Building Amendment Bill (No 3)

I move, That the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) be now read a second time. This bill was considered by the Local Government and Environment Committee, chaired by the superb member Chris Auchinvole. That committee did a lot of hard work. I thank all the members of it. I know they all worked very assiduously to bring the bill to a better state, and it did refine and improve the bill dramatically. I know that Labour members, and I think even a Green member, gave some very good contributions to the bill. The committee received 55 written submissions and heard 23 oral submissions, and, as I said, made some quite extensive changes to the detail and also some clarification. So we got what I think are improvements and clarifications out of it.

I want to take a very brief call to say the bill is just a very small part of an overall package of things we are doing. This bill also has a successor called the Building Amendment Bill (No 4), which will have a whole lot of the consumers’ rights in it. There is also another bill coming in later on, which adds some more to it. The licensed building practitioners regime becomes mandatory the day after tomorrow, which is another regime that is part of the building industry. So do not let anybody think that the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) is it in a nutshell.

Basically, this No. 3 bill is purely about trying to move to what I think is risk-based consenting. One of the worst things we have had about our building sector for just about ever is that the consenting regime has always been one size fits all. So the bill tries to move away from that and allow for various levels of consenting, based on how difficult the design is, and so on. The select committee did some really good work in trying to align what our policy intent was with some of the actual details of the wording in the bill. I know that a lot of the submissions said they were concerned the bill was not clear on it. Now the bill is finally amended, and being reported back to the House, it has fixed that up.

Quite a few other practical submissions were made, which reflected a lot of things that parties out there wanted to raise. What I am delighted about is the level of support that our package of reforms is getting. The Registered Master Builders Association, the Certified Builders Association, the Building Industry Federation—let me see; there are about five or six others—the Construction Strategy Group, and so on are all very strongly supportive of this stuff.

I will not go into all the detail, but the bill has had some of the documents clarified where some of them are going to be now called “certificate of work” rather than “record of work”. As I said, all the recommendations that were made by the select committee have been incorporated into this bill, and I thank the committee for that. I again move that the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) be now read a second time.

If the Minister who is responsible for the Building Amendment Bill (No 3), the Hon Maurice Williamson, had listened to the submitters to the Local Government and Environment Committee, he would not be standing there, with respect, reading out his half-baked speech on his half-hearted bill, which falls well short of the reform required in the building industry. I outlined those views expressed by those submitters in my media statement released this afternoon, and I do agree with those submitters who correctly called on the Government to withdraw the bill and bring it back to the House once a more comprehensive package of reforms is available. Labour opposes this bill. It appears that the Minister has presented two personas. The one I like is the Minister who was quoted in the media as complaining that leaky homes are still being built—in his own electorate, to be precise—and that “a ‘dramatic overhaul’ of the Building Act is needed desperately to end the crisis”. There is another persona whose rhetoric is much more powerful than the actual work he delivered.

At a time when the building industry is under huge pressure with the Christchurch rebuild, leaky building remediation work, and a huge skill deficit all looming large, a comprehensive reform of the industry is required, not a banded and piecemeal approach. What we need is genuine leadership to address the fundamental problems. It seems to resonate well with the warnings of professionals such as Mr John Scarry and some of his colleagues that most leaky buildings had faulty designs, and that structural engineering in New Zealand is about to become the first profession in the modern world that will cease to be a profession. Poor standards of construction and deficient building materials were the main contributing factors towards the collapse of the CTV building. Hollow core, slender concrete walls, brittle cold-worked welded wire mesh, and deficient floor diaphragms were the main issues, which apply to other at-risk buildings as well. It is appalling to read the New Zealand Herald reports that deregulation of the industry had allowed manufacturers to pay for the development of standards to justify their own products. Even according to Minister Maurice Williamson himself, as I touched upon earlier, leaky homes are still being built and therefore a dramatic overhaul of the Building Act is needed desperately to end the crisis. However, this bill, together with the Building Amendment Bill (No 4), is miles away from being a broad reform package. Rather, they are nothing but partial instalments.

Talking about leadership, I would like to acknowledge the work and efforts made by our officials and thank members of the select committee, former and current ones, for the work they have done. In particular I would like to acknowledge Green and Labour members who presented the minority report, which is necessary, meaningful, and responsible. I would also like to acknowledge the O’Sullivan brothers, who exposed the rotten-timber crisis that has devastated our country.

It is said, shall I add, that many of us have been made aware that the multibillion-dollar rotten-timber disaster in housing is merely the tip of the iceberg. In the 1990s New Zealanders moved away from traditional weatherboard and brick houses. Instead, builders began using flat, lightweight panels with a plaster finish to give a more Mediterranean look. Many builders say the leaky building problem goes back to the introduction of a new building code in 1991. Instead of telling architects and builders how to design and construct houses, it concentrated on results. The Hunn report in 2002 said it highlighted problems that occurred when a performance-based code did not keep pace with rapidly changing building technology. We do support and are in broad agreement with the direction of the Building Act review, which was initiated under a former Labour Government. More important, we must ensure that we fully understand what went wrong in all instances, not to apportion blame but to learn valuable lessons that will minimise the risk of failure in the future. To that end we need genuine leadership to address the fundamental problems.

I read rather earnestly the open letter to the Institution of Professional Engineers by Mr John Scarry in 2002. The letter, which had nearly 80 pages, exposed widespread unacceptable bad practices in the structural engineering profession and the construction industry in New Zealand. I acknowledge the contributions made by Mr Scarry and his colleagues over the past years, seeking to work for positive reforms. I have learnt a lot from that letter. I have also learnt a lot from the two reports by the Building Industry Authority and the Institution of Professional Engineers that examined what they called significant design and construction issues arising out of a review of the Scarry open letter. The media reports offered some grim reading. Since the Scarry open letter, the Waitakere City Trusts Stadium collapsed during its erection. The Stadium Southland, which collapsed under its own weight in 1999 before repairs were made, collapsed in 2010 under a moderate snow load, luckily on one of the few days of the year when the stadium was not full of people. The headline of the New Zealand Herald story on 22 December 2010 says it all: “Roof collapse raises building code fears”. The news report went on to say: “The Southland collapse came after design faults had to be fixed during the construction of Vector Arena and Waitakere Trusts Stadium several years ago.”

This bill includes only some parts of the reform agenda that has been widely discussed with the industry over the last few years. The bill attempts to shift responsibility and accountability away from building consent authorities towards builders and consumers. The role of these authorities is being reduced, but until there is more genuine reallocation of accountability, this bill risks exposing the consumer to greater risk by reducing the role of councils. We think it is risky and unwise to legislate such a piecemeal set of measures at a time when the industry is facing a surge in demand from the Christchurch rebuild, leaky building remediation work, a huge skill deficit, and uncertainty about whether there will be sufficient builders entering the new licensing scheme. We are not talking about statistics. We are talking about a problem that may have affected most housing, schools, museums, airports and seaports, and Government and commercial office space. We are talking about safety, and we are talking about human lives.

The Building Amendment Bill (No 3) is about building quality and building affordability, both of which are critical for New Zealand. This bill is part of a Better Building Blueprint, a blueprint that will make it easier and cheaper for New Zealanders to build good quality homes and buildings.

The bill is a result of a comprehensive review of the Building Act 2004. That review began at a time when the construction industry was slowing. Now, of course, there is a real growth in the sector, focused on the rebuild of Christchurch. We are expecting to build over 10,000 buildings in Christchurch per year every year for the next few years, and people are estimating that that rebuild will cost up to $30 billion. So there are important savings to be made with this legislation.

The construction industry is a very important contributor to the growth of our economy right across the country, and it needs to be as efficient and as effective as possible. This bill is part of a package to improve standards and productivity. With the pace that is required for the rebuild of Christchurch, it is particularly important that we reduce red tape, lift performance, and increase throughput so we can rebuild our city quickly and efficiently. But let me make this clear: this is not about cutting costs or corners; it is all about getting the rules right and increasing the skills and capacity of the industry so we can build right first time. Christchurch is expecting over 20,000 tradesmen to come into our city for the rebuild, so we must ensure that the work that they do is of good quality.

I believe that everybody in this House will support the value of delivering better quality for less money, and I believe that this bill will improve the productivity of our building industry, which is lagging against other countries, and as a result increase the affordability of housing and building in New Zealand. With the enormous amount of building that has to be done in the next few years across the country, and particularly in Christchurch, this is an important piece of legislation, and I commend this bill to the House.

I must say that I am somewhat surprised at that speech from Nicky Wagner, a member from Christchurch. I would have thought that members from Christchurch would not be supporting bills that undermine standards and, in fact, that they would be working in the opposite direction.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: That’s why she won.

Yes, the member might have won in Christchurch, but she should not sacrifice the standards of building around the rest of the country just to stay in line with the free-market approach of Maurice Williamson, who has never believed in decent standards—never believed in decent standards. As a member for Christchurch she should be ashamed of herself for putting her name behind the Building Amendment Bill (No 3), for being the lackey and the puppet of the Minister for Building and Construction and for saying what he wants, rather than looking at the legislation and, especially, looking at the evidence that was brought to the Local Government and Environment Committee.

Labour supported this bill to the select committee. We had hope for it. We thought there was a possibility that a useful package would be put together, and that that would work for the building industry in New Zealand. Unfortunately, with the evidence that came from two groups in particular—from consumers and from builders—what we heard was that this bill just does not cut the mustard. It does not cut the mustard, and what it will result in is a removal from the regulatory authorities of what is, frankly, not enough power and not high enough standards at the moment.

What this bill is designed to do—and the member who spoke before me got it right early: she went for cheap. Of course, I do not mind if things are less expensive, but what I do mind is if we have more leaky buildings and more risky buildings as a result of the shift of the responsibility away from the consenting authorities and on to individual consumers and individual builders, because what—[Interruption] Sorry?

💬 Nicky Wagner: We’ve had the leaking buildings with the consenting authorities at the moment.

Of course we have, because the standards were reduced in 1992 and now you are trying to make them worse. Now the member is trying to make them worse. Maurice Williamson had one crack at making a mess of it as part of the Government, and now what he wants to do is to make it worse still. The standards were reduced by National, we got leaky buildings, we got a whole pile of trouble, and now he wants to make it worse.

The role of the consenting authorities is being reduced, and that accountability is not being pinned on anyone else. So what is going to end up happening in the end? Maybe a shift away from the local authorities? Maybe a shift of responsibility away from them? Some people will think that that is a good idea, but where does it go? It will be left with the $100 shell companies that build houses in New Zealand. You try—even you, Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch—to find a builder who sits behind a $100 company and try to get them to take liability 10 years later, to actually take liability, for the errors that they have made and the poor buildings that they have built. It is impossible. I think anyone who has been a member in this House for any period of time will have had constituents come to them who have had problems with builders who have hidden behind what are effectively shell companies and their reputations. This is not a general comment about the building profession, but all of us know that there are shonky people, often not properly qualified, who have picked up the tools and away they have gone.

The Labour Party will not be supporting this bill from this point on. The Building Act review, which was started under the previous Government—and I think Clayton Cosgrove did quite a lot of work on it—was useful, and we are in broad agreement with the direction. But what the Minister has decided to do is to cherry-pick. He has picked out the bits that he likes—the bits that will deregulate and the bits that will reduce standards—rather than doing a package that is coherent and something that we might be able to support if the whole package was there.

Frankly, many of the submitters said that—[Interruption] Sorry?

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: The licensed building practitioner regime, which comes into effect on Thursday, is reregulating, not deregulating.

The Minister is doing a good bit here and a bad bit there. Why does he want to follow up the little bit of good work he does with a pile of rubbish here? I just do not understand it, although asking for consistency from Maurice Williamson is like asking Murray McCully to come to question time: it is pretty much impossible. It is pretty, pretty, pretty much impossible.

Many of the submitters said the bill would not achieve its objective, because of that piecemeal approach. It picks out only part of the reform agenda, and that adhockery means that there is not a coherent arrangement that has been widely discussed and actually more or less agreed within the industry. If the Minister was more collaborative, and if he worked more closely with the industry, I do not have much doubt that he could get together—[Interruption] Sorry?

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: The industry supports it.

Actually, many of the submitters from the industry who came to the select committee did not support it. No, what they did support was the review. They supported the review because it was a more coherent approach—and credit to Clayton Cosgrove and credit to a lot of the officials.

I went to a damn fine meeting at the Petone Working Men’s Club, where there were hundreds of tradespeople there, and it is fair to say that they had a range of opinions. But they worked through the issues, and they came out with broad agreement—along with, obviously, dozens of other meetings of hundreds of tradespeople—which was mainly reflected in a pretty coherent package that they could wear. But what it did not do—what it did not do—was take from the councils the requirement to be consenting authorities in the way that the Minister is doing in this way.

The role of those consent authorities is very much circumscribed. We believe that we have to have something there, and councils are the logical organisations. They are going to be the ones that are, if you like, the last—can you still say “last man standing”? That is generally the case. They would be the last organisation standing and therefore the logical people to have liability in the end if they have fouled up the process. But if you take away the responsibility from them and give it to the $100 companies, then what happens—what happens—to the consumer who gets the leaky building, or the building where the concrete is not properly affixed or the windows fall out or leaks occur or anything else happens in that way?

The Minister says that you cannot have mandatory warranties and that you cannot have proper proportionate liability—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: I didn’t say that at all.

Well, why did his officials tell the select committee that that is what he thought?

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: No.

Well, why is it in the report? The Minister should get his facts sorted and get his story straight in the area. I have to agree with one of the Minister’s Cabinet papers, where it said: “simply reducing or streamlining [the current Act’s requirements] without first providing other means of quality assurance … would jeopardise building quality … the timing and sequence of each part of the proposed reform package is important.” I totally agree with the officials, and I totally agree with the Minister’s Cabinet paper. It is a pity that the Minister could not read his own reports and get it right.

Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to take a call on the Building Amendment Bill (No 3). I am filling in tonight and will be taking only a quick call for my colleague and Green Party housing spokesperson, Holly Walker.

I wanted to touch on this bill because I have recently, in the last couple of weeks, become a homeowner. I am one of the few people in my generation who are in a privileged position and can afford a house. We have to be frank: for my generation—people in their late 20s and early 30s—homeownership is just a distant dream. They are resigned to a life of renting because we have some of the most unaffordable housing stock in the country.

But the flip side is that when you look at our rental housing stock, we have some of the worst standards of rental housing in the world. I have been touring the country, checking out some of our coldest, dampest flats, and it is a crime what some of our New Zealanders, including refugees, superannuitants, and students, have to put up with. We are talking about holes in walls, we are talking about mould on the ceiling and the walls, and we are talking about kids growing up and getting asthma and other respiratory diseases because of the poor standard of our housing in New Zealand.

It is a key issue, and that is why the Greens approached this bill in a constructive manner. That is why we will be voting, unlike the Labour Party, to support this bill to select committee. It is a key issue.

We have got so many housing issues facing us. We have got a homelessness problem, with potentially tens of thousands of Kiwis classed as homeless. We have got the rebuild in Christchurch, which the member Nicky Wagner touched on, talking about 10,000 houses. But 70,000 houses have been identified in Auckland as part of a housing shortage there. We have got the substandard housing stock that I have touched on, though I guess on the upside we do have 150,000 Kiwi homes warmer and drier because of the memorandum of understanding between the Greens and the National Party with the Warm Up New Zealand: Heat Smart project, which we are very proud of.

But we also have this terrible legacy of the leaky buildings. What the lesson of the leaky buildings saga must be is that when you remove all the regulation, like we did in 1991, which Trevor Mallard and other speakers touched on, you run into problems. Now Kiwis, councils, the Government, builders, and companies are all facing huge costs, literally billions of dollars in liability and costs. It is a huge part of our economy—5 percent—as the Building Act review points out. More than 20,000 buildings get built a year.

The Greens supported the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) to the select committee, but, like Labour, we felt that there were some concerns. I read from our minority report that with the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) we agreed with the Labour Party that we could not see it achieving its objective, “because it is a piecemeal approach, which includes only some parts of the reform agenda that has been widely discussed with the industry over the last few years.” Our objection is that the Government was doing it piecemeal, leaving so much up to regulations.

It is welcome to the Green Party to see the Building Amendment Bill (No 4), because we can finally see the rest of the puzzle put together. So we will be supporting it to select committee. We are going to constructively engage with the submitters and welcome those submissions.

We support the No. 4 bill because it introduces enhanced and more comprehensive consumer protection measures for building work, including the mandatory disclosure of certain information. We think it is perhaps appropriate, and we will be looking in the select committee at increasing the maximum penalties for doing building work without a building consent. But, again, like the Labour Party, we lament the fact that it did not address the consumer protection recommendations, though in the Building Amendment Bill (No 4), new sections 362A and 362S, which are proposed to be inserted into the Act, will hopefully remedy this.

An area that I have just picked up on from reading the Kensington Swan analysis of the bill, and which I would be interested in getting further comment on down the line from the Minister for Building and Construction, is around warranties. Kensington Swan’s analysis of the bill identified that if someone builds their own home or has major renovation works, that person is still liable even if the house is sold subsequently down the line. The analysis points to the fact that potentially you could have a house, and the home builder, who could be a family—because the bill excludes developers or registered builders—maybe did it in that great Kiwi tradition of DIY and built a home for their family, maybe with some builder support, and six sales down the line the home builder will still be faced with liability issues from this house.

What is the outcome of this? We are going to see fewer Kiwis building their homes. We are going to see fewer Kiwis using perhaps what are described as novel, alternative, or sustainable building techniques, methods, or products. What we are going to see is a boon for professional builders as people shy away, worried about the liability issues.

The key question is where does it end? Kensington Swan analysed up to six homeowners. Is it a dozen? Is it 10? Could you have 20 families go through a house, yet that original builder—that family—still be liable? The outcome is going to be that we are going to see fewer family homes built. We are going to see more McMansions built from the same stock.

There are going to be some adverse outcomes, potentially, to this bill. That is why the Green Party goes into it with an open mind. That is why we are going in from a constructive viewpoint and will be voting to send it to select committee, and we look forward to the public’s input there. We have a saying in New Zealand, “safe as houses”, and what the Green Party wants to see in New Zealand is those homes safe as houses.

I am very happy to speak briefly in support of the four main changes in the Building Amendment Bill (No 3). It is No. 3, not No. 4. I talked to a few builders about this on the North Shore, my home electorate. This is a place where building and the construction industry are highly valued. It seems to me that really the four pieces that are in this legislation—clearer accountability; a new building consent system, which is very much risk based; that code of ethics, which is an encouragement, and that is the carrot; as well as the do-it-yourself guy not being very hard-done-by by this legislation—are four measures that have appealed to my electorate a lot and also appeal to me.

I had a bit to do with DIY in 12 years on the garden show, and I would have to say that for the guys who are handy with the hammer—and the women too—it is important that they are able to continue on with their work, but they have to keep the standards high. They cannot go out and afford building inspectors and really crank it up too much. That would stifle the great Kiwi pastime. So I am very pleased with the provisions in the bill, because the safeguards are still there. They still have to meet the requirements of the building code, like all professional builders, and they still have to be accountable for the work that they do, but they do have to watch out for themselves.

The do-it-yourselfers will be prevented from working on more than one home within a 3-year period, because there will always be, I guess, the cowboys who decide that they want to try to get in under the guise of DIY. I think that the provisions in the bill make it very difficult for them, because you are not allowed to actually pay anyone who gives you assistance. So I think the measures are there.

I like the bill, and I am very happy about its checks and balances. I am very happy to support this Building Amendment Bill (No 3).

I am very pleased to stand here on behalf of New Zealand First to discuss the Building Amendment Bill (No 3). New Zealand First does not support this bill, for a great many reasons. I am on the Local Government and Environment Committee, but I was not on the committee when these recommendations from last year’s committee were made. I certainly am somewhat aghast at some of the recommendations contained in this bill.

As one of the very few people in this Chamber who have been involved in local government—

💬 Nicky Wagner: Oh, excuse me!

—as one of the very few—and certainly one of the very few on the current Local Government and Environment Committee, can I bring to this Chamber some of the experiences that I know of in relation to this. In introducing this I would refer to John Scarry, a structural engineer, whom Raymond Huo referred to, and a comment he made recently in Christchurch when he referred to depraved indifference. This bill is very much one that reflects on depraved indifference from this National Government.

In fact, it is a “Back to the Future Bill”, in my opinion. It is a “Brideshead Revisited Bill”. It is going back to the 1990s. It is almost Maurice Williamson, the Minister for Building and Construction, reverting back to his time in the 1990s, when the then Government destroyed the building code, when it ripped the building code apart, when it changed the Building Research Association of New Zealand building research rules and the building code and allowed air-dried timber in this country to be used, after pressure from some of the corporates—its mates in the building industry. The then Government allowed monolithic cladding from Australia to be applied here in New Zealand in a climate where we have a lot of rain, unlike Australia, and where we have the likes of Waitematā clay and moving soils, which are quite different from the conditions in Australia. That, combined with the air-dried timber and the monolithic cladding and the movement of the houses, ended up as our leaky house problem.

I can recall 18 months ago when the Minister Maurice Williamson slammed the phone down on me and five other mayors during a phone call when we were discussing the leaky home situation. It was at the time the Minister was offering a 10 percent offer on the table for full and final settlement from the Government to solve the leaky homes issue. I said that that was an insult. I said it was an insult to New Zealanders who had been left in the lurch with their leaky homes for the Government to offer 10 percent. The Minister said: “Take it or leave it. That’s all you’re getting. If you don’t take it, the Government will walk away from this.”

We, the North Shore City Council at the time, commissioned a Covec report, and the Covec report by independent financial analysts showed that the $11 billion - plus rebuild of leaky homes in New Zealand was going to return the Government in excess of at least 25 percent in taxes in the way of GST, PAYE, and other company taxes. The Government, essentially, was going to get its $2 billion or $3 billion back in taxes from the rebuilding exercise of over $11 billion in New Zealand homes.

It was interesting that as a result of giving that report to the Minister at the time, within 30 days the Government turned round and offered 25 percent on the table. Suddenly, the deal went from 10 percent to 25 percent. It proved then that the Government really did not know what it was doing with leaky homes, and it really did not understand what it had created back in the 1990s with deregulation and the lowering of standards.

And here we are seeing it all over again in this bill. Do we really want to see a situation where $100 window companies can be responsible again for what is going on in our building industry? Do we want to see our homes revert to being built with builder’s bog sealants and jerry-building standards and with self-policing of such standards by constructors and consumers alike? We do not want to see that. The only way we can stop this is to ensure that the local authorities, the local regulators, and the local people with responsibility have a good input into how our homes and our buildings in this country are built.

I was recently at a major college on the North Shore and I was aghast to find also that it has something like between $20 million and $30 million of rebuilding of buildings to fix its leaky school buildings problem. My understanding is that that is just one of something like 500 colleges in New Zealand that are going to have to go through the same exercise.

We heard from the Prime Minister just recently that the Government is planning to sell $5 billion to $7 billion of State assets to help upgrade our schools and bring them into the 21st century. I put it to you that perhaps it is having to sell the $5 billion to $7 billion of assets, in actual fact, to get money in to fix the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of leaky school buildings throughout this country.

I think we might be getting sold down the river on this particular one, and I would be very interested to see this again. Just as we are looking back 20 years now—back to the 1991-92 period when this happened, 20 years ago—it will be very interesting at the end of this decade to look back and say: “What happened to our schools? Did they get all that money reinvested in them for, supposedly, improvements? Or was it just to fix the National Government’s leaky building problem?”.

This bill shifts responsibility and accountability away from the authorities and it puts it back on the builders and consumers. It puts it back on those $100 window companies. This is an all-care, no-responsibility approach by this National Government. Have we not learnt from the leaky homes saga, which was a national disaster in the 1990s? And it is about to create another disaster in this decade.

Also—and I particularly am concerned about this, having watched the royal commission in Christchurch and heard about some of the problems there with the building standards in Christchurch, and perhaps some of the questionable designs and building methods used in Christchurch that have resulted in some of the major failures of those buildings. Do we want to have a situation where our building industry is self-regulated to the point where builders can put up structures, where they can put up buildings, and supposedly be self-policing and self-complying? Do we want that situation? And then in years to come, because we are in an earthquake zone, because we are in a zone of movement of land in this country, do we want to look back again—like the leaky homes situation, like the leaky school buildings situation—and say: “How on earth did we let that National Government allow this sort of thing to go through, and allow the lowering of standards of our building code and of the building of our premises and corporates, and our housing and our schools, and every other structure in this country?”.

New Zealand First does not support this bill. We believe this bill is just another case of the National Government pandering to some of its corporate mates and assisting the building industry, as it did in the 1990s with the air-dried timber, and as it did in the 1990s with the monolithic cladding. The Minister is smiling, but the Minister was there in the 1990s when the Government allowed it to happen.

This is Brideshead Revisited, this is Back to the Future, this is bringing back the 1990s all over again. This Parliament should be ashamed if it puts this bill through in this form, because we all will be individually held to account in years to come if we go back to a situation of having inferior building standards, inferior housing, inferior school buildings, and inferior commercial buildings, all as a result of this building Minister and this Government allowing the building standards to once again be lowered. Thank you.

I rise to speak to the second reading of the Government bill, the Building Amendment Bill (No 3). Labour opposes this bill for some very good reasons—

💬 Hon Members: What are they?

—leaky homes—that I now wish to outline. The leaky homes problem, which became apparent in the 1990s, was a problem long before it was addressed. It came about as a result of inadequate legislation. My fear is that here we go again, making more inadequate legislation—a risk that we should not be running in this sector. There is no doubt in my mind that building regulation is very important for our country. When we compare, for example, the earthquakes in Haiti and Christchurch, we see both as tragedies, but we can be somewhat thankful that we had stricter building regulation here. It is an important area of law, and it is an important area to get right.

There are aspects tied up with leaky buildings that relate to health, poverty, and our poor housing stock. The rates of rheumatic fever at the moment are of great concern, so there is no doubt that we need to address these matters. When I think of leaky buildings I think of stories I have heard, as I am sure other members of the House do, where companies have disappeared overseas and individual builders have disappeared overseas. This is a problem that this bill does not seek to address. I can remember a story of a couple who built a house. They planned it, as couples do. They spent a lot of time investing in the plans and in the final product. This couple, perhaps unlike many other examples that have been used, did not take a case to have the leaky building addressed by any kind of official mechanism. They have gone about fixing the house themselves, but over time this has amounted to an enormous cost and, as I have already said, the builders had long since disappeared. I am sure we can all recount similar stories.

The current proposal is to shift responsibility to builders and consumers, and that in itself is a laudable goal. If it were to be effectively done, it would be done in a way that allocated them their respective level of responsibilities, as is appropriate to their responsibility in being part of the decision making around the building. But Labour has a view—which I believe has been wisely formed—that this reallocation of responsibilities needs to be looked at properly, looked at hard, and looked at long, and it ought to be a genuine reallocation. That is what is required. That might be generated by something like mandatory home warranties or the introduction of proportionate liability, and unfortunately the legislation as it is currently proposed does not deal adequately with such remedies. It does instead shift the responsibility in a way that stops short of the ideal solution. There is a risk of exposing consumers in this scenario in a way that they should never be exposed, and of reducing council responsibilities in a way that is unhelpful.

Submitters convinced those who did sit on the Local Government and Environment Committee that the benefits of a broader package should be considered more fully, and this package here, which we have before us in the legislation, is not as full as it ought to be. That is why Labour opposes this bill and will continue to oppose this bill, unless significant change comes forward.

Just to reiterate, the aim of the Building Act review is a worthy one: the better allocation of responsibility and accountability between regulatory authorities, building professionals, and consumers. It is the way in which this has—or, rather, has not—been done that we are opposing. Labour thinks that it is both risky and unwise to legislate in such a piecemeal fashion on such an important issue and at a time when the industry itself is facing a surge in demand and a lack of skills. We have also got, simultaneously, the issue of Christchurch and the rebuild. These are not insignificant issues, and it is important, rather than rushing into legislation that is imperfect, that we face these other issues and generate legislation that is truly lasting and that will truly address the problems that we have. I can recall, in my recent occupation as a head of a university hall, trying to get hold of a structural engineer, and even in Dunedin, a town not that close to Christchurch, it is difficult to locate the services of such a person because of the demand in Christchurch for that profession. That is just one aspect of the building profession. There are huge demands on those people right now, and those pressures must be also addressed.

These reasons are why Labour and the Green Party submitted their minority view—well, at least I can say they are why Labour submitted its minority view—at the select committee, and it is from a fear that as it stands, the bill might allow the homeowner fewer remedies when left in the lurch by a $100 shell company. It is simply not acceptable that that be the case. We believe that a fuller and broader piece of work needs to be done so that we have adequate legislation to protect consumers and to shield them from the risks that this particular approach would generate. So that is why we will oppose this bill, and I am very proud to stand here on behalf of Labour and deliver that message. Thank you.

I want to commend the previous speaker, Dr David Clark, for the delivery of that speech. Ten minutes can seem like an awfully long time in such circumstances—called to your feet a little bit impromptu—and your former occupation has served you well. I want to speak in endorsement of the Building Amendment Bill (No 3).

💬 Hon Member: Was that a compliment?

That was a compliment, and they flow fast and furious from my lips.

It is only a week since I attended a meeting of a development group in Whanganui that was experiencing extreme frustration with trying to get subdivisions and create employment, which Whanganui desperately needs at this time. It was being frustrated by an inconsistent approach from councils. Some of the frustrations will be dealt to with the passing of this legislation around the granting of consents for similarly designed buildings built on repeat scales on the same land by the same builders who have been proven to be trustworthy in the past. I commend this bill to the House and look forward to its smooth transition.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am going to call Kris Faafoi, but before I do, is this a split call with the Greens, or is this a—

💬 Kris Faafoi: Not that I am aware of, Mr Assistant Speaker.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: It should be.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Kris Faafoi.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to the Building Amendment Bill (No 3). It was going to be a relatively short contribution, but for the benefit of Mr Henare, seeing as he has asked for more, we will try to extend it as far we possibly can—as far as we possibly can, for the benefit of the member.

I rise, following David Clark, for the second reading of this bill. As he stated, we do oppose this bill. We did not oppose this bill at the first reading, but upon hearing evidence and submissions at the select committee, it has become clear to us that there are a number of concerns around the fullness of the measures being taken in this bill and that they do not, in fact, tackle a number of the issues that have come about by, as David Clark has mentioned, concerns around the leaky building phenomenon in New Zealand. So we believe that in its current state, this is a piecemeal piece of legislation.

Unfortunately, as I said, it was a piece of legislation that we did support. It entered this House with high hopes that it would take some very concrete measures to ensure there was a certain degree of accountability across the industry and also with homeowners to ensure that there was accountability around the issue of leaky buildings, but, as became clear in the Local Government and Environment Committee, this bill did not meet those requirements. Labour supported this bill’s referral to a select committee and although we are in broad agreement with the direction of the Building Act review—which, of course, began under Labour—we will not be supporting this Building Amendment Bill (No 3) any further at this second reading stage.

I believe it was a New Zealand First member earlier on in this debate who said that the onus is on us to make sure that we do get regulations—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: I didn’t say anything.

Pardon? Sorry; that is a former New Zealand First member on that side of the House. It is a current New Zealand First member in the Parliament who said the onus is on us to make sure that we get regulations around building right. Given recent history with the leaky building experience, and when we are talking about the likes of schools and homes and hospitals, it is a responsibility of this House to make sure we get this legislation right. And that is why at this stage we have chosen not to support it, because of its piecemeal nature.

After listening to those submitters at the Local Government and Environment Committee, we believe—and a lot of submitters agreed with Labour at the select committee—that this bill should be scrapped and we should be starting again, and that we should have a broader package of measures around regulations for the accountability of the building industry and protections for consumers in a new building amendment bill.

The purpose of the bill, as Mr Clark said, is worthy, and that is why we did support it at the first stage. For those listening at home at quarter to 10—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: How many?

They are listening for interjections from Mr Henare, but the purpose of the bill—it is your bill, so maybe they might want to hear what the purpose of the bill is—is to change or clarify the building consent and inspection requirements, that building design and construction requirements are also changed and clarified, that the licensed building practitioners regime is changed and clarified, and that the law relating to DIY projects—which I am sure Mr Henare is a dab hand at, dab hand, not dab fist—is also changed, to ensure that there are the appropriate requirements for better protection. And I guess it is, as David Clark said, adequate protection for consumers.

As a number of our speakers have said, we will not be supporting this legislation, because of its piecemeal nature. We believe that there is significant change needed in this area and that, although we did commend the bill for select committee deliberation, it has become clear to us that it no longer meets the requirements of this side of the House, indeed, to support it in terms of that significant change. We also think that it is risky and unwise to legislate this piecemeal legislation, this set of measures, at a time when the industry is facing a rather large surge of demand around the increased needs of Christchurch, and, nationally, the repair of leaky homes.

Of course, there is a huge skills deficit, one that we do not think is being addressed, and concern and uncertainty about whether there will be sufficient builders entering the new licensing scheme—

💬 Colin King: Rubbish—heaps of young people being trained. Heaps of people being trained.

I hear the member for Kaikōura, Mr Colin King, someone whom I respect personally, who says that it is rubbish that there is a skills shortage. It is a fact that there is a skills shortage and that under the 49th Parliament National actually decreased the number of training places. So it is a complete fact that there is a significant shortage of skills, especially in this area when we are looking at a significant rebuild of Christchurch and the repair of leaky homes.

It is an onus on this Parliament to make sure that we do have a set of thorough regulations and legislation around building and the accountability of those who are involved in the building process. We do not believe that this bill supplies the people of New Zealand with that. We thought it might do at the first reading, but as submissions went forward in the select committee hearings, it became clear to us, because of the volume and the nature of the concerns of the submitters at the select committee, that this legislation will not achieve what it set out to achieve, and it is for those reasons that we will not be supporting this bill—because of its piecemeal nature. We think significant change is needed in the law and that is why we will not be supporting this bill any further.

The Building Amendment Bill (No 3) provides for clearer accountability for building practitioners, building consent authorities, and consumers in making sure work complies with the building code. It is an excellent bill and I commend it to the House.

I rise to take a call on the Building Amendment Bill (No 3). Some of the history of this legislation and the circumstances around it have been traversed, some in particular by the member Andrew Williams, but it does behove us to look back a little bit and see just what happened the first time round, when the National Government was in charge of regulating the building industry.

In fact, what happened was that the regulations surrounding building requirements were so diluted and so reduced to the lowest common denominator under the current Minister for Building and Construction, who was the Minister at that time also, that we saw a burgeoning of cowboy-type operations in the construction industry. In fact, I wish we had seen them, but we did not see them. They often operated under the radar, and covered things up with sufficient coats of paint for people not to be able to discern the inadequate nature of the materials they were working with. So over a number of years the problem emerged.

After the 1990s and the National Party’s term in Government, when one of its tasks was in fact to dilute the regulations around the construction industry, we saw people beginning to suffer hugely from this shoddy and corner-cutting practice. So the Labour Government then sought to tighten up regulations. By the time I came into Parliament in 2005, Clayton Cosgrove was in charge of this portfolio and was taking meetings all around the country of people involved in the construction industry. I remember attending two of them on the North Shore. I was working in the Labour North team at that time, so the North Shore was an area of particular interest to me and an area that I knew well. I remember going to a breakfast meeting with Clayton Cosgrove and there were 200 builders there who were concerned about liability. They wanted to see a tightening of the regulations, because they were sick of being undermined and maligned by the practices of less professional members of the building and construction industry than themselves. Having had this whole episode where they were getting the blame—some of the good and very competent, trustworthy, and capable builders were getting the blame for shoddy workmanship—there was concern that in our tightening up of the regulations they might be subjected to too much liability for products that they were not in fact responsible for.

That was a legitimate concern, because the blame needed to lie with the perpetrators of the shortcuts—those people who manufactured inadequate products; those people who built in a rapid and careless fashion. Those people needed to take responsibility. So with a room at the North Shore Events Centre packed with 200 or so builders, Clayton Cosgrove got a very good idea about what the concerns of the industry were: “Don’t tighten up so much that we can’t do our job or we get tagged with liability that is not our fault, but, on the other hand, tighten it up enough to get rid of the cowboys out of the industry and to protect the homes that New Zealanders are having built.” So we proceeded down that path.

What this bill represents is a return to shoddy practices. It does not provide enough of a bulwark against shoddy building practices. It is a return to National’s favourite home, which is the “no regulation” territory: “Let’s regulate as little as possible, because all our friends in business complain about red tape and regulation.” Well, sometimes regulations are there for a reason. In fact, they are always there for a reason. Every now and then they need to be updated because the reasons change, but they do not, in the case of this legislation, warrant being wound back in the way that this legislation proposes. We supported this bill going to the Local Government and Environment Committee, and we are kind of there with the Building Act review, but this bill does not deserve to proceed any further. It represents a short-sightedness, an attitude that has not learnt from history. Even in the same person—the same Minister—there is not the learning from history that New Zealanders deserve if the building of their homes is to be protected adequately from a repeat of the problems of the 1990s.

So we think it is unwise. There are risks pertaining to legislating such a piecemeal piece of legislation—a piecemeal set of measures—at a time when the industry ought to be gearing up to meet the building requirements not only of Christchurch but of future years when we finally have back a Government that is committed to building houses that people can afford to get into, instead of cutting off people’s opportunities to own their own home. So our position is that we agree with those submitters who wanted the bill to be withdrawn and brought back in a more comprehensive form. Again, do not do half the job; do the whole job, and do it properly. There is no harm, there is no shame, in saying “OK, we haven’t got everything quite right here. We’ll just hold it off. We’ll make some changes and we’ll bring it back in an improved way that the House can pass without any difficulty.” This is not that bill. This is not that bill, and it contains dangers within it that will see us going back to the 1990s completely unnecessarily.

People deserve to live in houses that are built by workmanship they can trust. We have very capable workmen and craftspeople out there who can build houses adequately to proper specifications. Do not dilute the regulations now. Do not put aside all of the experience of the 1990s and the things we learnt. Go back and get another 200 North Shore builders into the events centre and talk to them again over breakfast. Talk to them twice. I went to two of those meetings on the North Shore with Clayton Cosgrove, and the builders were very clear about the need to tighten regulations and to stipulate where liability should lie but also to make sure they could have some confidence that their professional integrity could be maintained. We do not agree with the bill proceeding. Thank you.