Building Bill

I note that the Hon John Tamihere, the Minister who has just been referred to extensively in various contributions, is in the chair. Do members know what the unfortunate thing about that is? He has not taken a single call on this bill. He is in charge of it and he has not taken a single call. This Minister is the man who goes out of his way to say he supports small business. It is one of his ministerial portfolios.

💬 Clayton Cosgrove: Talk about the bill.

Small business, for the benefit of the member who interjected and who does not really know a great deal, is, in fact, the guy out there with his ute, his dog, and his radio, working hard building houses, doing renovations, and getting ahead. These are the sorts of guys—the red-blooded blokes—that Mr Tamihere and his mates “Swainy and the boys” are supposed to be representing. Are they going to do that?

What they have done instead, in this bill, is put barriers in their way, because we now have registered building practitioners, and there is an enormous complexity of compliance around that. So instead of making it easier to get into business, they have made it harder. We know that there are things to be fixed in the Building Act. We know that New Zealanders deserve to have good homes that are well built and so forth. This kind of regulation will not achieve it. I was amazed to hear that the lapdogs of the Government, the United Future party, are so—

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Please be seated. The member cannot refer to a party in that manner. A party is made up of members. Please withdraw that remark.

I will withdraw that particular remark and refer to the craven supporters of the Government—the party known as United Future, which never exercises its own judgment.

I move, That the question be now put.

This part, as mentioned earlier on, is substantial. The building consent provisions require the owner to apply for consent. They also require the owner of the building to apply for the code compliance certificate at the end of the whole process. The bill has altered the status slightly from the previous Act in that the regional and territorial authorities are required to keep a much better record of those compliance documents.

As I mentioned in the debate on an earlier part, the outstanding building consents that the territorial authorities have failed to follow up on and match the code compliance record details of amounted to tens of thousands. Those outstanding consents relate not just to buildings still under construction but to buildings that have been completed, and I have examples where they have been completed for, in many cases, 5 to 10 years. Those buildings still have outstanding code compliance. That is an area that this bill is tightening up on, and it is requiring territorial authorities to tighten up on it, as well.

Another area in this particular part highlights the requirement for disabled access, and it has brought access for the disabled further forward in the bill, because it is recognised that public buildings do need to be accessed by everybody in the public, not just the able-bodied but also the disabled. I am very pleased that the provisions relating to disabled access have been brought a lot further forward in the bill. They are now a substantial part of the bill and receive proper recognition, which is a much improved situation for the disabled. All public buildings will be recognised as having disabled access available.

The next part I want to touch on is the dam safety assurance programme. This is a programme being run by the dam owners, and the bill recognises that. The expertise to be able to examine dams and ensure they are up to a particular standard is just not there within territorial authorities. Often these dams impact on more than one territorial authority, and, therefore, the industry has got together and put together a substantial and internationally recognised dam safety programme. This bill recognises that programme and ensures that there are audit safety checks and other safeguards to make sure that the dam safety assurance programme is up to date. They require a regular audit, and the world international standards are recognised within that audit.

It must be pointed out that the safety programme has to be notified to the territorial authorities so that they can see that it is being operated in a satisfactory manner, and, should the territorial authorities require an independent audit, that that is available to them. In particular with dams that are considered to be high risk, those audits are essential, and, certainly, the dam safety programme is essential. On the other hand, there are a lot of very small dams on farms. In fact, one submitter who came to us had 26 dams just on his property alone. For a territorial authority to be able to identify every single one of those dams would be a major task.

💬 Brian Connell: That’s a damn big property.

I guess it would be a damn big property; it certainly had a lot of dams on it. The requirement by the territorial authorities to be able to identify those dams is essential because they impact on other people at various stages. We have seen, during the floods in particular, that additional disasters can occur if any of those small dams gives way. It is important that those dams are obvious.

💬 Shane Ardern: Not just the dams, but the stopbanks.

The stopbanks are important, as well.

I move, That the question be now put.

I must say that National’s contribution to this debate has been somewhat confusing. We were promised by Wayne Mapp that we would hear National’s alternative to this bill. He promised us that, yet what have we heard? We have heard National members say that they think there should be more training. They say that there should be apprenticeship training and more training of people involved as building practitioners. They want building quality improved. They want the Building Industry Authority—

💬 Brian Connell: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I am sorry to interrupt my colleague, but if he would like to yield his call I am quite happy to put National’s alternative view.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I warn the member that that is not a point of order. The member should not interrupt the member’s speech. He knows that it is not a point of order.

National members want the Building Industry Authority improved, presumably with more powers and a clarity of its functions, because that was clearly missing, as we found with the weathertightness homes. They want territorial authorities to perform better. Presumably they also want the code compliance scheme to be improved. We heard that tens of thousands of homes had never received a code compliance certificate, so something needs to be done.

National members say that they would somehow make all these magical things happen and bring in all these improvements without legislation. I find that an amazing claim. How are they going to bring about a new regime that provides and delivers on the things we are looking for in terms of our building stock in New Zealand without making some legislative change? How will they give the Building Industry Authority more powers and more clarity in terms of its functions without changing the Act? How would they make territorial authorities perform better and give code compliance schemes the strength and the enforcement powers they need in order to ensure compliance without those changes?

How will we stop shoddy builders, although National says that it will not stop shoddy builders. It says that the person with the ute, the dog, and the radio should be allowed to build his or her own house. It says that owner-builders should be able to operate without any fetters. I know that there are some very good owner-builders. There are some very competent people doing their jobs. I have also talked to owner-builders who have admitted that there were things beyond their knowledge and that they had to get in a professional to do the things they were incapable of doing. Some people recognise when they need expert help, and others do not. The difficulty is that with owner-builders who think they know more than they actually do, it is a case of “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”, and houses are being built that are not up to scratch and not effective.

If we look at Part 1A further we will find some of the good things that it will produce. Clause 174 requires owners to notify licensed building practitioners who have worked on their homes. That is an important asset to any future purchaser of a home. Those practitioners will be able to go to the local territorial authority to get a list of all the tradesmen who worked on a house. If there is a problem, they will know how to track them down. At the moment they have no idea.

A person may have bought a house from somebody else, who had it built by somebody else, who bought it from a developer. An owner may not have any idea of the history of a place, who had done the work, or who to go to, to blame for the faulty work. Now they will know, because it is mandatory that that information be provided by the previous owner so that there is a clear record.

The idea of clause 177, “Notices to fix”, is also very important. I alluded before to the fact that tens of thousands of code compliance certificates were outstanding and there had been limited remedies in order to be able to enforce them. Now, a code compliance certificate will need to be assessed 2 years after the building consent has been provided. Either a house is finished and will receive one, or it is not finished and will receive a notice to fix. Once a house has a notice to fix, the whole enforcement regime can start. That will stop the bizarre situation where houses have had building consents, and they have never ever been signed off with code compliance certificates. It is a ridiculous situation and shows a lack of control by local authorities, and this legislation will remedy that.

The enforcement options are also included. The chief executive has far more enforcement powers to step in where shoddy work is discovered. One problem we found in the leaky home crisis was that the Building Industry Authority had difficulty moving with any pace, because it did not have the power to do so. It had to consult in order to have the rules changed. Now there will be the ability to ban things at short notice, and where urgency is required, there will be the ability to put stops on products and systems very quickly. The legislation provides for warnings, and time limits are built in, in order to protect and ensure that things happen quickly. The legislation has a lot of things that improve the situation. I also refer to the Greens proposed amendment. The Greens were looking for two things in its Supplementary Order Paper, and I think they have merit, but United Future will not support them.

I rise on behalf of the Act party to speak to the bill. First, I shall declare my interest in the matter. I am a director for a holding company of one of New Zealand’s larger building companies. I have to say on behalf of the company that builders are not greatly worried about this bill, because costs will just be passed on.

Now, I will speak on behalf of the ACT party. We are worried, because costs will be passed on. The effect of this bill will be to increase costs. When we look at the issue of leaking buildings—and I am not saying that it is not a serious issue—we see that that situation fundamentally arose from changes in materials, and from some regulations, to which changes builders are not adjusting fast enough. The idea that the licensing of builders will solve that problem is nonsense, because it assumes that the leaky building crisis was caused by do-it-yourself builders. We all know that that is absolute rubbish.

Members should have listened to the contribution made by Ken Shirley, who at the age of 19 built his own home. The New Zealand tradition is for people to be able to do things for themselves. Under this bill—which is supported by United Future, a party that says it is in favour of families and people doing their own thing—people will not be able to do that any more, because now they will have to be licensed builders. The cost of that will be considerable.

Is the cost worth the problem? No, it is not. Members just have to look at the size of the bill. It is 358 pages of new regulations that people will have to meet in order to get a home. If members look at one of the problems ordinary Labour voters have, they will see that under this Government the cost of people getting into their first homes has become more and more difficult to afford. Affordability is going the wrong way, and this bill makes it worse.

The ACT party says that with the leaky building problem the Government should have allowed—as it should with every other problem—prosecutions and the like to sort the situation out. Do we need 358 pages to meet a problem of public relations and public perception? No, we do not.

Yes, maybe the Building Act does need to be revised. However, a revision should be done to make it simpler to lower compliance costs and minimise red tape. I say, with some authority, that the fact that the building industry is not jumping up and down does not mean to say that this is a good bill. The industry just realises that the Government is taking out a substantial competitor group in this country—New Zealanders who do it for themselves.

I am amazed that members do not realise that licensing builders is not the answer to the problem. Indeed, I say that we should vote against the bill. The ACT party, which comes to this matter, as it does to a lot of other business matters, with some experience, says that this bill is not the answer for the solution; it will be an additional problem.

I tell the member who suggested having a registered list of the people who worked on a building that if he thinks having that list will enable people to pursue the fly-by-night builder, he is mistaken. The very nature of the name, “fly-by-night”, means that if he thinks people will come back from Perth in order to fix the really ripped-off - type buildings, he is mistaken.

All this bill means is that the cost of going down to one’s local council to get a building permit will increase. In my area the cost of a permit went up 90 percent 2 months ago; I think it was by 90 percent that the Waitakere City Council increased the permit cost. If that member thinks that that problem will be made easier by this bill, he is mistaken. Of course, the bureaucrats and those who will be doing the licensing see that the bill will mean another growth industry.

But does any member consider that the real problem existing for a large number of young people—that is, the cost of getting their own home—will be made easier by the new Building Bill? Does anyone think that? I notice that a number of Government members are looking in any other direction rather than mine to give me an answer. Of course, they do not.

This bill has 358 pages and contains 386 clauses. It is a knee-jerk response to an issue—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Part 1.

Yes, I am coming to that, Mr Chairman. It is a knee-jerk reaction to a syndrome known as leaky homes. I understand the intent of the bill, but, as the ACT member who has just spoken pointed out, trying to license builders is simply not the solution. When we think through what this bill will do, we see that it will simply add compliance cost on compliance cost and will put out of the scope of the average Kiwi the opportunity to build his or her own home. I am talking with some experience on this issue. A number of years ago I did build my own home, but under this nonsense I would not be able to.

💬 Hon Member: I wonder whether any Labour members have done that.

Well, I can tell the Committee for certain that they will not be able to do it under what is being proposed here. Licensing builders will simply kill the entrepreneurial spirit of do-it-yourself Kiwis. That is what will happen. There was a very simple alternative to this. Rather than licensing builders and putting in place huge compliance costs, we could simply have modelled what the Australian states have done and introduced a builders warranty insurance. It is not complex and it is very easy to administer. The burden of responsibility is not passed on to the builder or to the consumer; it goes to insurance companies, which insure, by virtue of a very small premium—[Interruption].

The United Future member is calling out. He wanted the alternative, and now he is not prepared to listen to it. Licensing builders and putting in place this type of complexity will add something like $6,300 per project. It is the death knell of do-it-yourself builders. Garden sheds like the one that member may have built on his property will no longer be part of the landscape. The solution was very simple: rather than licensing, all we had to do was look at best practice in another jurisdiction, and the answer was the Australian building warranty insurance concept. The idea is that home handymen who want to build or renovate their own homes have to get an insurance warranty that states that the work will be done to specific standards. For the exchange of a small premium—about $350, when I last looked at it—the insurance company involved said it would accept that responsibility, and that that responsibility would be good for 7 years. Any other person coming in and purchasing the property would have a guarantee that the work done by the previous party was to an acceptable standard. That would have been a much simpler solution than putting in place knee-jerk reactions that run to 386 clauses in a 358-page bill and that simply will not be adhered to.

Clayton Cosgrove is calling out, as is his wont. He is a man who is not practical in any sense. I am sure that he has not built his own home or has any experience in this area, but he is prepared to yell out across the Chamber rather than make a constructive contribution. He claims to have lived in Australia. If that is right, and if he had had his wits about him, then he must have heard of builders warranty insurance. Rather than be an unconstructive critic in this Committee stage, he could be saying: “Yes, I am aware of it.” He should have said what should, and what could, have taken place. That would be a far better response than what is being suggested here.

I challenge any member in the Committee to pick up this bill and quote me chapter and verse, because it simply will not happen. Can members imagine hard-working builders out there saying: “Oh, I think I’d better refer to clause 207 to see if I’m doing OK.”?

I move, That the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I have here the Māori Party proxy vote to be cast against the whole bill. I do not know how that party stands on this vote, so I will cast it against on this occasion.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member is casting one vote against?

Yes, indeed.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I appreciate the problem the member is having, but if he has not had an instruction on the matter he should not vote.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I say to the honourable member Mike Ward that unless he has a proxy vote for the Māori Party, he is unable to cast it. I thank Mr Prebble for his advice. Can the member please explain the situation to the Committee?

I have a proxy vote against the bill in total. I do not have a vote on the amendment, so I will withdraw that vote.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): We will now continue with the vote.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I should also withdraw the previous Māori Party vote.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member is seeking leave of the Committee to delete the first vote, as well?

Indeed.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. The first vote that we took was the closure motion, which we voted against and the Greens voted against it, as well. That is all over. I think if you were to look at the votes, you would see that the Government had the numbers to actually allow it to go ahead. I think Mr Ward needs to get his instructions before we continue; otherwise, he is misleading the procedure.

In fairness to Mr Ward, he has been quite frank with the Committee. He is now considering his position and realising that he did not have an instruction on procedural matters, and is asking for leave to correct the voting. By the fact that he has to ask for leave, it is over to the Committee, but it is my view that it is better that the voting record actually be accurate. We can see the position that Mr Ward is in; he has only just received a proxy vote for another party, and maybe he will have to get better instructions later. But I think he is doing the honourable thing in asking for the record to be corrected, and I believe that you should put it to the Committee that we correct the previous vote.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the honourable member for his contribution. I think that is sound advice. Mr Ward should ask for leave of the Committee.

I ask for the leave of the Committee to withdraw my previous vote for the Māori Party.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There appears to be none. So on the previous closure motion the Ayes are 70, and the Noes are 49. We will now proceed to the next vote, which is an amendment in the name of Sue Kedgley to clause 119C.