Financial Review Debate — Department of Building and Housing

This evening the National Opposition wants to raise a number of important issues about housing. We note in the Social Services Committee report a number of issues around leaky homes, the residential tenancy service, and the new Building Act. The first thing we note is the disaster around leaky homes that is ongoing and that is affecting so many New Zealanders. Within the Cabinet room we have the debacle of pass the parcel being played in respect of the problem of leaky homes. We see that in a couple of weeks’ time, on 1 April, the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service is being moved again. This time it is being moved from the Department of Building and Housing to the Ministry of Justice. We challenge the Government and ask how come it keeps passing around the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service. The Government may have got it wrong when it gave the service to the responsibility of the Department of Internal Affairs. The Government then switched the service from the Department of Internal Affairs to the Department of Building and Housing. The service has not been there 18 months and it is being moved again. We want to know from the Minister whether he will apologise for putting the service in the wrong place in the first place, and whether we can get some reassurance that we might actually get some progress on the issue of leaky homes, rather than see spending of over $17 million during a year in which there were only a very few resolutions and in which we found more new cases being lodged than being resolved.

The second issue I bring to the attention of members is in respect of the disastrous implementation of the new Building Act. The select committee noted that local authorities around New Zealand are struggling with the implementation of that new Act. In fact, it has now become a standard joke amongst builders that it takes longer to get a consent to build a house in New Zealand than it takes to actually build it. To what degree has bureaucracy gone mad under this Labour-led Government that it takes so long now to get a building consent that it is standard for the consent to take longer than it takes to build the house? The Registered Master Builders Federation has commented that the Building Act has added $20,000 to the cost of a home through red tape and bureaucratic impositions. I ask the Minister in the chair, the Hon Chris Carter, who has responsibility for the Housing New Zealand Corporation, how he can wax on about the cost of housing for New Zealanders when, through that Act, he is imposing huge additional costs.

I compliment my colleagues Phil Heatley and Bob Clarkson, both of whom have an intense interest in the issue of affordability of housing. They have rolled the Government and have this year forced a proper inquiry by the Commerce Committee into housing affordability.

💬 Hon Chris Carter: Looking forward to it.

Well, so are we. We are looking forward to holding this Government accountable for its poor policy, which is making housing less affordable than at any time in New Zealand’s history.

Report noted.

Clauses 1 to 10, and schedules