Building Bill

I move, That the Building Bill be now read a first time. I will be moving that the bill be referred to the Government Administration Committee.

This bill is the culmination of an extensive range of reviews and a thorough consultation process, and I wish to pay tribute to the literally hundreds of stakeholders who have offered advice during its development. I particularly want to thank all the retired builders and engineers who have made contact with me personally, to talk me through some of the wisdom they have managed to accumulate over a number of years. I have found that very, very helpful indeed.

This bill marks an important milestone in the development of an appropriate regulatory framework for the building industry that both the industry and consumers have been seeking. Although the weathertightness issue was a catalyst for this work, scrutiny of the industry through the Hunn committee, the Government Administration Committee’s inquiry into weathertightness, and, indeed, the review of the Building Act itself, allowed us to look at wider issues relating to building regulation. Like a well-designed building, the changes reflected in this bill are a complementary and integrated package. They are designed to work together to minimise risks of future regulatory failure. The catchphrase I have acquired for myself over recent weeks since we concluded the discussion document work is “design and build it right first time”. That has become a motto for me, and if we can get that right, then the risk of the kinds of things we have seen happen in the past occurring again will be minimised. That does not mean there will not be failure. We cannot actually prevent failure from occurring altogether, and that is why the bill addresses consumer protection as well.

In the discussion document we issued I said that the pendulum had swung too far one way, and it was our challenge to ensure that it did not swing too far the other way. I believe that the bill represents a position of balance. That being said, in my view there are those who overstate the innovation versus prescription line, implying that they are opposites. They are not. Innovation cannot be used as an excuse not to build homes that are weathertight, to use a very relevant example. I think that needs to be held in people’s minds—that innovation cannot be used as an excuse not to deliver a minimum standard for consumers.

The performance-based approach has been retained, but adapted to provide greater information on the outcomes sought, their measurement, and best practice on how to achieve them. There are changes to improve monitoring and enforcement of the building control system, and to ensure the competence of those who provide the services—the designers, the builders, and other critical sub-trades.

The purpose of the bill is established in the legislation. The performance standards and the licensing regime are designed to ensure that people who use buildings can do so safely and without endangering their health, that buildings provide an appropriate level of amenity for people who use them, that people can escape from buildings if the buildings are on fire, and that buildings are constructed and used in ways that promote sustainable development.

This bill strengthens the building regulatory regime by providing the framework to ensure that inputs into buildings are of high quality. There is a strengthening of the role of the regulator, and there will be a review of the building code within 2 years to make sure it is specific enough about standards. The bill provides for the development of compliance documents that set out how the building code standards may be met, and for best-practice guidance documents to provide information to territorial authorities in recognition that they are co-regulators in respect of this legislation. It requires accreditation and audits of building consent authorities, and provides for the licensing of building practitioners.

On the consumer side, the bill incorporates a reference to amenity alongside the existing references to health and safety. It requires the regulator to achieve the overall purposes of the bill, but also to take account of the important role played by household units in people’s lives. It gives express recognition to the importance of standards of design and construction in achieving its objectives, increases the emphasis on durability and standards of maintenance, and provides for mandatory standard warranties. Sustainable development will be promoted by the development of building standards in relation to energy efficiency, energy conservation, water efficiency, and water conservation.

This bill has had a lot of input already, and I am sure that the select committee process will see it even further improved. I am very committed to maintaining the open mind I have had on this bill right from the outset. I know that stakeholders will be keen to pursue some matters, as they have already raised them with me. For example, I know that many would like to see further work done on the question of developers—from the perspective of the consumer but also from the perspective of the head contractor—and I know that bonds will be the subject of much discussion at the select committee. I commend the bill to the House.

This bill of 386 clauses is the tombstone for Mr Hawkins. That is the reality.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: Oh!

The Minister of Commerce might say “Oh!”, but we know the truth of this. That Minister, who spoke on this issue, was brought in because of the failure of Mr Hawkins. The weathertightness tribunal had to be driven into being by this side of the House. A reluctant Government and Prime Minister kept saying the issue was simply a beat-up. Those are the facts, and those are things the Government cannot deny. There are now 3,000 claims for individual buildings before that tribunal, and many others before the High Court.

💬 Brian Connell: How many resolved?

That is a very important question. How many have even been assessed? Very few have been assessed, and virtually none have been resolved, and that is an indictment on the Minister. The Minister herself now seems to be in trouble, so we now have to ask when she will be deemed to have been caught out by this bill, by her responsibilities in relation to the weathertightness tribunal, and by the complaints of house-owning consumers about the time delays of that legislation.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: It’s not my responsibility.

I guess that that says everything! Sometimes it pays not to interject too much or too loudly. This side of the House recognises that there was a necessity to reform the legislation. That is why we will support the bill going to the Government Administration Committee.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: Well done!

Did the Minister expect anything else? The Minister should know that National has been asking, for a considerable amount of time, for reform of this legislation.

💬 Jill Pettis: You had 9 years!

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member will not bring me into the debate.

I should not respond, but I remind the previous interjector that the previous Act was a Labour Act.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: No, it wasn’t; it was brought in in 1991.

It was the result of a taskforce created by the previous Labour Government, and Labour voted for it because, in essence, it was its legislation. We know there have been problems with the current legislation, and in particular they relate to the skills within the building industry and the way that the building code has worked. There are some good things in this legislation, but we will seek the advice of the industry on it.

One of the things I would like to raise with the Minister is why a $10,000 limit was chosen before the new regime—which the Minister did not actually talk about—where every building has to be constructed under the supervision of a licensed building practitioner. What can one build for $10,000? Almost nothing! It is effectively saying to homeowners who simply want to add a room on to their homes that they now have to do that under—

💬 Brent Catchpole: A garden shed!

—or a garden shed, but an expensive one I would suspect—the supervision of a licensed building practitioner. That is on top of the inspection by the local authority or the building certifying company that has been chosen. The Government has added substantial cost at a very low threshold. The Government has to think again about that $10,000 limit. It is simply too low, and will add costs. There has been an estimation that, in general terms, it will add 2.9 percent to the cost of all buildings. That is pretty significant. A typical house in New Zealand costs $100,000 to $150,000 to build.

💬 Brian Connell: $200,000!

I am talking about construction. That means there will be additional costs of $3,000 to $4,500 just because of this legislation. That is a pretty significant impost. The select committee will be looking very carefully not only at that balance of consumer protection, a legitimate and proper role for any Government, but also at the cost of it. Does this regulatory regime go too far? I flag to the Government that one area we will be particularly looking at is that threshold of $10,000.

The other issue I am particularly concerned about, which I raised at the time, is the overreaction in relation to the Building Industry Authority. I hardly need to tell this House of the shambles that that authority got into, firstly, because of the incompetence of the Minister, and, secondly, because there were some difficulties with the competence of the authority itself. But is the right response then to disestablish the Building Industry Authority and bring it under the direct control of the Minister, who is obviously looking forward to being able to extend her ministerial tentacles to even higher and greater levels of control than ever before? If that is her plan, I can only hope she does a better job of it than she does with immigration. There is a dysfunctional department if ever there was one.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: I’m “Mrs Fix-it”!

No, the Minister is not “Mrs Fix-it”; Dr Cullen is “Mr Fix-it”. The Minister should not get an overblown sense of herself. The reality is that Dr Cullen is “Mr Fix-it”. This Minister is “Minister Bungle”. She needs to get the ranking right.

We are particularly concerned about the issue of the level of ministerial control over the new organisation. By all means reorganise the Building Industry Authority; I think that was necessary. But it was not necessary to disestablish it. In fact, the proof of that is that once the organisation of the Building Industry Authority was somewhat reformed at an administrative level, the problems of the authority largely disappeared. So now we have a whole swathe of legislation that adds substantial costs of 2.9 percent to correct something that has already been corrected. That is, again, something the Opposition will be looking carefully at during the select committee process.

We would like to think that the Government does have flexibility about some of the things that are mentioned in the bill, and that the more extreme elements, whereby the Minister extends her tentacles in order to have ministerial control, are effectively deleted, because if her immigration portfolio experience is anything to go by, then her having such control is dangerous; it is simply dangerous for this Minister, who says she did not participate in a cover-up in relation to immigration, but, conversely, whose staff did not even know of the dysfunctionality of her department.

💬 Brian Connell: Was she conscious?

Was she conscious of it? If that is the case in her immigration portfolio, how well will she manage this process? Not well at all, I would have to say. We will support this bill going to the select committee. We do have significant reservations. I would like to think they could be corrected, because legislation of this nature has to run across different Governments over time. It is important that we get it right at the select committee.

This bill is a monument. It is a monument to the failure of the laissez-faire free-market philosophies of the 1980s and 1990s. This bill is a monument to the naive ideologies of the 1980s Labour Government, known as Rogernomics, and of the 1990s National Government, known as “Ruthanasia”, and to the ACT party’s base philosophy and the base philosophy of the right-wing elements of the National Party. This bill is a monument to the naive idea that if one leaves things to market forces, everything will turn out all right. That sounds good; personal responsibility without Government intervention sounds like quite a good idea—everyone free to do anything he or she wishes, as long as it does not unduly impact on the rights of others. But a self-policing market, with competition deemed to ensure that consumers receive the best quality at the cheapest price, is a nullity. It just does not exist. The abysmal failure of the present Building Act is testament to the fact that self-policing markets do not work.

With the Building Act 1991, we had deregulated building practice. The Local Government Act that came in at a similar time subjected territorial authorities to cost-efficiency practices. We found an unregulated building industry. What did we get out of those things? We got cowboys, people with merely a dog, a ute, and a radio, who would turn up with a hammer in hand and offer their services for less than the more reputable builders could offer theirs—low cost but low quality. Consumers, lacking knowledge and information to compare building practitioners and compare work quality, were sucked in. The ideas that one’s home was one’s castle and that homes stood the test of time were shown to be fallacies. The whole market philosophy of one gets what one pays for, unfortunately, became the reality for a lot of homeowners in New Zealand. The requirement for territorial authorities to be cost-effective, coupled with a lack of adequate guidelines, put pressure on territorial authorities to speed up building consents and certification processes, and to reduce their level of inspections. Cost-effectiveness can be a good thing at times, but when it comes to the question of regulation and the policing of work, it is often the enemy.

So what can we learn from the failed practices that the present Building Act gave us? We can learn that market forces, left to their own devices without regulation or policing, will always result in quality reductions. Parties to transactions who have inadequate information or knowledge to assess competitive offers will suffer. Market forces may work in purely commercial environments where there is a level playing field, where there are real alternatives, and where both parties have skilled knowledge of what they are dealing with; they do not work in the imbalance usually evident in retail transactions between commercial enterprises and the general public. It is totally naive to think they will.

This bill seeks to provide the necessary balance between the freedom that encourages enterprise, creativity, initiative, and the benefits of competition, against the restraint, through the setting of standards and the policing of standards, that is necessary to ensure that minimum standard levels are adhered to. The balancing of that freedom and that restraint will provide the maximum benefit for New Zealand society, particularly for consumers, and this bill seeks to achieve that. No doubt, during the select committee process we will be able to fine-tune that. With the input of people from all sectors of the industry, coming from all perspectives, we will be able to find the balance that is best for New Zealand society. We certainly do not have it now. Certainly, the experience that we have had over the last year or two, through the problems with the weathertightness of homes, graphically demonstrates the need to provide that level of restraint.

But what is at the root of this bill to make it successful? Perhaps, in my view, the most important aspect of these reforms comes down to the question of education, the training of building practitioners, guidelines and clear standards, acceptable solutions, ways of doing things that can be proven and certified by a reputable authority, and oversight—building certifiers, territorial authorities, and the restructured Building Industry Authority working effectively. It is important, when we talk about that education area, that all those things do work effectively.

It is important that the training programmes that are brought in for building practitioners go beyond the mere technicalities. I am afraid that is the problem we have with our current system, where the programmes are broken down into modules, and people are taught how to do this specific thing or that specific thing, without there being a holistic approach to the whole of building practice. Too many gaps, in that situation, are left. Training is critical. It is important that it is not just functional but also trains building practitioners in quality standards, and implants in them the need to be proud of their work.

In terms of guidelines and clear standards, it is important that they are also balanced. Although there is a need to provide those guidelines, if that becomes too heavy, if the amount of paperwork and the cost of that paperwork get out of kilter, then builders simply will not buy it. It is important that a clear balance of that information is there. In these days of electronic transactions and information, it may be that use of the Internet is the most effective way to deliver that.

But there are underlying problems with our education system at the moment that I fear will also impact on this unless they are addressed urgently. I refer particularly to the interface between secondary education and workplace requirements, which, from what I have learnt from the industries I have talked to, is nothing short of abysmal. For example, with regard to the engineering industry, one of the leading Hutt Valley firms approached a local college and asked to speak to the metalwork teacher. The person on the other end said “A what?”. The firm repeated it and the person said: “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.” There is a problem with, particularly, engineering, in that training in our secondary schools towards that very valuable area of work is not happening. Therefore, we are getting to a situation where students who do pick up engineering at a tertiary level pick it up because they see it as something one does if one cannot do anything else, and we are not getting good-quality engineers. I learnt that engineering is a high-tech business now, and there is a need to have capable students who are able to do it.

That is just one area of building practice. In the other areas of building practice, it is important that we train people that being a very good builder, a very good carpenter, or a very good electrician, or being any other occupation involved in building practice, is something to be proud of, a career that has a great deal of respect, and one that people can be proud to be part of.

So United Future welcomes the bill. It is the result of quite a lot of discussion and consultation through the select committee inquiry into weathertightness, and through the subsequent discussion paper and the feedback the Government received from that. It builds on all those things, and enables us to work towards a future for the building industry that is positive for our society and that regains it the respect it once had. However, there is a lot more work to do yet. In my estimate this bill probably goes 75 to 80 percent of the way in terms of the legislative requirements, but more important are the regulations that will follow. The training in, and testing of, products and processes will need to be set up, and will need to be robust. We are very pleased to see the certification of builders. We are very pleased that territorial authorities will again have primary responsibility for the issue of code compliance certificates. We are very pleased that there will be better regulation of products. It is important that not just products but their interface with other components of buildings have attention. This will be an interesting and useful project to be involved in. United Future is very pleased to support this first reading.

New Zealand First is proud to have made a substantial contribution during the weathertightness of homes inquiry. I congratulate this Government on sitting up and taking notice, eventually, that there was a problem with leaky homes. For so long this Government sat on its backside and did absolutely nothing. In fact, it completely shut out all the reports that were coming in about leaky homes. But, finally, it has sat up and taken notice, and I am delighted that it has done so. New Zealand First will support this bill going through to a select committee. We see it as a means of straightening out the building industry where it has gone off the rails, and as an attempt to get the confidence back into the industry that the public expects to have in it.

We have an issue with a number of the provisions in the bill, and one of those is to do with the fact that so many issues are to be determined by Order in Council. Some of those issues concern who is to be licensed, how people are to be licensed, and what they are to be licensed for. The only problem with doing that by Order in Council is that it does not allow for public debate on those issues, or for a proper public consultation process to decide them. It means that the Government can make the decisions on its own and the Minister will abdicate her responsibility on those issues, because they are to be determined by Order in Council, with no public consultation.

We see it as timely that this bill raises the issue of licences. The building industry needs licensing, particularly in light of the weathertight homes and the leaky-homes problem that has plagued us for a number of years now. Many areas of the building industry are already licensed, and I mention architects, electricians, and plumbers, to name but a few. But up until now, builders and the building industry have not been licensed. I have two words of caution in respect of the licensing scheme. Firstly, I am concerned at the manner in which the licences are to be decided. As I mentioned, it is all to be done by Order in Council. But secondly, the main concern is that it will create a difficulty for people in terms of knowing what they are supposed to be doing at this point in time.

I raise another issue, which is to do with the ageing workforce. There has been a worldwide study on the ageing workforce in the construction and building industry. Last month’s Hanscombe/Means report shows us that the average age of a skilled worker in the United States is 49 years. In Canada it is 45 years. New Zealand did take part in this worldwide survey, but I was not able to extract our figures from the other section that we ended up in, unfortunately. It is an interesting survey. It shows that the workforce, and particularly the skilled workforce, is ageing. We are not getting young people coming into the construction industry, because during the 1990s so many of them went into computers and the high-tech industries; that was a softer option and there was a lot more money to be made. That is leaving a vacuum.

Having said that, I point out that members of this Government may see that situation as a golden opportunity to bring in a lot more immigrants, to fill those job vacancies. That is a major danger, firstly, because it forces the value of our workforce down and means wages will be suppressed, and, secondly, because it means there is no need to educate and upskill our own people. We will end up with a lot more immigrants coming in and filling those vacancies, because it is an easy and a quick option to bring in immigrants to fill those spots, rather than to train up our own people. By failing to train our own people we will end up with a workforce that is depressed, and there will be no incentive for our young people to enter the construction industry and train properly. That is a major danger in the Government’s approach of opening the doors to immigrants, just to fill a vacuum that has been created over time.

The ageing workforce is in danger of being forced out of the building industry because people feel that they will have to retrain to gain a license. It would be a shame to see the ageing workforce that we have—the skilled workers already in the industry—being forced out, because they have the knowledge to train the young ones who are coming into the industry. This Government crows long and hard about the Modern Apprenticeships scheme, but I point out that the scheme is nothing more than a renaming, or, if one likes, a rebranding of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority training programmes. All that the Government has done is to dress them up in a different title and to put them straight back out there. That scheme does not give young people a proper apprenticeship or the full work experience related to the industry they are in. So there has been no change, as far as this Government’s so-called Modern Apprenticeships scheme is concerned.

This bill dissolves the Building Industry Authority and replaces it with a chief executive, but a chief executive of what? It does not explain what the chief executive is to look after. The bill gives some of the chief executive’s job description, but does not state he or she has responsibility for an entity. The bill also puts the responsibility for meeting the code of compliance on to the building owner. It takes that responsibility out of the hands of the builder and puts it on the building owner. In the recent history of the building industry we have had a situation whereby developers and builders have gone into liquidation for the sake of avoiding their responsibilities. Not everybody is doing that, but some unscrupulous developers and builders have gone into liquidation in order to walk away from their responsibilities. This bill now puts the onus of repairing and getting a building up to standard back on to the building owner, where the building owner has not had the opportunity to obtain recompense from the builder. That needs to be looked at during the development of the bill.

There are a number of implied warranties. One of the most important issues concerns Standards New Zealand. Too often, Standards New Zealand is sponsored and is, therefore, captured by an interested party. That is a big danger. This bill does not deal with that.

I rise to make a contribution to this bill on behalf of my colleague Sue Kedgley. We welcome the bill’s introduction, and we will be voting to support it going to a select committee.

First, I refer to the significance of the building industry. The building industry is a multibillion-dollar industry in New Zealand, at around 4 percent of gross domestic product. It consumes large amounts of natural resources, and also uses in the production of building components large amounts of toxic substances. Many of those processes have resulted in long-term toxic pollution in the past—for example, from timber treatment plants. The building industry also produces the places in which we spend a great proportion of our lives, both at home and at work, and hence it has an enormous influence on our patterns of resource use and health. Buildings last for many decades; hence the decisions made today will have long-term consequences for the health and resource use of future generations.

I have some general comments to make on the bill, and I will turn first to leaky houses. It is the perception of the Green Party that this bill has been primarily driven by the leaky houses fiasco, and it is good that the Government is responding to the problems in the housing regulatory system that resulted in the leaky houses problem. But we also believe it is important to use this opportunity to review the entire regulation of the building industry, and not just those parts that are specifically related to leaky houses, as this industry is far too important just to tinker with around the edges. We have already made, and in the select committee will continue to make, a variety of suggestions to improve the bill in relation to healthy houses and environmentally sustainable building practices.

I turn to the regulation of the industry. The leaky houses syndrome has made it clear that the current laissez-faire system of regulation is simply not working, and has not worked since the current Building Act was introduced in 1991. We therefore welcome moves to make the regulatory system more robust, and to move away from the market fundamentalist mindset that led to a building industry that no longer could build waterproof houses. Those who support that ideology said that the market would fix that. Well, the market did not fix it, and now the Government has to step in to fix up the mess. It is perhaps one of the more damning proofs of the failure of the new-right ideology that its supporters were unable to develop a building regulatory system that could keep water out of houses. God only knows what will happen if they ever get their hands on health care.

However, committed as we are to ecological sustainability and to the rights of building owners, we are also concerned that owner-builders and innovative eco-friendly builders could be unnecessarily caught up in building regulations. Hence, in the select committee we will be looking to ensure that the bill provides sufficient space for Kiwis who want to build their own homes, and especially for Kiwis who want to use ecological building principles in building their own homes. In terms of the provision in clause 3(b) regarding the level of amenity that buildings must provide, it seems hard to believe that that was not previously in the purpose section of the Act, and we certainly welcome its inclusion in the bill.

I turn to the issue of health. It is great that the purpose of this bill includes ensuring that people can use buildings without endangering their health—unlike the old Act, which just referred to safety. That is a major advance. The select committee inquiry into leaky houses, on which my colleague Sue Kedgley sat, revealed that indoor air quality is a major health issue. The danger that spores from Stachybotrys mould pose to human health is a little-appreciated aspect of the whole leaky buildings problem. But there are many other issues of indoor air quality, such as the formaldehyde, and the like, that comes off particle board floors in gases for many, many months after houses are built. Many people have experienced ill health after moving into new or newly renovated buildings because of the toxic gases released from newly produced building components. There are also issues of toxic timber treatments, such as copper chrome arsenate, being used on exposed timbers. That is now being phased out in other countries. However, with regard to health there is a gap in the bill as it stands, which is the absence from clause 22 of any factors related to health that the chief executive must take into account when writing the building code. We will be seeking to amend the bill at the select committee, to introduce such factors.

In terms of ecological sustainability, we welcome the inclusion of a sustainable development clause in the purpose of this bill. We appreciate the efforts the Government went to to ensure that it was part of the bill it introduced. But we also believe that careful attention needs to be paid to the definition of sustainable development. We believe that it should not mean that economic growth continues ad infinitum, regardless of its ecological impact. On the contrary, we support sustainable development that means that the resources used today are renewable, and can be used by our children and our children’s children. We are pleased that in clause 22—the factors that the chief executive needs to take into account when compiling the building code—we find the whole-of-life costs of a building. It may be cheap to build a house from copies of Richard Prebble’s book, I’ve Been Thinking, but the house would not last long, and pretty soon we would need to pull it down and start again. We are also pleased that the same clause includes “the need to facilitate the efficient use of energy and energy conservation and the use of renewable sources of energy in buildings”. If more attention had been paid to that over the last decades, we would not have faced the recent power shortage. Again, we are also pleased that the same clause includes “the need to facilitate the efficient use of water and water conservation in buildings”.

In conclusion, while we seek to deepen the bill’s commitment to healthy houses and ecological principles, we will also seek to ensure that owner-builders and eco-builders are not driven out of house building. We welcome this bill and look forward to its progress through the House.

I rise on behalf of the ACT party, which opposes this bill. This bill should not be called the Building Bill. It should be called the “Anti-Builders Bill”. It should be called the “Anti-Business Bill”, because once more we see a Government—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order!

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I understand from the Standing Orders that running commentaries are out of order.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I have already called the member to order.

The bill should be called the “Anti-Builders Bill”. I sat on that select committee, and I accept that there was a problem with leaky homes, but what do we have here? We have legislation that is just hammering builders. [Interruption] Before I start, I would like to say to that member that perhaps he might like to read up on some philosophical history—some writers like Adam Smith—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. Can I just say to members on the cross benches that it is a longstanding convention in this House that there are no interjections on other members—basically, because it affects the microphones. I bring the member to order.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think that one of my colleagues on the other side was somewhat maligned in that regard. She was not responding to any interjections from the member concerned. She was simply responding to the speech given in the address.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I heard an interjection. I call the honourable member, Deborah Coddington.

This morning in The Dominion Post there was a cartoon, and it was a take-off of the television programme, Who wants to be a Millionaire? Instead, it had a contestant saying: “Who wants to be a homeowner?” In future, a similar cartoon will say: “Who wants to build a house?” The effect of this legislation, as my colleague Mr Brent Catchpole has already pointed out, is that it will raise the cost of building a house considerably, both for a building industry person—a builder or building business—and for the consumer. Whether that means adding on another bathroom, or a garden shed—this legislation does not detail that—it will cost a bomb. Again, we have legislation by stealth, and we have this Government using an Order in Council to say what the levies will be.

I asked this Minister a number of questions. In April, I wrote asking her what would happen with the $11 million that the Building Industry Authority had collected illegally, having overcharged local authorities for building consents. I finally received a reply in July, after following it up with other questions. She admitted that $11.5 million had been illegally accumulated over the last 10 years from levy surpluses, but that it was “not practical” to return those to the many thousands of building owners who had paid the levy in the past 10 years. It was “not practical” to return to people the money they had overpaid. That just shows members how useless this Minister is.

I followed that up with another question. I asked: “How much is the single largest levy being held in the reserves of the Building Industry Authority?” Some of the building companies that pay these levies pay over $500,000 a year. There could be considerable amounts of money owed back to building companies, like Fletcher’s, and any of the other big companies. She said she was not able to answer that question because the information was not held “in a way that allowed the information the member requested to be produced”. That is another example of how useless this Minister is.

By the way, the Building Industry Authority will now be dissolved and come under the jurisdiction of some sort of chief executive—of what sort, we do not know. I then followed the issue up and asked her what total increase in budget did the Building Industry Authority now require, and what specific issues would it be responding to? Well, what a coincidence. The increase in budget is almost exactly the amount that was illegally collected from building consents—$10 million. That is $10 million, compared with unaudited accounts for the previous year showing Building Industry Authority expenditure of $5.25 million. That is just another example of how incompetently this whole issue has been handled.

How many new staff will be employed? This legislation is about building a new bureaucracy. The landlords in Wellington will be thrilled by it. Already, they are rubbing their hands together with glee as a result of this Government increasing the size of its bureaucracy all over town. They are doing very well out of this Government. I asked how many new staff would be employed by the Building Industry Authority as a result of the “new demands” noted in her letter of 16 July. The answer is that the business plan for the authority includes provision for an additional 21 staff to be employed progressively, to reach a full complement of 39 staff during the 2004-05 financial year. I remember that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority started off with about 21 staff. It now has about 250, and is still growing.

💬 Brian Connell: A growth industry.

A growth industry. Yes, that is what this Government is into—tax and bribe. This Government calls taxes levies, but we all know that they are taxes by any other name.

This legislation takes a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Why did we not deal with the real issues involved in leaky buildings—issues that people came before the select committee and told us about? There were some very nutty submissions, but there were some excellent submissions as well. There were submissions on the results of a change to untreated timber. I remember someone telling the committee that the only way people could use untreated timber for framing in New Zealand housing and get away with it not going mouldy was if it never ever got wet. How many times would that happen? They would have to build a house in the desert for untreated framing timber to never ever get wet.

So what happens? Over the years—not because of so-called laissez faire policies that we have never had in this country; I do not ever remember anyone saying that the market would fix leaky homes. I wish people would get their facts right before coming out with statements like that—if untreated timber is used in framework, and it gets wet, even if it dries out, mould sets in when the cladding and everything else goes on. Leaky buildings are not so much about water coming in from the outside as condensation from the inside.

Over the years we have become obsessed with health and safety, with regulating away any sort of personal responsibility. Because of over-regulation, not under-regulation, we have buildings all over this country with not enough ventilation, and they cannot breathe. Again, this Government cannot even keep burglars away from houses; the cops cannot even respond, so we have to shut everything in our houses. We cannot leave a single window open for ventilation. That is the problem.

What does this Government do? It polls and polls and polls, and it has a knee-jerk reaction to the Opposition benches, just as it did on the Immigration Amendment Bill. It comes in and punishes every good builder and every good building company by making them license. Compulsory licensing has done nothing to protect kids from schoolteachers, because the Teachers Council is so politically correct and so useless that it cannot even license teachers. We will see the same thing with the licensing of every single builder in this country.

I believe the Building Bill has good intentions. The National Party supports its going to a select committee, but with some reservations about the Government’s ability to get this issue right. The key reservation that I hold, as the member for Rakaia, is that although the bill thus far displays some common sense, I question whether the Government can assure us that it will continue with its common-sense approach when it comes to the enforcement regime. I have reservations that that is possible with this Minister.

The bill swings far too far. It adds too much regulation, and I am putting the Government on notice now that I will be watching carefully to see that it does not set up a bureaucratic nightmare. [Interruption] Mr Swain is calling out. He does not care about the average Kiwi in this country, but we do. I am not quite as pessimistic about it as my colleague from the ACT party but I share, on balance, some of her concerns, and I am not alone.

I noticed, even before the bill was introduced, that the Mayor of Timaru and meeting chairperson, Wynne Raymond, said that the wholesale rewrite of the legislation had gone further than many had imagined. When one picks up a bill that has 386 clauses, one knows that people have reason to be concerned. Excess regulation leads to greater costs for home-owners, and I fear that that will lead to some people not being able to buy their own homes. That is a travesty, and a cruel blow to those people who have worked hard to get a deposit together, only to find that, because of the impost of these costs, they keep falling below lending thresholds.

Dr Mapp has already brought up a figure for increased costs on the average building of about $3,000 or $4,000. My figure, on a $200,000 home, is about $7,200, and that is just the threshold that will see those people without a home for ever and a day. If we talk about percentages, 2.9 percent does not seem much but it is a lot when one adds it up in dollar terms.

The other concern I have is that the threshold of $10,000 when one needs to have a registered or a certified builder in place, is too low. I fear that that will be the end of do-it-yourself builders.

The other thing, which I will be brief about, is that this bill has been brought to the House in this form, only because of the work the National Party did around the leaky homes campaign. I want to recognise the sterling work that Dr Mapp did in that regard. Is he receiving any credit for that? The answer is “No”. Why not? Is it just possible that he is a victim of his own success? He is a very competent and popular MP, unlike some members of the party opposite. They may be household names in their own caucus but it is not the same as being a household name across the country, like my esteemed colleague Dr Wayne Mapp. If it were not for the work that Dr Mapp did, I put it to members that the Government would not have dealt with the issue. Some of them will remember Helen Clark banging on in the New Zealand Herald when she raised the issue, in a very coherent way, that this was just a beat-up. Then suddenly she realised that she was facing—and this country was facing—the biggest building crisis that New Zealand had faced in decades. To her horror, she discovered that the Minister in charge was George Hawkins—hapless George Hawkins. That put a chill wind through most of us.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: Three hundred and eighty-six clauses—it’s his tombstone.

Yes, as someone has pointed out to me, all 386 clauses are his tombstone. Leaky homes are just a precursor to some of the litany of deception from this Government that has gone on. I do not want to go into it in any great detail, as the time does not—

💬 Simon Power: Oh, go on, go on, go on.

All right then, the member has talked me into it. I ask members to listen to some of the minutes of the Building Industry Authority meeting that was held in June 2002. David Peach told the meeting this: “Create no expectations of solving this crisis.”—and that was easy for George Hawkins—“Don’t acknowledge or even suggest a history of inaction”—that was more difficult for George Hawkins—“and don’t dob people in.” Helen Clark had a real problem with that one.

I just want to direct some guidance and advice to the select committee. I ask it to look at the compliance and bureaucracy implications of this legislation, because this has the potential to become a bureaucratic nightmare.

We now have “Mrs Fix-it” in the seat, who has taken over from the hapless George.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I refer the member to Speaker’s ruling 6/1 (Supplement). He must not refer to a member by her first name, but she must addressed by her proper name or by the position or portfolio she holds.

I mean Mr Hawkins. I was interested to read one particular clause in this bill, clause 172, which provides for building work to be carried out or supervised by licensed building practitioners in certain cases. It is stated in the commentary that any work over $10,000 will require registered people involved in certifying that work. What will happen—and this will come up during the select committee stage—to those people who are do-it-yourself people? What will happen to those people who watch those television programmes, like Mitre 10 Changing Rooms or the sorts of programmes where there is a view that encourages people to go out and do their own thing—to go down to the local building shop, and to do their own building? Those programmes show people how to do it. What is going to happen to those programmes like Tool Time—you know, Tim the Tool Man?

💬 Brent Catchpole: Bob the Builder.

It is a good programme to watch, is it not? This bill says that there will be huge compliance costs. Regulatory creep will come in—and that is a phrase that I am using more often in relation to increased compliance costs. For the people who want to do additions to their homes—be it in terms of the labour content, or adding on a bathroom, a kitchen, or whatever, which they have been able to do in the past—clauses 172 to 175 will mean that their ability to do their own thing will be limited.

The point I make is that these issues will need to be addressed at the select committee, ultimately when the bill is reported back, and during the Committee stage. I am drawing the House’s attention to these clauses because my view is that they inhibit and take away that entrepreneurial spirit—that get-up-and-go to do one’s own thing. Not being able to do that is something we have great difficulty with.