Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill

I want to remind the Committee again of the legislative mess that we are experiencing tonight. We are debating the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill. This is a bill to amend a fix-up of a mistake that was made in the 2006 legislation regarding weathertight homes. The 2006 legislation was amended to fix up the mess that was made in 2002. So what we had was a botch-up in 2002 that was plugged through under urgency and overrode the normal parliamentary process. That problem was attempted to be fixed by the Minister in the chair, the Hon Clayton Cosgrove, in 2006, passed under an urgent process and done in a rush. We then discovered that that legislation also had mistakes, so that we now have this bill to fix the botch-up arising from the botch-up.

If members think that that is bad enough, we now have had, during this Committee stage, a further botch-up. In the Building Act—which was originally passed in 2004, and for which another set of amendments was passed in 2006 to try to fix up the Act—the Government has found another mistake, so has wanted to correct it. To correct the mistake, the Government has said that we have to suspend the rules of the House to introduce Supplementary Order Paper 133, which includes an amendment to clause 3, and in that respect we are going to add the amendments on to this bill to fix the botch-up.

The simple argument of members on this side of the Chamber is that the Government got it wrong the first time, it got it wrong the second time, and it got it wrong the third time, but on each of those occasions the Government has said: “Trust us. We’ll fix it. We will do it in a hurry.” Opposition members are simply saying that we do not believe Government Ministers anymore.

💬 Christopher Finlayson: But we never believe them.

Well, some members were generous of spirit, I tell Mr Finlayson, and wanted to think that Clayton Cosgrove was the new-found hope of the Labour Government—that he was the new generation of leadership and that surely he could not get it so wrong. We thought that surely he could not botch it up that badly.

💬 Darren Hughes: Tell us about leadership.

Obviously, Darren Hughes wants to talk about anything but the bill—the bill that is such an extraordinary botch-up. Members on this side of the Chamber are saying: that given that the Government has got it wrong so often, why should we abuse parliamentary process and ram this through? I bet that not one member of this Committee has sat down and gone through every one of those 32 lines of law and checked that they line up with the amendments to the amendments of the original Act. I bet they have not. So what sort of Wild West legislation are we passing, in ramming these amendments through under a process by which we have suspended the Standing Orders of the House to enable this Minister to ride roughshod over proper parliamentary process?

I also want to point out that the Minister gave a speech just a month ago and said that everything was on track, and that we could do this by 30 November. I ask him what has changed in the last month to cause him to ride roughshod over proper parliamentary process and ram this bill through in less than 24 hours. What has changed? The Minister gave a speech a month ago and said that this was all under control; there was no problem. Why, a month later, is he saying that the legislation is in trouble? Is he telling us that councils are not going to make the deadline? If he wants to have established the threshold that Sir Geoffrey Palmer has set for riding over the Standing Orders, it is that there must be exceptional and extreme circumstances. What are those exceptional and extreme circumstances? Could the Minister please explain. What is the extreme circumstance that justifies, as Sir Geoffrey Palmer says, this extraordinary process, when we have only a single House—when we are one of the few democracies in the world that has only a single House of Parliament? What is the circumstance that enables the Minister to drop on Parliament today 36 changes in the law, and have them passed by tonight—changes that are completely outside the scope of the bill?

💬 Darren Hughes: The member should have debated this during the motion. We are now on to the substance of the bill.

Well, I want to know the substance of the bill. I want to know what is the substance that justifies the extreme circumstance of surrendering the Standing Orders. Unless the Government justifies that, members on this side of the Chamber will continue to vote against this clause.

I want to add to the comments made by my colleague Nick Smith, and remind the Committee that when I took a call on the motion to suspend the Standing Orders, which brought this matter to the House’s attention, I made those very points.

I said it was absolutely unbelievable that the Government would suspend the Standing Orders when there is not a crisis. I could have understood it if Parliament had passed legislation that put upon local government the duty to carry out an action, and we had got beyond that date and found that not only was local government not able to comply with the time period, but also, worse than that, it was affecting the building industry, it was stopping building permits from being issued, it meant that people could not get in their homes, it meant that industry was not developing, and it meant that commercial premises were not being developed. Then we could argue that we had reached some sort of crisis and had to look at our constitution. However, that was not the issue. That did not happen.

What we have ended up with is the need to address this Supplementary Order Paper 133, which tells us that we have to omit clause 3. That is what we are debating at the moment. I needed to refer to that so that I could fit within the Standing Orders—unlike the Government, which decided to suspend the Standing Orders. I like to fit within the Standing Orders, but the Government does not. It put forward a motion to suspend the Standing Orders, and that is an absolute disgrace.

As we discuss the omission of clause 3, I draw the Committee’s attention to comments I made earlier. I made some comments about the Department of Building and Housing not doing its job, not carrying out what we would expect the Department of Building and Housing to do. I talked about the fact that the department—or the organisation that it was before, which actually came under the Department of Internal Affairs—originally had 31½ people and now has over 300. The Minister for Building and Construction got up to defend the department, and the only thing in my statement he could criticise me for, the only thing I had got wrong, was for saying that the department started in 1999—it started in 2004. I ask whether any member heard him say: “And this department’s great. It’s doing a good job. It’s doing all the right things. It’s doing everything we would expect. It is not its fault that we have to debate this.” Did we hear the Minister stand up to say: “What a great department.”? Well, I did not.

As we debate this omission of clause 3, let me mention a couple of other things where this department has failed, because the Committee will want to know those. Members will know that in this country it is now estimated that over 250,000 homes and buildings have not got a compliance certificate. There are 250,000 houses that people are occupying and living in—that number is the size of Wellington City—that have not got certification. They are not compliant; they have not got compliance certificates. That is because this department is failing. It is because of the rules and regulations that this Minister and his department are passing. People in the building industry cannot comply with them. So what are individuals and builders doing? They are just getting on with it and saying they will forget the rules and regulations. That is what happens when we get over-compliance and when we get so many rules and regulations that people cannot understand them. We get to the stage where people just ignore them because they have to get on and live. They have to get on with their lives, they have to get on with their jobs, and they have to get on with the ability to earn. This Minister is causing that to happen in the building industry.

The second thing this Minister could have referred to was the fact that the Department of Building and Housing has the responsibility of certifying materials that are put into houses. There are over 600 different materials that are put into buildings in New Zealand. Do members know how many have been certified that I am aware of? The Minister might correct me, but I am told that four out of the 600 have been certified. How long has the department been going? This Department of Building and Housing has, so far, certified four—so I am told. I may be wrong; it may have done five, or even six now, or three—I do not know. The problem is that as we debate the omission of this clause, what we have to seriously worry about is that more leaky homes are being built in this country right now.

The Department of Building and Housing is meant to be responsible for certification of materials and equipment that are being put into homes. Do members know that right now we are importing into this country material that is faulty? Copper pipes imported from Australia have a certification of 50 years. Copper pipes imported from England are certified for 60 years. Pipes imported from Asia that are being put into New Zealand homes right now have no certification at all. They have been tested and the pipes have a lifetime—so it is estimated—of 7 years. It means that in the next 10 years or so someone is going to flush the toilet and mum is going to get a shower in the kitchen. That is going to be the end result, because the pipes will burst. This Department of Building and Housing and this Minister are allowing these homes to be built right now in New Zealand, and people will end up with a terrible outcome.

As we debate this bill and as we debate this Supplementary Order Paper 133 and the proposal to omit clause 3, we need to take these things into account and we need to be debating those issues. We have 250,000 homes that are not compliant, and we have materials being put into homes in New Zealand that are not going to last a lifetime; I ask why this has not been referred to a select committee. Why have these sorts of issues not come out? Why do we have a Department of Building and Housing and a Minister who know these things are going on, yet here we are tonight debating this sort of issue within the confines of the omission of clause 3? I say it is hard to understand. I cannot believe that this Government wants to change things—suspend the Standing Orders—to allow this sort of stuff to be foisted on to New Zealand and on to the building industry, and end up causing so much failure.

Actually, it is just another symptom of failure in this Government. The fact that the Standing Orders have been suspended and we are now debating the omission of this clause indicates another failure in the history of this Helen Clark - led Labour Government. It is an absolute disgrace that the Standing Orders have been suspended. It is an absolute disgrace that we are now debating this provision without it having been referred to a select committee. It is a disgrace that the end result will mean we end up with more leaky homes—and the Minister knows that. It is a crime, and this Minister will be responsible. I say to the Minister that in another 5 or 10 years’ time when we are debating this issue, it will be his name that is put forward as being the root cause of the failure, along with this department.

💬 Bob Clarkson: He won’t be here.

No, but some of us will remember that he was here and we will be fixing it up. We will have to sort this out because this Government is not capable of it. This Minister is not capable of it. His department is not capable of it. He is a failure. The department is a failure. He is causing problems in the building industry. He is causing problems for homeowners. He is causing serious stress in this nation. He has to be responsible for all of that.

I say to this Committee and to this nation that people should be aware of what this Minister is foisting on them tonight. He had no defence when I talked about the issues. He had no defence for this department. He was not proud enough to stand up and say: “It’s a great department and I back it 100 percent.” All he said was that I had got the dates wrong. Well, actually, I had said, when I was speaking, that the department was not the Department of Building and Housing in 1999.

What I did say was that this Minister and his department are a failure. I say to this Committee that as we see this unfold in time—this bill, this Supplementary Order Paper, the Act we debating—it will be seen as a complete failure. The whole Committee should understand that. It is an absolute travesty and a tragedy that we are having this debate right now.

One of the key quotes the Minister for Building and Construction has—and I have heard him say it in speeches not once, not twice, but at least a dozen times—is “Do it once, do it right”. Do members remember that? Well, in classic Labour Party style it is a case of “Do as we say, not as we do”. I need to summarise for the Committee whether the Minister has lived up to his “Do it once, do it right” motto.

The Government first dealt with the leaky homes issue with a bill in 2002. The bill was rushed through. It was actually an add-on to a bill of my own in respect of subcontractors. The bill was added on at the last stage, and it flew through the Committee stage. But that was a botch-up, so in 2006 this Minister came along to the House and powered through another bill, the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill. He shortened the time, and we were assured at the time he had done it right. He sought to wham it through Parliament and said all would be OK.

Well, second time round the fix-up job got it wrong, and then the Minister had to introduce another bill just 3 months ago, the bill we have before us—the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill. That bill had to be introduced because this arrogant Minister ignored submissions to the select committee that said general damages would not be able to be claimed. This Minister said: “Yes, they can.” The court decided the opposite, and that is why we have this bill. So, third time round, the Minister who says “Do it once, do it right” still has not got it right.

But it gets worse. Having put this bill through its first reading, its select committee process, a second reading, and all the way through the Committee stage—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I am sorry to interrupt the member but the time has come to report progress.

Progress reported.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.