Building Amendment Bill (No 4)

I support this Building Amendment Bill (No 4).

Well, that is one of the better contributions we have heard from Nicky Wagner recently. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to spend the dying moments of Thursday afternoon with the National backbenchers. We are coming to the end of what has been a fantastic week for the Opposition. They are reeling punch-drunk from the blows on that side of the House. They have wheeled out the junior Minister Simon Bridges to keep an eye on the backbenchers this afternoon.

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: He’s on youth rates. He’s on youth rates.

That is right: he is on youth rates. That is right—he is. We are here to speak to the Building Amendment Bill (No 4). It is my pleasure to make a few comments about this bill. We have said many times that we are broadly supportive of the Building Act review process. It was begun under the last Labour Government in the wake of the leaky buildings crisis. There has been a fair measure of cross-party support for the Building Act review process as together we try to fine-tune and develop the Act to protect consumers more and to tackle some of the deep-seated problems in the building and construction industry that were behind the leaky buildings catastrophe.

We have not supported all of the measures that this Government has taken. Indeed, the last couple of bills, including this Building Amendment Bill (No 4), Labour has not supported, because we feel that the Government has really fallen down on the job. In a nutshell we believe that this bill is part of a piecemeal and uncoordinated approach to the problem, and that is not worthy of support.

For the folks at home who may be just tuning in, given that this is an interrupted debate, I want to just summarise briefly some of the key provisions of this bill. It is the second of two bills that are part of the Building Act review process. It attempts to introduce enhanced consumer protection measures, including mandatory written contracts for work valued over a particular amount, and mandatory disclosure of certain information by building contractors. It has a set of requirements around that including penalties for breaches of those provisions.

Secondly, it clarifies exemptions from the building consent requirements in the Act by rewriting the whole schedule. It adds some new exemptions as well. So it is a bit of tidying-up work there. It adds a new power for territorial authorities to deal with buildings that are at risk because they are adjacent to dangerous buildings. That is particularly relevant, I think, in Christchurch as it deals with the post-earthquake recovery. The bill increases the maximum penalty for the offence of doing building work without a consent. It doubles it from $100,000 to $200,000. It has got a whole section on dams, and it introduces the concept of a classifiable dam and a referable dam. It basically applies a risk-based approach to the regulations around dams, which, I think, the Local Government and Environment Committee has been in agreement is a pretty sensible approach. It makes a number of other minor and technical amendments.

I want to go back to our criticism, and why Labour is not supporting this bill. First, it has a very narrow focus on residential properties, and it fails to address the wider concerns that affect the whole of the construction industry. In the recent case dealing with Spencer on Byron, that hotel or apartment complex in Takapuna, basically the Supreme Court held that the council owed a duty of care for all buildings, irrespective of whether they were residential or not. I think that is a good pointer, or should have been, to the select committee that the focus on residential buildings is far too narrow here.

The other thing that it does is replace the old code compliance certificate with a consent completion certificate, and what this does is attempt to reduce some of the burden, some of the liability, that councils face, which has left them so often as the last man standing, with the ratepayer being expected to pick up the tab for deficiencies in work that possibly, in many cases, should be the responsibility of builders or designers. We believe, as do a number of submitters—in fact, the Home Owners and Buyers Association of New Zealand made this point very eloquently at the select committee—that this is a step too far until some of the quality improvement and accountability measures come to maturity, particularly, for instance, the licensed building practitioners scheme. Until consumers can have more confidence that they are going to have accountability and high-quality work done, then actually removing some of the responsibility from local government is going to have the effect of reducing the protection for consumers. That is really the opposite of what this bill is supposed to be doing.

The two really big issues that, I think, have been hanging over the whole Building Act review process are a consideration of joint and several liability, which is the legal doctrine that we have in New Zealand, and there has been a lot of debate about whether we should shift to one of proportionate liability. This debate has been one of the big kind of ripples after the leaky buildings disaster. That issue was deemed to be in the too-hard basket by the Hon Maurice Williamson. It has been flicked off to the Law Commission, which is currently looking at whether or not New Zealand could shift to a system of proportionate liability. That would mean, for instance, that the different players responsible for, for example, a leaky home would be financially liable only proportionate to their share of responsibility for the work done. The other idea that has been proposed by many, many people is that of mandatory insurance—mandatory warranties backed by insurance. That would be probably the single biggest thing that would clean up the industry and give consumers protection and accountability. That has also been put in the too-hard basket by this Government. So there is a lot of twiddling of the knobs with this bill and not much that addresses the real issues that are affecting the very low levels of productivity in our building and construction industry, and the great vulnerability that consumers have in this country.

The one provision that we would support—and we think it should probably be sliced off and dealt with separately as a bill in its own right—is the provision dealing with dams. That is pretty straightforward, and we do not see why that should not go ahead. We just think, along with a lot of the submitters who came to the select committee, that this bill does an injustice to the Building Act review process. It is tinkering with a whole lot of small things, including the liability of local government. It is not likely to enhance protection for consumers, and it needs a rethink.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.