Building Amendment Bill

This part is another case of the Government imposing additional costs on our local authorities that flow through to rates. We may as well call this part the increase in rates provisions. But, on top of that, these provisions state that the Government made a stuff-up in 2004 in the way it struck the levy on buildings, and that it will validate whatever it did wrong—make it right—so that it can still fleece local authorities for a heap of dough. That is basically what the provisions state. Back in 2004, when the original Building Act was passed, the Government made a mistake in the way in which it set the building levy and in the definition of building value.

The question is whether the councils should have to pay for the Government’s stuff-up. Let us remember that it is not the councils that pay the bill; it is actually the ratepayers. What we see in this bill is further increased costs for ratepayers. We heard Local Government New Zealand point out to the Social Services Committee how much the cost of accreditation will actually be for local councils. I give the example of the Dunedin City Council. The Dunedin City Council said that the Building Act this year will require it to increase its costs by $1.3 million a year. It will have to take on an extra 15 staff. Members opposite have said that the reason we need this bill is leaky homes. Well, I hopped along to the Weathertight Homes Tribunal and checked how many leaky homes there are in Dunedin. There are three. What is the total value of the leaky homes in Dunedin? It is $930,000. Why are we imposing on the ratepayers of Dunedin an extra cost of $1.3 million every year for a problem that we know started off costing only $930,000?

My first point is that we have just had a great big rates inquiry. A key recommendation of that rates inquiry is that this Parliament take far more care in imposing additional costs on ratepayers. What does the Government do? It rams through Parliament another building bill that will just add to the rates bills of our constituents all over New Zealand.

Then we come to the issue around code compliance certificates. I was interested in the contribution from Russell Fairbrother earlier. He said that this is a great bill, a really good bill, because it will require the issuing of the code compliance certificate within 5 days. But do members know what? I searched through this bill and I searched through the original Act. Could I find anywhere a penalty for a council that does not issue a certificate within 5 days? No. We know that members opposite passed a Building Act that required building consents to be processed within 20 working days.

💬 Russell Fairbrother: What about Part 2?

I am talking about code compliance certificates, I tell Mr Fairbrother. We know that, in respect of the timing of building consents, they are meant to be processed within 20 working days. Half the time they are not. The Master Builders Federation says that it takes longer to get a consent to build a new house than it actually does to build it. Why would we have any faith in the provisions that are being put in place here around code compliance certificates and the 5-day rule, when there is absolutely no penalty?

💬 Sue Moroney: What has this party got against local government?

I ask Ms Moroney where the penalty is for councils that do not comply within 5 days.

💬 Sue Moroney: What has the National Party got against local government?

Sue Moroney asks what National has against local government. Has the member read the submission from Local Government New Zealand on this bill? The member opposite has obviously not read the submission from Local Government New Zealand, which vigorously opposed what this provision in clause 92 is proposing.

💬 Sue Moroney: What has that party got against local government?

She is like a broken record. I ask that member what she has against ratepayers. Why have rates gone up at three times the rate of inflation since Labour has been in Government? I ask Sue Moroney why rates have gone up at three times the rate of inflation under her Government.

💬 Sue Moroney: Why did unemployment go up so much under the National Government?

Let us talk unemployment, then. Unemployment went up in 1984, under the Labour Government, and continued to go up until 1992. Unemployment started dropping in 1992. It is absolutely true. It is absolutely correct. And unemployment continued to drop right through that period. I say to Sue Moroney and others on that side of the House thank goodness for the National Government and what we did in the 1990s; it provided for a sound economy that has seen a continuing drop in unemployment.

Without the puffery, hot air, and overexpended energy of the previous speaker, Nick Smith, I will address some of the issues in Part 2 of the Building Amendment Bill.

I will start by addressing some of the points that Dr Smith raised. He talked about transitional provisions and about additional impost on local authorities. He said that this bill is basically all about leaky buildings, that Dunedin has only three leaky buildings, and therefore we should do nothing. It is interesting that in this debate tonight the Opposition has taken its usual stance: oppose everything, propose nothing. Those members propose nothing because they have nothing and because they have no idea.

That member Nick Smith talked about the accreditation scheme and why we are auditing and accrediting local authorities. There are a couple of basic reasons. It is because local authorities said to us, and building inspectors said to other people and to me when I was the Minister, that they were doing things like drive-by inspections. The Waitakere City Council was a good example of that with the famous case of the house of Colleen Dicks, where the inspector signed off the house as being weathertight, but there was a big yellow thing called the sun coming through the roof because a big hunk of roof was missing. To this day the builder says that he built a weathertight home because the building inspector signed it off as such, and poor old Colleen Dicks wears it. The truth is that local authorities, some through the best of intentions, were charging for but not delivering an A1 building consent process. Dr Smith also—quite rightly, fair go; I do not often give him a fair go because he does not deserve it, but I will on this point—said that there are delays in building consents and a lack of efficiency.

What we have are two alternatives. We can go to the organisations and say that they are not delivering on time. We can, as Dr Smith wanted to do, put a penalty on the organisations so that if they do not deliver on time we drop the hammer. Dr Smith proposed a bill to this effect. I think it was called the free consent bill or the 20-day rule. Ms Tolley will know, because her chairman wrote it in a National Party newsletter, that Dr Smith’s own National Party called that member and his bill “daft”. I will leave it there, because I can do no better than the description Dr Smith’s own National Party colleagues called him and his bill.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Did not!

They did, and I tabled it. He thinks he can make it up.

What we do with an organisation is to say—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: You’re just lying, like you normally do.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I take offence at that member. He used an offensive term and I would ask for him to withdraw and apologise.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I take offence. This Minister is a guy who can dish it out but who cannot take it.

What is the point of order?

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: The point of order is this. The Minister made an offensive remark about me and I would ask him to withdraw and apologise.

No, I quoted a document.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: He did not quote the document. That is simply untrue. I have taken offence. I have done the honourable thing and have withdrawn and apologised. I say that the Minister should do likewise.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I think the member has a point there. Obviously, on a point of order, he has taken offence.

I withdraw and apologise.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Thank you.

I will table a document later tonight that will prove that member for what he is. In that document is the word “daft”. It refers to his bill, it is from the National Party, and it was penned by the member Ms Tolley’s chairman. That is a fact.

But, moving on, if we have an organisation that is inefficient, we go in and we try to solve the problem. We ask whether it has enough people and resources. If it has, as many local authorities have, a 100 percent increase in building consents but it does not put on one more inspector, or maybe one more typist to type up the consent documents so that the inspectors can go out and give code compliance and those sorts of things, then it has, like any organisation that does not have enough resources, a problem. And, yes, it is true that councils like the one in Palmerston North realised they had a problem. It has new technology, and it has gone from 12 to 20 staff. In Manawatū, the local authority has said it is getting out of providing consents; it wants to contract to the Palmerston North Council, which has the resources and the efficiency. That is what we do. We do not propose a daft bill. We look at the organisation and we attempt to deal with that.

If one does drop the axe, as that member did, and say that a late consent is a free consent, what one fails to understand, among many things, is that the costs for that free consent are not visited on the person who wants the consent to build the house, they do not disappear into the ether. I know that the member has a limited understanding of cost accounting and economics, but those costs do not disappear into the ether. They are visited on every other ratepayer.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. The member who is speaking happens to be a Minister, and I have been really enjoying the opportunity to debate my bill to deal with late consents. But my point of order is that despite the fact that I would love to debate the bill that I introduced, we are debating Part 2 of this Building Amendment Bill, and, very sadly—although I would be happy to include it—it does not actually include my bill to deal with late consents. In fact, there is no mention in clause 92, clause 93, clause 94, or clause 95 of that late consents bill, yet the Minister has given members a 5-minute diatribe on a bill that was debated by Parliament some 6 months ago.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): That is correctly raised on a matter of procedure in the Chamber. I did mention when we commenced this part that its four clauses are to do with validations and transitional provisions.

I would be happy to comply. I suppose what I was attempting to do was to talk about the same issues that Dr Smith mentioned in his own—as he puts it—diatribe.

But the point about this is that, yes, there are costs in some of these measures, and these transitional provisions will have a cost, but, no, this is not just about leaky buildings. This is to ensure that this whole Act and the amendments to it—because we amend Acts to improve them, of course—will secure good building standards and good local authority standards for homeowners so that they can rely on those standards when building what will usually be their biggest asset.

I will leave Dr Smith with this question. I opened my address by saying that he, as usual, in his own bizarre, energetic way—to put it tactfully—has simply opposed every clause in the bill. That is what he is good at. It is the sign of a man who is hollowed out. He has never once proposed an alternative to Part 1 or to all the things he criticises. He has never proposed one item to amend Part 2. He has never stood there and given members his policy or said what he would do in terms of the validation provisions. It is simply a sign of a hollowed out man from a hollowed out party. He is bereft of ideas but is a man who can stand up, and, in an energetic, mega sort of fashion, while going red in the face and with his hair standing on end, have a go to oppose any legislation. I invite the Committee to really reflect on his contribution tonight—or the lack of it, as we have seen time after time.

I seek leave to table the building amendment bill in my name that is before the House, and also the building amendment bill that has been tabled by my colleague Bob Clarkson, which sets out very clearly National’s propositions. I note that during the entire 1990s Labour did not table a single amendment bill as a member’s bill.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Leave has been sought for that course to be followed. Is there any objection? There is.

Thank you, Mr Chair, for the opportunity to speak on Part 2, “Validation and transitional provisions”, of this unfortunate building amendment legislation—the fourth amendment since 2004 and, by golly, the Building Act has needed amendment. It is somewhat ironic that Clayton Cosgrove talks about puffery and hot air; he is the man whom one could describe as a strutter and a poser.

💬 John Hayes: And a puffer.

And a puffer. Nevertheless, he admitted that these transitions will impose more costs. More costs are exactly what this Labour Government has imposed on the building industry, and these transitional provisions do exactly that, and also impose extra costs on the local bodies.

I want to concentrate for a little bit on clause 93, “Transitional provision for content of project information memorandum”, because that was an issue that just about all the local territorial authorities commented on. They made the point that what the Government was trying to do was absolute duplication.

I will for just one moment look at the absolutely positive Wellington submission, which says: “Council is concerned that some of the proposed amendments will not effectively address the current technical issues. Of prime concern to Council are the proposed amendments to change the definition of restricted work, to the definition of owner that do not address the problems of ongoing accountability, to the fee regime that do not address the key issue of appropriate cost allocation, and for accessibility provisions on PIMs that are not necessary and will not address the identified problem.”

That is what I am concerned about, because it is quite clear that the purpose of a project information memorandum is to provide project-specific information that is relevant to the proposed building work. It is designed to act as a big issue. This is made utterly clear by the Auckland City Council. It says that the project information memorandum is designed as a big issue to filter covering areas such as land features, district plan requirements, fire evacuation schemes, etc. It says in its policy analysis that including accessibility and disability requirements in project information memoranda has the potential to deliver more clarity to consumers about the standards that buildings need to meet; however, the manner in which project information memoranda are provided renders them ineffective, for a variety of reasons. The council points out that they are required in building consents, anyway. But, no, this Labour Government insists on a belt and braces approach in this area of accessibility and disability requirements in project information memoranda, even though every local territorial authority throughout the country pointed out that it would impose more costs. As my colleague Lindsay Tisch said: “The largest %age increase in cost has been the rise in local authority infrastructure levies and fees—900% over five years.”

Mr Chairman, I think you are wondering what this has to do with the content of project information memoranda. Indeed, I am sticking precisely to that matter, because I am concerned that every territorial authority in New Zealand was concerned that these requirements are being put into the project information memorandum as well as the building consent. They will impose greater time, greater effort, and greater costs, which are the very characteristics of what permeates throughout this Labour Government amendment bill. It is such a travesty in terms of what has actually been happening in the building industry in New Zealand over the last 5 years.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Mr Chair, for allowing me to speak on this matter. It is of extreme importance to constituents in the Wairarapa electorate. I would like to bring to the attention of the Committee a number of examples of the sorts of costs the massive Resource Management Act brings to individuals in my community. Before I address that, I would just like to say how deeply disappointed I am that the star of the Labour Party, the up-and-coming Shane Jones, has been made a Minister and is in charge of the Building Amendment Bill. I have to say I am deeply, deeply sorry about that. This bill is poorly worded. It is a total shambles, and it will do nothing to reduce the costs to individuals.

My first example of the legislative controls concerns a constituent in Greytown, a Mr Edridge. He went to the South Wairapapa District Council because he needed resource consent under section 92 or 93 of the Act. He needed resource consent to build a fowl house. It cost him $900 in fees paid to the council for a hen house for five hens. That is absolute nonsense.

I have another example. I was phoned the other night at 10.15 by a Woodside farmer, Roger Barton. Under the modular package in the legislation he had approached the South Wairarapa District Council because he wanted to tender for a sheep shed at Wallaceville and bring it across to the Wairarapa and put it on his farm. He asked what the cost would be, and the council said it would be $600 for resource consent. When he actually put the tender in, the council then said to him that under the modular arrangement it required him to have an engineering report done before and after moving the shed. The cost of that was $3,000. The council did not stop there. Then it said that under the rules that apply in section 94 of the Act he had to take a photograph, but it could not be a digital photograph. Mr Barton asked why it could not be a digital photograph, and he was told that was because he might adjust it—he might adjust it!

The point of what I am saying to the Committee is that the Government can have all the rules it likes, but under the current legislation and the bill Shane Jones is now responsible for, common sense has gone out the window.

Let me give members another example from Masterton. I have a constituent who has come to New Zealand from Scotland. He has had to go to the local authority, to the district council, to get approval to put a temporary cover over 17,000 strawberries. He has to do that because the territorial authority has to agree, as per section 93(2) of the Act, to that happening. Now, the territorial authority has said that because the temporary cover units to cover the strawberries are coming from the UK—they are sold globally—he cannot bring them into the Wairarapa without an engineer’s report. So that poor man does not know whether to bring them into the country. If he does not bring them into the country, he cannot get an engineer’s report. Why is it good enough to bring those units into Australia, South Africa, the UK, and right across Europe, yet the legislation here puts red tape in the way of making any sort of progress whatsoever?

There is another problem with regard to this bill. We can have all the words we like, as this bill says, and we do not want leaky homes, but what about the burst water pipes that may result from importing untested copper pipe from China? I am told by many plumbers in my electorate that that copper pipe will not last 7 years, yet it is untested. Why do we have such lengthy legislation, I ask Mr Jones, when he has done nothing to bring the common-sense testing of materials into it?

When we look at the whole question of land and subdivision—

Progress to be reported presently.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported progress on the Building Amendment Bill, and no progress on the Human Tissue Bill.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.55 p.m.