the social housing unit within the Department of Building and Housing, but no action yet and some concern about the direction that that is going when we have an extreme need to increase the availability of social housing in New Zealand. We have the absurd decision of the Housing New Zealand Corporation not to see its clients in person any more, despite this crisis of housing availability and the long waiting lists that they face. We have Housing New Zealand Corporation stock being demolished and not necessarily replaced to meet the needs of local communities.

We have the Christchurch rebuild effort, which we are facing. An estimated 10,000 new homes need to be built, and this legislation is very relevant to that effort. And we have an estimated 70,000 homes required in Auckland in order to meet the housing availability crisis simply in Auckland alone. So I think it is fair to say that this bill and the context for the building of new homes that it sets is very important when we consider how we are going to deal with the crisis of affordability and availability in housing.

Obviously, building new dwellings is part of the solution to the crisis of affordability and availability, and in that context the Green Party supported the Building Act review that was initiated by the last Labour Government. However, like our colleagues from Labour, we find that we cannot support this bill as a response to that Building Act review when it takes such a piecemeal approach.

Our concern is that a major thrust of this bill is about loosening up regulation, ostensibly to expedite the building of new dwellings, but, as we have learnt from the leaky homes crisis, this is an extremely dangerous approach to take. I think it is important that in considering Part 1 of this bill, and indeed the rest of the bill, the Committee takes into account the conclusions of the Hunn report on leaky homes in 2002, which concluded that the deregulation of the building industry undertaken by the National Government in the 1990s represented a major, systemic breakdown across the whole industry. Our view is very much that we must take an extremely cautious approach and ensure that this does not happen again.

We note that there is another building amendment bill—the Building Amendment Bill (No 4)—on the Order Paper. I heard the Minister suggest that those recommendations from the Building Act review that are not covered in this bill will be covered in that one. So to that extent, we tentatively support that, and I understand that that bill will deal—

Given this is a new Parliament, and the first reading and subsequent select committee hearings were held under another Parliament, there are a couple of points that I really think are worth making to members so they understand a little bit of the history. First of all, it was a Labour Government in the late 1980s, late 1989-90, that introduced the Building Act. It introduced it under Margaret Austin. She brought the bill into the Parliament. It went off to the select committee—

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: The Building Bill.

The Building Bill. Well, the Building Bill became a Building Act. It was only short of its third reading by the time the 1990 election occurred. So straight after the 1990 election the National Government, which had supported Labour’s bill, put it through its third reading. So we need to be a little bit careful about blaming the National Government for that deregulation and the passing of that Act. It was a Labour bill, introduced by a Labour Minister, taken through a select committee while Labour was in Government, brought back to the House and put through the Committee of the whole House under a Labour Government, and only given its third reading by a National Government.

So let us get that clear; and in fact I have got a number of great quotes from Hansard where George Hawkins gets stuck into National MPs: “Don’t you try claiming credit for the Building Act—it was ours.” “It was ours”, says George Hawkins; I have got the quotes if you want to see them. So George was on the rantan in the early 2000s, claiming that that dreadful National Government had been trying to claim that the legislation had been its own. So I give acknowledgment to the Hon Margaret Austin and the Labour Government for bringing that bill in.

The next one I have heard a number of members quite often refer to is the National Government’s decision to allow in untreated timber. So let us get that clear: the decision to allow kiln-dried timber and not make treated timber mandatory came nowhere near this building. It did not come to a Minister, it did not come to a select committee, it did not come to a member of Parliament. The decision was taken by an independent body called Standards New Zealand, which a Minister has no direction over; and the two big timber companies, Fletchers and Carters, both lobbied Standards New Zealand for it to say that it would say that kiln-dried timber was an acceptable solution under the code that stood at the time. That is what it said—

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: Not for external walls.

Yes, they did. That is what they asked for. If you read the report, in 1995 the report is actually quite clear. It actually is all about borer, and I find it amazing. If you want to have a read of it, it is a really good read, I say to Ms Dalziel; it will really inform your knowledge. It actually says: “Borer is no longer an issue, and therefore we no longer need to treat this timber; kiln-dried timber will be an acceptable solution for all framing, including exterior walls.”

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: No, not for external walls.

Yes, it does. So in 1995—I am happy to bet the member the best bottle of sauvignon blanc going, on this one—kiln-dried timber became an acceptable solution under the building code for building buildings. It turned out that that was a disaster, but I want members of this House to be very, very careful of blaming any politician, because I have heard it was Ministers that decided it, I have heard it was the select committee that agreed to it, and I have heard it was various MPs. I have even heard certain MPs who were not even related to the portfolio blamed for it, me included, who were not anything to do with the portfolio back then. But if you research history, you will see Standards New Zealand had a subcommittee set up. That subcommittee in 1995 recommended that kiln-dried timber now be an acceptable solution under the building code, and local authorities accepted that, and from that point on we built buildings with kiln-dried timber—not always; some builders were a little bit more, sort of—

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: Good builders didn’t do it.

Yes, good builders, I think, made a decision they would not do that, but others said they thought that, because it was now acceptable under the building code as an acceptable solution, they did it. We paid the price for a long time, and there is going to be a huge bill for it, but I just wanted to get members very clear on that. National did not pass the Building Bill, it was a Labour bill, and actually it was not any member of Parliament—anybody, me included—who actually allowed kiln-dried timber as an acceptable solution.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First as the building and construction spokesman, but can I just say that I have now seen probably the best half back in this House illustrate how you flick the ball on so quickly as not to take any responsibility for the appalling situation that occurred in the 1990s. All those who can recall the 1990s will know exactly what happened, and in fact we could almost refer to the Minister as the “$20 Billion Man”, because he was around in the 1990s as a Minister of Housing in those times, when the start of the leaky housing—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: No, I wasn’t. I was never a Minister of Housing.

Well, you were a Minister of something at the time in a National Government when it was all approved—probably the Minister for Small Business. He started off as the “Minister of Large Business”, but ended up as the Minister for Small Business.

But it is an appalling situation that we are seeing the National Government basically walk away from its responsibilities. Again, as the Minister just passed the ball, it is trying to pass the ball on this bill as well, this Building Amendment Bill (No 3). What it is trying to do is pass the responsibility, and basically pass all care and no responsibility on to the building industry and the builders, and on to the end consumers, the homeowners and the people who will own the homes, and basically take a lot of the responsibility away from the regulatory authorities—the local authorities, the councils—and make sure that the builders are the ones who carry the can on everything.

But, as we know, many of these builders might be a builder here today—they might be a registered company here today—but they might be worth only $100, and they could be in Queensland next month and gone, or the building company might have closed down and reopened in 6 months’ time under a different name, and disappeared. This is half the problem that has been going on with the leaky homes situation. So many of those builders from the 1990s and the early 2000s either simply do not exist any more as building entities or have disappeared, and are no longer to be found. So as the honourable member Mr Twyford said earlier, it was the councils who were the last man standing. They were the only ones who were left as entities with any money, and they had to stand up and try to help solve the leaky building crisis created in the 1990s under a National Government.

We have a situation now where, under this bill, we could have all sorts of jerry-builders being responsible for the end result. We could have a lowering of standards. Where do some of these builders come from? We do not know. In this country where are they actually coming from? Many of the builders, of course, were not necessarily brought up in our own building standards and compliance area of expertise. They may have undertaken their apprenticeships or their skills training in all sorts of environments of building. We do not know the answer to this question. The Minister is basically saying that whoever turns up and gets a licence to be a builder can just build it and take all responsibilities for these dwellings that are put up. But at the end of the day, do we know where half of these builders come from? I have had alarming reports just in the last week or so from constituents in various parts of the country, saying to me that they really do wonder where some of the builders that are popping up in some of our towns and cities around New Zealand today originate from, in terms of their building skills.

So are we going to see a Back to the Future situation again? Are we going to see the repeat of the $20 billion leaky homes saga from the National Government in the 1990s? Are we going to see that all happen again in the next 5 to 10 years because this Minister said: “Oh, we handled it all. We just put all the responsibility on to the builders. We put it all in their hands and into the hands of the end consumer, because they were therefore going to be the ones who would sort out the whole industry, and they would take responsibility.”, only to find that in 5 years’ time, half of those builders could well be putting their feet up on the beaches of Queensland, or on the beaches of Fiji or any other place, not to be found. Again, who will be carrying the can? The taxpayers of New Zealand and the consumers of New Zealand. At the end of the day it will be the Government and local government in New Zealand that will again have to stump up for this situation.

It is with some disappointment that we are not able to fully support this Building Amendment Bill (No 3), but I want to give some credit to the Minister in the chair, the Minister for Building and Construction. No. 1, he had both the vision and fortitude to carry on the work of the Hon Clayton Cosgrove and myself. But, jokes aside, this Minister did grasp the nettle of how we were going to meet the liabilities from the problem that lies beneath the text of this bill, i.e., the problem in New Zealand of the production and completion of buildings largely for residential purposes that turned into aquariums. I would like to do something uncharacteristic and acknowledge that that Minister did some good work in that regard.

We have large issues confronting us in relation to Christchurch and the rebuilding of that area. So we are actually looking forward to learning what the additional regulations are that the construction sector is going to face in that particular rebuild, quite apart from the necessity of it taking on board what is in this bill. What guided us was getting the balance between a suitable level of red tape and some liberty, which is why my colleague Mr Cosgrove was adamant that we should not outlaw do-it-yourself building. He struck some difficulties in the minds of the officials at that time—but that is for another day, and that is his story.

One particular provision that is going to bedevil this House is, what level of responsibility ought properly to lie with the consent authority, given that the consent authorities have their own insurance woes? They have an insurance company known as Civic Assurance, or words to that effect. They then are dealing with the fact that, as I recall it when I was a Minister, the global reinsurers of the world were unwilling to provide much more protection to the New Zealand building consent authorities and give them any more cover to deal with leaky building problems. So it is a balancing act. How much obligation should we leave with the consent authority; how much with me, the owner; and how much with the builder, the actual designer, and the architect? I think, as our minority report states, we do not feel that the balance—and, I must say, I was not on the Local Government and Environment Committee at that stage—is appropriate. But there are other aspects simplifying the consent process. No. 2—ensuring that where a council dedicates a fair chunk of resource, it is proportionate to the risk associated with the building that is being created.

I would also say that a great deal of care and attention is going to be required in the development of the regulations, because this piece of legislation actually sets up a new flow of obligations at a subsidiary level. I look forward to seeing those regulations, which no doubt will come to the appropriate select committee, because there is the ability in clause 42(1) for a building consent not to be required.

I actually envisaged at some point in time, as the licensed building practitioner cadre grew and their skills could be relied upon, that for a growing amount of very simple work, they could be treated like electricians—let us use electricians as an example—where you do not need to go to the super-city to get a permit to have an electrician come and fix your house. We have got to get somehow to a situation where we can treat a building practitioner or a carpenter in the same fashion. But the fears remain that such people could take us into a new phase of problems, either in the rebuilding of Christchurch or a new phase of leaky homes, etc. But I think that was the philosophy underlying what we thought we were doing in response to what was a significant problem, although I would say we had a large number of building Ministers on this side of the House during the 9-year reign of our peerless leader, Helen Clark. We look forward to such times returning at some point in the future—hopefully, not too far away.

The other thing I would point out is that there is an obligation on me, the property owner. We have to get it right in so much of our economy: how do you set the obligation that rests with the State, rests with the insurance industry, and rests with the individual?

Thank you, Mr Chair—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Who?

Yes, indeed, that excellent member for Waitaki.

💬 Katrina Shanks: So modest.

Yes, and modest, and also probably a little bit different from some of the members on the other side of the Chamber. I was dismayed by the previous two contributors, Shane Jones and Andrew Williams, who really showed the underlying ethic that runs through Labour, certainly—well, we are seeing it in the New Zealand First member, too—which is that they do not actually value and trust builders. It is coming through quite clearly that they do not seem to believe that builders take pride in their work and, in fact, would respond to the provisions that this Government has brought forward in this Building Amendment Bill (No 3). I think that is a shame. I think that type of attitude that nobody knows any good except for the Government of the day prevailed very strongly during the term of the last Labour Government. In fact, did not one Minister, when Labour was putting through the real estate agents bill, famously get up in the House and show how much high regard he had for real estate agents by calling them land sharks?

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: It was me. Guilty, guilty, guilty!

Clayton Cosgrove has just put his hand up and illustrated to the Committee once again that he is of that genre of MP who does not like business and cannot stand people who are self-employed. Speaking to the point of the bill, I think what happens when you have 11—was it 11—Ministers for Building and Construction in how many years—

💬 Katrina Shanks: 9 years.

Nine years. Well, no wonder. No wonder the sector was in disarray. No wonder the regulations were all over the place. Nobody knew where they stood. How many members are there in the Chamber now? Not even 11. There would have been more people than that proudly calling themselves Minister for Building and Construction but at the same time running down builders whenever they could. If that is the flavour of the members opposite, then long may Labour remain the Opposition.

However, this Government, under this Minister, has brought this excellent bill to the House—the Building Amendment Bill (No 3)—and there are some really good, useful provisions in this bill. There are four key changes that are going to happen, and I support them all because I think that what they do is provide clearer accountability for building practitioners, a bit of certainty, and the underlying idea that the building profession is a good profession. This bill will be responsible for building capability and capacity within the building profession. What is wrong with that? As a result of that, it is certain that we will get construction that is built right first time. History shows us that when you do not value the building sector and you have 11 Ministers in 9 years, everybody is all over the shop and does not know what is happening. So one of the major changes is that there will be very clear accountability for building practitioners, for building consent authorities, but also, most important, for consumers, by making sure that work complies with the building code. What is wrong with that? Why can the Opposition not support that? It seems pretty clear and—

💬 Hon Amy Adams: Because they’re haters.

Yes, because Opposition members are haters. I know they are haters. They do not value builders, they do not value real estate agents, and they do not value many other people in society. They think they know best. The difference is this Government happens to think we should be empowering people to do a good job, and that is what this bill intends to do.

A new building consent system will be risk based in time. That means that the amount of checking and the amount of inspection is related to the risk of the work and to the complexity of the job, and also, of course, related to the skills and capability of the people doing the work. One of the aspects of this bill that I particularly like relates to do-it-yourselfers—those people who enjoy getting out the tools on the weekend and knocking up a deck or a floor, or something in the shed. This bill recognises that we are a nation of people who like to do do-it-yourself projects on the weekend.

💬 Katrina Shanks: It’s the Kiwi way of life.

It is. Thank you to that member. It is the Kiwi way of life, and there are a number of people who enjoy doing these projects. We do not want to stop that, because a lot of people do good work. We do not want to stop it. They will be exempted from the restricted building work scheme. What that means is they will not have to employ licensed building practitioners to supervise their work or to carry out restricted building work.

It is always, I have got to say, a pleasure following that member, Jacqui Dean. Before I continue in the positive vein that my colleague and former Minister for Building and Construction Shane Jones led with, can I just make a couple of comments about the member Jacqui Dean. That member’s policy, which I am sure the Minister is aware of, to solve the weathertightness problem was to ban—and this is in written form—hydrogen dioxide, or H2O. That member’s claim to fame, of course, was to say things like: “We’re not borrowing to get the money; we’re just going to get it from overseas.” That is not actually relevant to the specifics of the Building Amendment Bill (No 3), but that shows you the level of intelligence we are dealing with over there.

Now, to get to a person of substance in the Minister, the Hon Maurice Williamson, can I say this: the previous member made some comments about my stance about real estate agents, and she is right. I believe, as I think every member of the House believes, that whatever occupation you are in, you should stand by your work—OK? I think that when I was in the chair—and I think the member said there were 11 building and construction Ministers and counting; in fact, I think the place is littered with the bodies and corpses of building and construction Ministers. Maurice Williamson said to me before that he thinks we should set up a parliamentary friendship group for ex - building and construction Ministers, and I agree. We are a large alumni and a powerful lobby. But where this actually came from—and I do commend the Minister on the DIY issue—is that when I was in the chair—

💬 Jacqui Dean: Why did that member lose his seat?

If the tumbleweed over there would just taihoa, when I was in the chair as Minister—and I commend the Minister for what he did—

💬 Jacqui Dean: Mr Nasty.

I am actually praising your Minister if you would just zip up. He has been waiting for weeks for me to say something nice about him. So the member should zip up and let me compliment the Minister. When I was in the chair—Mr Jones is right—when I was the Minister, the officials, at a very senior level I have to say, took a view, in my opinion, that they wanted to cauterise all DIY work. But I took a view—and I am pleased that the Minister has found a way through it—that that was not going to happen. It was not going to happen and we threw out the anchors on it until there was a full and complete examination of this. We do support the tenure of this bill, but we have had some comments about the piecemeal approach of it. Licensed building practitioners—that whole issue—stems back from a time when a certain Government abolished the Apprenticeship Act in 1995.

💬 Andrew Williams: What Government did that?

That was not a Labour Government, it was a National Government. I think the Minister in the chair at the time is now the Speaker. But, putting that aside, apprenticeships went and then the building industry was deregulated. The difficulty there—and I agree with Shane Jones, and I think the Minister does—is that it would be nice to get to a point like with electricians where you could self-certify. I suspect the history of that—and Mr Williamson might be able to assist me—was that self-certification, with tight regulations around that and the sort of visuality of that, was because if you put the wire in the wrong hole you could get seriously dead, bluntly, whereas I think that in respect of building it is highly unlikely that a residential house, unless it is built to such a disreputable standard, will cause a fatality in that respect. I think actually if you look at the history of it, that is where it came from. But I will go a step further. I recall saying to officials that it would be nice if, once the transition through licensed building practitioners is complete, you could get back to a time where you do not as a young person, man or woman, get entry into those trades unless you do an old-fashioned thing called an apprenticeship where you are trade-trained.

I understand, because I was part of bringing it in, that there had to be a transitional period. Actually, the builder who built my house, who was third generation, no trade certificate, won building awards all over New Zealand. I would not want to see that guy go back and have to do an apprenticeship. He has proved himself through his work. He is the sort of old-fashioned guy who if your hinges are squeaking 5 years later he will come around at no charge with the oil can. I would not want to see that person going through a tirade of bureaucracy to prove what he has already, that he is a competent builder. But I would like to see a time when we could go back as we have transitioned through that, where if you as a young person want to get into the building trade or any trade you have to do an apprenticeship, and we go back and make that compulsory. I would say that.

I think it was a mistake to do away with apprenticeships and the resources around it. It was a mistake historically—and we have all made them—to say that anybody could pick up a tool belt, even Jacqui Dean, and call themselves a builder, whip around to your house and say “I can build your home.”, and then, as a previous speaker said, disappear to Queensland when it all goes wrong. So the regime that I think everybody wants is to allow DIY to progress in an orderly fashion, but to say to people: “Look if you are outside your skill limit”—as I would be, bluntly; I would not attempt half the stuff, I would just get the trades guys around and get them to do it—“you should get licensed building practitioners in to do it.”, but not to cauterise DIY.

Debate interrupted.