Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill

I do want to note that in the third reading speech, when I was interrupted, I noted the huge gains in seismic resistance of our building stock in the intervening 80 years between the Napier earthquake and the Christchurch earthquake, which amount to a 95 percent improvement in survivability.

I would conclude by saying that this bill is about improving that safety margin again so that fewer families face the loss of a loved one, while also being realistic about the costs and the impacts on heritage. The very substantive change in this bill is that for 85 years our regulation around earthquake-prone buildings has been focused on the standard of new buildings, whereas this bill provides for national regulation around buildings that are older—and obviously there are substantive changes that go with the profession of engineering in being able to upgrade those. This bill is going to be challenging to implement, but I think that if every member of this House reflected on the tragedies associated with the Christchurch earthquake, they would know that this Parliament needs to do everything it can to manage the seismic risks that are so significant for our country. On that basis, I thank all those who have been involved in the development of this bill. It is a sensible approach that strikes the balance in an appropriate place, and I commend it to the House.

Labour is supporting the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill. We have supported it all the way through the House, and we are supporting it in this third reading.

I want it read into Hansard that I am not always ferociously critical of the work of the Hon Dr Nick Smith. I do not often get the opportunity to stand in the House and praise the Hon Dr Nick Smith for his work—but in this case I will. When this bill was brought to the House by Nick Smith’s predecessor, the Hon Maurice Williamson, on, I think, 7 August 2013, the Labour spokesperson at the time, our former colleague Raymond Huo, made a number of comments that I thought were on the mark. He said that it was very important that there was not a one-size-fits-all approach taken with the legislation and that we needed to take into account the importance of protecting heritage buildings, and he urged a bit of a rethink of the policy that Maurice Williamson proposed.

Where we need to give credit to the Hon Dr Nick Smith is that he did listen to the concerns that were being raised by members of this House and at the Local Government and Environment Committee. I think that the select committee came to the view, pretty quickly, that if the bill had progressed in the form in which it was introduced by Maurice Williamson, there would have been some pretty calamitous consequences for the economy, and for towns and cities around New Zealand that had a stock of old heritage buildings; and there would have been huge, unnecessary costs and impositions on building owners around New Zealand. So the select committee came to that view, and, I think, sensed that the approach in the bill was not appropriate and that it needed a pretty fundamental rethink. Shortly after that, Dr Nick Smith made an announcement—at, I think, the National Party conference—that there would be a comprehensive rewrite. He was true to his word, and the bill that we see now is largely a result of that rewrite.

There are number of key changes that I want to refer to. The first is that, basically, a graded system is applied across the country, based on estimates of seismic risk. So under the bill the country is split into zones according to their risk of having a large earthquake, and both the time frames for assessment and the degree of strengthening required are varied according to the level of seismic risk in each zone. That is the fundamental change that was made. It forms the basis of the new bill and it is something that we wholeheartedly support.

So, as a result of that, affected buildings in low-risk areas such as Auckland, Northland, and Dunedin will now need to be identified and assessed within 15 years and strengthened within a further 35 years. Under this legislation, owners of heritage buildings can apply for an additional 10 years’ extension. What that means is that a heritage building in the northern part of the country or in Dunedin may not be strengthened for 60 years. That is at one extreme of the spectrum, but that does show that the graded, risk-based approach that is embodied in the bill actually does give building owners a pretty reasonable time frame within which to address the need to strengthen those buildings. So if you look at an area like Hamilton and Tauranga, the time frame will be between 10 years and 25 years—that is a medium-risk area. The high-risk areas like Wellington and Christchurch keep their existing time frame in the bill of 25 years.

One of the other improvements in the bill was that there is a new category of priority buildings, and that will cover those buildings with unreinforced masonry features like a parapet or a verandah where there is a risk that those things could fall into the public road or a footpath, or some other thoroughfare. A number of colleagues in the course of the various debates we have had have paid tribute to Ann Brower, the citizen in Christchurch who, I think, was the sole survivor of a bus crash in the February 2011 quake when her bus was crushed by falling masonry. Ann Brower spoke up and she lobbied very effectively for the need to address, particularly, this issue of falling masonry and parapets, and so on. So I think that was a major improvement to the bill. The priority buildings will constitute, I think, about 2,000 buildings across the country, and the times for both the assessment and the upgrade requirements are halved for that special category. So, for example, a building in Auckland would need to be identified and assessed within 7½ years and strengthened within a further 17 years if it is classified as one of those priority buildings.

My late father used to refer affectionately to New Zealand as the Shaky Isles. We live with the constant presence and the constant risk of earthquakes—here in Wellington, we do. It is a little less of a factor in Auckland—but then Auckland has volcanoes. So it is appropriate and timely that our legislation appropriately takes into account the risks faced by buildings, and what happened in Christchurch, where out of a population of 370,000 people there were 255 fatalities. That was a huge price to pay, and what we know is that the consequences of those quakes in Canterbury showed us that buildings that are properly built and constructed to the modern building standards actually do really well. When buildings are not constructed to the modern standard, they do not do nearly so well, and the consequence when a major quake happens is that there is considerable loss of life and risk to property.

So we support this bill. I think it is a really good example of the House—including the select committee process—working really well. I think the fact that the bill as it was initially introduced by Maurice Williamson was so far off the mark and had such significant flaws should be a cautionary tale, actually to us all in the legislative process here. It should make us pause whenever the Government proposes that bills should be pushed through under urgency, without taking the time that is available at a select committee to give the kind of proper scrutiny and consideration that important or complex bills deserve. It should give us pause to reflect that none of us has a monopoly on wisdom, and what seems like a good idea—or the best idea at the time—might actually be significantly improved through public debate, through debate in this House, and through expert advice and public scrutiny at the select committee stage. Thank you.

It has been just over 5 years since the very tragic earthquakes in Canterbury. We have learnt an awful lot as a nation and as a Parliament in those 5 years. I guess one of the great learnings to have come out of the tragedy that took place in Canterbury 5 years ago is a recognition that so many other parts of New Zealand are, in fact, vulnerable to earthquakes and so many of our older buildings around the country are at risk—not only the buildings but the people who live, work, and spend time in those buildings are at risk as well. This piece of legislation goes to the root of what it is to try to ensure that at some stage in the future, if we, as a nation, are to be hit again by a tragic earthquake, our buildings and work spaces are in a better state than some of those were in Christchurch 5 years ago.

The bill as originally introduced back in December 2013 has been significantly and radically changed. The bill that we are considering here today, in its third reading, is a much-changed piece of legislation. I guess that reflects that this is a very complex policy area. It is a policy area that is fraught with difficulty because it involves land, property rights, buildings, money, heritage buildings, and a whole range of other risks. Overlaid across those components are the relative seismic risks from different parts of the country: the geographic seismic risk varies from part to part, around our nation.

This bill now, very importantly, removes the one-size-fits-all approach that was present in the original legislation. The bill now provides a proportionate response to the risks that I have been talking about. It minimises the cost to property owners, it spreads out the time frames involved for remediating properties, and it seeks to retain as many of New Zealand’s heritage buildings as possible. This varying of time frames and measuring against that seismic risk is very important. The time frames now for the identification of buildings will be 5, 10, and 15 years, depending on the seismic risk; and then the time frames for the actual strengthening of the buildings will be 15, 25, and 35 years. This is a complete change from what was originally introduced in the bill.

Another major change has been that the bill now prioritises and gives special status to educational buildings and emergency buildings, such as schools, universities, and hospitals. Those buildings in high seismic risk areas will need to be identified and upgraded within half the time frames for other buildings. I think that is a very pragmatic and sensible approach to be taken for buildings that house people at greatest risk.

The Local Government and Environment Committee was impressed, as previous speakers have said, by the compelling submission from Ann Brower. She was the only survivor of the bus tragedy in Christchurch. She highlighted the very real and important extra risks associated with unreinforced masonry on buildings—things like parapets, facades, verandahs, and the like. The committee, on the basis of her compelling submission, changed a piece of the legislation to include unreinforced masonry. I think that, if nothing else, that highlights the importance and the value of a good, rational, well-made submission at a select committee and how important that process is to our legislative processes of Parliament.

The provisions of the bill relating to structures such as farm sheds, retaining walls, fences, monuments, wharves, bridges, tunnels, and storage tanks have been removed. They have been removed on the basis that those structures are all required to comply with other codes, which means that it would not be necessary for this bill to be partly focused on those sorts of structures.

This is a very pragmatic, sensible piece of legislation now. It is radically changed from the bill that was originally introduced, and I am very pleased that it has been changed. This is because the select committee and Parliament have, I think, given it due consideration in a way that has produced what will now be a good piece of legislation that gives certainty and a time frame that building owners and property owners can work to. I commend it to the House.

It is my pleasure to take a call on this bill as it ends its life and goes through this House to become law. I think it is law that many of us are very happy to see put in place. I would like to acknowledge the speaker who has just resumed his seat, Scott Simpson, the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee, who chaired the select committee process. This is because it was in the select committee process where the heavy lifting on this bill was done.

Back in March 2012 some terms of reference for a review into our earthquake-prone buildings in New Zealand were released. Out of that we saw a piece of legislation that was tabled in this House in 2013. That was not really a bill that was fit for purpose, and other speakers have traversed some of the reasons why that bill was not fit for purpose. Then we fast-forward a period of time, and the new Minister for Building and Housing, Nick Smith, announced at a National Party regional conference that there was going to be a thorough review of that piece of legislation and that we would go back to the drawing board. There was a lot of work done at the select committee. I think that this bill really was an example of what happens when this place works well—when submitters are listened to, and when select committees work in a constructive way to come up with the best piece of legislation that is possible. Although a lot of work had been done on changing the bill that went back to the select committee, we still had eleventh-hour changes to this bill.

Speakers have referred to the unremitting lobbying by Ann Brower and her dedication to seeing this bill through and making sure that it was a constructive piece of legislation. It really did cause some eleventh-hour amendments to be made to this bill. I think the Minister, back in September last year when these changes were brought about, said they were going to be known as the “Brower amendments”. I would like to acknowledge Ann—she is not here yet, but I know she is winging her way to Wellington to see the passage of the bill tonight because it is that important to her. I guess none of us can underestimate what being the sole survivor of something like being on that bus in Christchurch, when we saw buildings fail—the impact that that would have on your life, and your dedication to make sure that this never happens again.

Mr Simpson, the chair of the committee, talked about when this bill first saw the light of day. There was a lot of expert evidence from scientists who said that, averaged across the country, the threat of earthquake risk was not that alarming. But, of course, what we know about seismic activity is that we do not average it across the country. It tends to follow geological patterns and does not equitably share itself amongst the centres of this country—it has its favoured places. Some of those favoured places are ones that we do not actually expect: as Cantabrians we never thought that Christchurch would be the city that copped “the big one” in this generation—we thought it would be Wellington. So we really do have to follow the expert evidence and the very good science that we have around seismic activity and seismic risk in this country.

The suggestion that came forward was that we do the sensible thing and divide the country up according to the risk profiles. If you live in Wellington or Napier or Christchurch, you are now deemed to be in a much riskier seismic place than if you live in Auckland or Dunedin. In the case of Auckland, we will not talk about the volcanoes—there are other risks there. But in terms of seismic risk, the time frame, what you needed to do, and how quickly you needed to put your house in order were determined by risk. This was the very sensible and pragmatic approach that the select committee took. It was from listening to those experts, listening to the scientists from GNS Science, listening to engineers, listening to economists, listening to local councils, listening to geologists, and listening to earthquake survivors like Ann Brower that we were able to make this a better bill. So I think this very much is about evidence-based lawmaking, and I think that is something that we do need to celebrate.

Not only did we have the terms of reference that the review in 2012 put in place to review the Acts, which the previous Minister Maurice Williamson worked off, we also had the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Building Failure Caused by the Canterbury Earthquakes—and what had happened with buildings during that sequence of events, but particularly the February 2011 events. What we knew from that study is that 40 to 42 people died needlessly—and that very simple changes could have been made to buildings. Of the 185 people who lost their lives in the Canterbury earthquakes, most of them were in the main building collapses—of the Pyne Gould Guinness Building, the CTV Building—those very high-profile buildings where we all know the tragedies occurred. But I think it is now reasonably well known that a number of the losses of life—and, in fact, around 40 to 42, it is calculated—were caused by building failure around verandahs and parapets, and what we know to be the particularly vulnerable parts of older buildings, and what happens when these fail.

It was this very point that Ann Brower brought to the attention of the select committee when she said “There’s a really sensible way you can do this. There’s some quite low-hanging fruit.” She pointed us to overseas jurisdictions and other quite earthquake-prone jurisdictions—such as California, which has learnt a thing or two about how to deal with buildings in a seismically active area—and showed that you do not have to lose the whole heritage fabric of a building. As a historian myself, I can say that that is reasonably important to me. There are much lighter materials that can be used for the parapets; there are much lighter materials that can be used for many of the embellishments that give our local streets and town centres in suburbs and in the centres of cities the character that we all want to preserve. There is a way of doing this without putting people’s lives at risk. It was the failure of those parapets, of those verandahs, and of those adornments that did prove to be fatal.

When we came to consider this, I know for myself that what would have once been quite a dry risk-assessment exercise of weighing up and looking up the expert evidence, really, was tempered by recent, real experience of what does happen when buildings fail and the need for Governments to properly regulate and provide protection for people around these buildings. I do not think any of us want to see anyone lose their life unnecessarily when there are very simple measures that we need to take. Of course there will be costs associated with this. Of course there is going to be some hardship on some building owners who now need to bring their buildings up to code. We have to, as a Parliament, make sure that we are putting in place the proper protections in order to keep people safe. We need to know, as a legislature, that we are making the right changes that need to be made to protect people’s lives. It is in this legislation that we have the opportunity to do this—not just to say “Oh, this is just a piece of dry regulation”—and to know from recent past experience that what we can and will make a difference to some people somewhere, but I hope not any time soon.

This is important work, and I think it is important that this bill has got the support across the House that it needed. I think that it shows the people out there who might be a little bit cynical about politics and politicians from time to time that, actually, when it comes to some of the important issues, we can work together and that we can work based on the evidence to come up with the best law possible. I think that is what many of us come to this House to do, actually: to make things better.

So it is my absolute pleasure to commend this legislation to the House, to really acknowledge the people who have made this law possible, and to acknowledge Ann Brower—and I know she will be getting embarrassed by all the acknowledgment, but to acknowledge her once again for making her experiences and her harrowing experiences count—for making sure that what she went through will not be something that others need to go through needlessly again. It is our pleasure to be supporting this piece of legislation.

I rise to take a short call in support of this bill, the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill, in this third reading. Although I am a very new member to the Local Government and Environment Committee, I note from the contributions of this side of the House and the opposite side of the House that obviously this was a very good select committee process, and that this was a process taken seriously, which has resulted in a bill that is very well-received and based on good science. It is putting in place a very pragmatic system to strike a balance between protecting people from harm in earthquakes in respect of earthquake-prone buildings, but also being pragmatic about managing the costs of strengthening or demolishing buildings. So I would like to extend my congratulations to the select committee for this piece of work, and to the Hon Nick Smith for shepherding this through the House.

As we are aware, this bill came out of the result of recommendations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Building Failure Caused by the Canterbury Earthquakes in 2012—those awful events in Canterbury where there was a significant cost to life, first and foremost, and then, of course, a significant cost to property. I guess, as has been mentioned throughout this House, New Zealand really was not prepared. We did not realise that our buildings were in such a state that when such a significant event as the Christchurch earthquakes hit, such devastation could occur. Therefore, we set out to look at putting in place a pragmatic system to manage this: to protect life, to manage the harm, and to manage the costs of strengthening and demolishing any buildings that could pose risk to human life.

So it is a stepped system—one, again, that is based on good science, looking to stratify the seismic risk profiles of New Zealand by stratifying them into low-, medium-, and high seismic risk zones. As such, as part of that, it is looking at time frames—stepped time frames, again—of 5, 10, and 15 years, to look at strengthening buildings across those time frames. Obviously, the bill prioritises the identification of strengthening earthquake-prone buildings that do pose quite a significant risk to people, such as education buildings, and of strengthening emergency buildings that house people not only in civil defence situations but in normal everyday life. To prioritise, so that if those buildings are located in medium- to high-risk zones they too need to be upgraded in a timely manner.

This is a very pragmatic bill. The stepped system works well. It is supported on both sides of the House. Again, I congratulate the select committee, under the able chairmanship of Mr Scott Simpson, and therefore I commend this bill to the House.

I am very pleased to take a call on the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill. The Green Party is very pleased to now be able to support the bill. When it was first introduced we opposed it because there were far too generous exemptions for building owners from meeting fire and disability access requirements when they were undertaking earthquake strengthening, and I pay tribute to submitters and my colleague Mojo Mathers, who highlighted this and helped get these changes. When the bill was introduced with those exemptions, again, it was saying that cost was too great a factor in making the changes to enable all people to have easy access to buildings, and it just reinforced the perceptions that the needs of older people and people with a disability did not count for as much as the needs of others. As is often the case, the costs were overstated and the benefits of ensuring that buildings are accessible were understated. Accessible buildings have major benefits, not just for people in wheelchairs but, of course, for older people and parents and families with pushchairs. So it is with great pleasure that because those changes have now been made, we can support this bill.

Earthquakes are, of course, a major natural hazard in New Zealand. There have been seven fatal earthquakes since 1840, with 473 people losing their lives and, of course, 185 of those in Christchurch. So this bill is very important in improving public safety and reducing the risk of serious injury and death from earthquakes. We are seeing that, not just in Christchurch, obviously, but in Nepal, where more than 7,000 people were killed in the recent earthquakes there. Even though the Minister for Building and Housing has noted that people are “100 times more likely to die in a car accident” and “50 times more likely to drown”, the challenge is to improve the safety of our buildings to reduce the risks to life and to reduce the risks of serious injury. I think it is very important that there is support across the House, because the costs of strengthening buildings will be considerable. There are thousands of building owners who are affected by this legislation, so the fact that there is cross-party support means that there will be certainty and an enduring regime, rather than one that changes as Governments are changed.

We are very pleased to have been a part of the consideration of the major changes to this bill, which have ensured that it does get cross-party support, and very pleased with the process that both the current Minister, Dr Nick Smith, and the former Minister, Maurice Williamson, and the Local Government and Environment Committee undertook to respond to public submissions and to make the major changes in this bill that have resulted in the change from the one-size-fits-all approach that was in the bill as introduced to one that recognises that seismic risk differs across the country. Like others, I commend the enormous work and the very constructive submissions from earthquake engineers, councils, property owners, seismic experts, scientists, local councils, and Dr Ann Brower, the survivor of the building collapse on the Sumner bus in Christchurch. I think, as Dr Brower has said, that this bill has been democracy in action, with the select committee and the Government recognising that these non-structural features in unreinforced masonry buildings like verandahs, like parapets, and like the facades can be strengthened much more easily and cheaply than whole buildings, that they are the low-hanging fruit that exist on about 2000 buildings across New Zealand, and that if we strengthen those, if we get rid of some of those parapets, then we significantly reduce the risk of injury and the risk to life.

The bill provides a process where councils will consult their communities on which unreinforced masonry buildings on major thoroughfares, major roads, and the like should be classified as priority buildings and as a priority for strengthening. That has been quite a significant change, which I do not think would have occurred if it had not been for Dr Brower’s submissions and the submissions and advocacy, also, of the Mayor of Christchurch the Hon Lianne Dalziel. This whole process with this bill, and the release by the Local Government and Environment Committee of an interim report, and the call for a second round of submissions on the departmental report and the changes that the committee was proposing to make, is an example of very good lawmaking by this Parliament, and a good process. We would encourage the Minister to adopt a similar process with other controversial legislation like the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill, because it counts when people hear that their submissions and their suggestions of law changes are actually being picked up by Parliament. This then becomes the people’s House in reality, and we are making the people’s law and responding to the concerns that are raised through that submission process.

I think the change in the bill with the three seismic risk zones, high, medium, and low, depending on the frequency of earthquakes that are likely to cause fatalities—the much more targeted approach that this embodies is a good one. The change, too, to having priority buildings, like emergency response buildings, education facilities where there are more than 20 people, and hospitals—requiring those to be identified and strengthened in half the standard time is also good.

A couple of the current gaps, though, are in regulations. There was, of course, very limited information in the bill—and it is not appropriate that it be in primary legislation—about the methodology that is to be used to identify, assess, and remediate earthquake-prone buildings. That level of technical information is more appropriately put in regulations, but because some councils, like Wellington City Council, are getting on and identifying earthquake-prone buildings and are working out how they are going to assess those, the regulations need to be developed sooner rather than later. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has said that it is going to consult with stakeholders, and we would like to see that work given priority so that there is consistency across New Zealand in the methods that councils and building owners use to assess buildings and identify them.

The other area is in regard to taxation. There is a problem in our tax law in relation to building strengthening that needs to be fixed. The Minister has said that he thought it was premature to address tax reforms while the bill was at select committee. He said that he is acutely aware of the potential fiscal impacts on building owners, but this needs to be fixed because under the current law, as I understand it, building owners cannot claim tax deductibility or depreciation for assessments of earthquake proneness or for the remedial work that they undertake to ensure that a building complies with the law. Yet they can claim tax deductibility if a building collapses and if it kills or injures people, potentially. That does not make sense, when they can claim deductibility for the worst of those issues and not for the strengthening. The Green Party believes that we need this issue to be looked at by a taxation working party and that there should be some incentives for building owners, such as tax deductibility for the cost of strengthening.

We also need a look at the issue around depreciation for work on heritage buildings, because in Wellington, for example, there are over 700 earthquake-prone buildings and 183 of these are listed heritage buildings. Although the council can offer rates relief, there is no tax relief available to building owners for their upgrading work. If we make some changes to tax law here, it would better recognise the quite substantial contribution that these heritage buildings make to our sense of place in towns and cities around New Zealand and to the character that they provide. It would recognise the community benefit from retaining these buildings. The Minister said he would look at these tax law changes once the legislation is passed. We hope that that is sooner rather than later, but we do commend this bill and the changes it makes. The Green Party is pleased to support it.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take what will be a short call to just confirm that we are supporting this bill through. I think pretty much every comment that could be made about this bill has already been made; I am not going to rotary hoe the same paddock a second time. Suffice it to say that I would like to continue from where the last speaker, Eugenie Sage, finished off on the taxation issue. I have got to say, Dr Smith and I have had some differences of views and opinions in the past about differing pieces of legislation, particularly around the super-city legislation and the amalgamation, but on this one you have got to take your hat off to Dr Smith. We in New Zealand First think that what has, essentially, been a rewrite of the original legislation, and the process that the Local Government and Environment Committee, which was ably chaired by Scott Simpson, agreed with to allow a second set of submissions to be heard, have really enhanced this legislation quite some.

I guess the only disappointment New Zealand First has is that our Supplementary Order Paper 160 did not get the support of the Government. That Supplementary Order Paper would have allowed for the remediation work carried out in the strengthening of buildings to be treated as repairs and maintenance by the Inland Revenue Department (IRD), and would have made those costs tax deductible. I get a sense, from having kept my ear to the ground, that a large number of people who traditionally support the National Party are probably a little bit disappointed that the Government did not move on that. Property Council New Zealand, which, quite clearly, is not known for getting in behind New Zealand First in large droves, has been to see us and has itself said that that is something that it would like to advance with the Government, going forward, as a later amendment to this legislation. Whether that would be able to be picked up in a Statutes Amendment Bill or whether it could be picked up in an overall look, as Eugenie Sage from the Greens has just said needs to happen, in terms of tax reform around buildings, earthquake strengthening, and everything associated with this legislation—if that was picked up by the Government, it would get our support.

We struggle to understand the IRD’s ruling. To us, if a building is not repaired because the costs are too high for that individual owner—something that is going to happen in rural provincial New Zealand a lot—then there are probably only going to be a couple of outcomes: (1) the building will sit there vacant, and deteriorate and eventually get bulldozed; or (2) it will probably just get onsold to somebody else who has got the ability to do it and who may or may not keep the building in its current state. Why is that important in rural provincial New Zealand? Because many of the buildings that we are talking about have a particular character and history that connects those rural towns to their past.

I have been quite happy—well, I was very pleased with the statements made by Councillor Brent Goodwin of the Masterton District Council, who himself owns commercial buildings in Masterton. When he was interviewed by the Wairarapa Times-Age editor, he confirmed the view that New Zealand First has that there are a lot of buildings in rural provincial New Zealand that are not classified as heritage buildings but are buildings of significant note to those communities—they are buildings that hold a character appeal and aesthetic value.

There is something that we can do to alleviate their plight, and quite legitimately so: by simply reinforcing or clarifying to the IRD that this work is remedial work; it is not capital. If one strengthens a shop in the middle of Masterton, one does not increase the square metreage that it has, one does not increase the height of it, and one does not enhance or change the characteristics of that building such that it has improved capacity or increased capability; it is the same building. Therefore, how could it possibly be considered by the IRD to be capital improvement or capital expenditure or capital works? We would ask that the Government thinks about that. If there is another opportunity to introduce that Supplementary Order Paper into another piece of legislation—taxation legislation—we most certainly are going to do so. But it would be really cool, it would be really great, and it would be really nice if, given the high level of agreement within the House, the Government would pick that up and do it itself, and give the IRD, if not an instruction, then a piece of legislation that makes it very clear that its interpretation is not what the House wants.

I want to extend our thanks to the Green Party, which immediately upon seeing our Supplementary Order Paper said that it supported it; to the Labour Party, which said it was keen to see the numbers crunched down but in principle also supported it; and to the Māori Party, which said that it needed the time to have a discussion around it and was not going to support it because of its confidence and supply agreement with the Government and its “no surprises” agreement with the Government—we understand that. But the Māori Party has intimated that it would relook at such a Supplementary Order Paper and an amendment to the taxation laws that would allow this work to be considered repairs and maintenance and thereby tax deductible.

In conclusion, I simply say: excellent work from the Local Government and Environment Committee. I thoroughly enjoyed working through this legislation. I do not know, actually, if some of the members realise just how much concern and angst there was in the community when this piece of legislation first hit the ground. We could almost see landlords and commercial property owners in rural provincial New Zealand sweating blood at the thought of what the costs were going to be to them. This is a victory for common sense. This is a victory for rationality. This is a victory for parties that can find common ground and work together. It is, in fact, a victory for Parliament. Thank you.

Can I thank the member who has just resumed his seat, Major Ron Mark, for his contribution and his gracious comments on this bill, the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill. Can I also congratulate the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee, Scott Simpson from the Coromandel, who stewarded it through the committee process, as well as the Minister, the Hon Dr Nick Smith.

This is a very important bill for us here in the capital. One of the figures that has stuck in my head, which we heard during the course of submissions on this bill, was the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment estimate of 240 fatalities over a 100-year period, just for Wellington—240 earthquake-related fatalities. So it does mean that it is very important that we advance this legislation, particularly in light of the Christchurch earthquakes and the Canterbury earthquakes.

There are some challenges. It will be a stretch for some people to meet the requirements that are provided for under this legislation. Buildings that are not identified as being on strategic routes—those in high-risk areas such as Wellington—will have 5 years to be identified and a further 15 years to be strengthened. I hope to see, in the regulations, provision made and, actually, policy direction to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment so that good advice and good advocacy can be provided for people who are going through those strengthening exercises. This is a very necessary measure, and I welcome the cross-party cooperation that has broken out in the House this afternoon. I commend this bill to the House.

The next call is a split call. Mojo Mathers—5 minutes.

I wish to start, as others have done, by acknowledging that it is more than 5 years since the traumatic Canterbury earthquake that was so destructive and caused such great loss of life and serious injuries to so many people. Earlier this year the larger than usual aftershocks were both an unwanted reminder of the trauma of the original earthquake and a timely prompt that we need to get on with fixing our earthquake-prone buildings.

The Green Party is now pleased to be voting in support of this bill. In our view, this bill is a testament to the value of good process, genuine collaboration, and cross-party cooperation. I commend the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee, Scott Simpson, for his constructive leadership on this. The first round of submissions and hearings highlighted significant flaws in the bill. As a result it was redrafted so extensively that the select committee decided to put it out for a second round of consultation among the original submitters. I am very glad that we did so, because although the second version was a huge improvement on the first, it still contained a number of outstanding issues, which were worked through in the next round. I now believe that we have a bill that strikes the right balance between making our buildings safer and other factors.

Critically, the bill now specifies that unreinforced masonry parts of buildings, such as parapets and gables, need to be prioritised for fixing. This bill also makes it absolutely clear that any exemption from fire or disability upgrades can be granted only on a case by case basis, and then only where owners can demonstrate that full compliance would be unduly onerous. Even if an exemption is granted, building owners must still comply as much as possible with the usual requirements for fire and disability access. As the select committee report noted, it is not intended to allow financially capable building owners to circumnavigate the requirements for providing and upgrading fire and disability access.

The fact that this bill now actually includes unreinforced masonry as a priority is a testament to the perseverance of both the Christchurch City Council and Ann Brower, who made compelling, repeated submissions pleading for the small stuff to be fixed quickly in a faster time frame so as to save lives. As they pointed out, these features are not only the cheapest to fix, they are the first to fall and the deadliest when they do so. I would like to quote Ann Brower here: “It is incomprehensible that a health-conscious, safety-conscious Parliament would not address the low-hanging fruit first.” We agree, and that is why we are so pleased to see it in this bill and finally addressed.

Of course, the other major flaw that was in the original bill was the removal of the requirement for buildings to upgrade disability and fire access when undergoing earthquake re-strengthening. The Green Party was strongly opposed to the removal or dilution of access provisions, and this is because we see access to the built environment as a human right, not as an optional extra or a nice-to-have. With an ageing population, failing to upgrade disability access requirements represents a missed opportunity to futureproof our buildings. When they are undergone at the same time as earthquake strengthening work, it saves owners money and is cheaper in the long run.

I want to acknowledge that at the same time as this bill was going through the Local Government and Environment Committee we also received two petitions from the public that highlighted just how important and critical access to the built environment is. One was from Gary Williams of the Earthquake Disability Leadership Group and one was from the late Felicity Emmett, supported by thousands of others. It is really good to be able to acknowledge that their input has informed the select committee and highlights the importance of access to public buildings.

I call Poto Williams—5 minutes.

I am pleased to use sign to talk. [In New Zealand Sign Language] We would not have known, had it not been for the Canterbury earthquake sequence, whether we would actually be debating this piece of legislation, here in its third reading. So, in some perverse way, it is fortuitous that, as a result of what happened over the last 5 years, we have come to the conclusion that we need to do something about ensuring that we do not put our people at risk further. It is a sad lesson, but it is a lesson that has been learnt from Canterbury. We will do everything we can to protect the loss of life, and I must acknowledge the 185 people who lost their lives, but also the thousands of people who lost their homes, the communities that were disrupted, and the significant amount of change and work that has happened in the Canterbury region over the last few years.

If we look to the recent quake that happened on 14 February, which resulted in further claims to Earthquake Canterbury—I think within the first few days there were something like 1,700 claims—it did actually provide us with some measure of comfort, I guess, in that immediately after that quake I, along with the deputy chair of our community board and some of the local community patrols, actually got out on the streets. We went to the areas where we knew there would be some particularly prone buildings or some areas where there might be some issues, only to hear that people were saying the technology that was used to rebuild the residential properties, in many cases, had done exactly what it was designed to do.

The RibRaft that was used extensively through the Parklands area, for example, which is very much prone to liquefaction and is one of the sensitive areas moving forward—many people said the technology, the RibRaft that was used there, did what it was designed to do: it moved gently with the earthquakes. It gave the community some comfort that, in terms of our technology, in terms of our learnings, we had done something right. However, that was not always the case, and, as I stated before, there were claims that were made after Valentine’s Day. So we have still got much work to do.

I was part of some of the previous readings on this bill and the committee stages, when there was some very robust discussion about what the impacts of this bill would be on other parts of the country—other areas where they felt there were unduly harsh provisions that their councils and territorial authorities would have to undertake to ensure a standard of building, which was felt during those debates to be unreasonable. I am pleased that the volume and the quality of those debates got us to the point where further work was done, further consultation happened, and we now have a piece of legislation that is broadly supported across the House.

I do want to make just a couple of points about how this legislation makes it very clear—it gives some consistency of standards to councils, and it makes it very clear about time frames and about what needs to be done. I think the exercise in developing those risk ratings, prioritising those key buildings such as emergency services and educational facilities, and looking at those structures such as verandahs and parapets and at the methods that can be used to strengthen those, has been really useful. Mr Assistant Speaker, I will not continue my contribution. I want to thank you for the opportunity, also, to use a little bit of sign in this Sign Language Week. Thank you.

I stand to take a brief call on this bill, the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill, in its third reading. Yes, as I have said in previous contributions that I have made in this House, New Zealand sits on the Ring of Fire, and we are prone to earthquakes. I think that the earthquake in 2011 really did shake us, besides literally, in the way that we think about the way our buildings are constructed and about our heritage buildings and how we look after those into the future. I think that the work within the Local Government and Environment Committee that has gone on in preparing this bill to this point has been, for me, a very rewarding process. I think that a lot of that has been the ability for all parties across the House to be able to input into this bill and for the people who put the submissions forward, for their voices to be heard.

I also want to pay tribute to those who lost their lives in Christchurch—the 185 of them. It is a sad time for those families, and that will happen and continue to happen every year forthwith. I want to thank our chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee, Scott Simpson, because with his wise counsel and leadership he got us through. I am very pleased to support this bill and I commend it to the House. Thank you.

Like others I will not labour the point. Suffice it to say, this has been a good exercise in terms of cross-party cooperation, which in itself respects those people who died and those people who were injured and who live with those injuries, both psychological and physical, every day. This is a bill that I think will meet the mark. It is supported by the House. I share the compliment to the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee, Scott Simpson, as being part of the process. I commend the bill to the House.

E mihi atu ki a koe e Te Mana Whakawā, ā, huri noa i te Whare nei. He mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. It is indeed an honour for me to be able to be the last speaker on this bill, the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill. As someone who comes from Canterbury, comes from Ōtautahi, comes from Christchurch mana whenua, I also join my other colleagues from both sides of the House to acknowledge a lot of the fine work that has gone into this bill. It is work that has been done cross-party. The bill has been very pragmatic, and there has also been incredible and positive input made by submitters to this bill.

When looking at the bill there are three main areas that I think are important to highlight as the final speaker. The first part is around the time and consistency—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Mauri ora e Te Mana Whakawā. Just to reiterate a couple of points, it is indeed a great pleasure for me to be able to stand here and be the final speaker on this Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill.

There are three main parts of it, and I think the three important points are that the Government is ensuring, in this bill, that earthquake-prone buildings are dealt with in a timely manner and by way of a nationally consistent system. The next part of it is that it does strike a good balance between protecting people in an earthquake and managing costs of strengthening or demolishing those buildings. The other part is the availability of information, and what this bill ensures is that the information data system about earthquake-prone buildings is made available to the public.

On that note, again, in another reiteration of the great cross-party support that this bill has had, I congratulate the Minister of Building and Housing, the Hon Dr Nick Smith, the Local Government and Environment Committee, well chaired by Scott Simpson, and also those people—those building practitioners, those from the public, and those who were affected by the devastation in Christchurch during the February earthquake, but particularly as an aftermath of all those incredible thousands of aftershocks as well. They came to the select committee, they Skyped in, and they were very, very clear on the factors they believed should be in this bill. The committee heard them and now we have this bill.

The other thing, I suppose, at the end of this speech of mine is to say āpiti hono, tātai hono, ko rātou te hunga mate ki a rātou, āpiti hono, tātai hono, ko tātou te hunga ora ki a tātou—let the dead be the dead and the living be the living; particularly thinking of those victims from the Christchurch earthquake and those who are left behind, who have actually been able to have input and to also develop such important things like this legislation. May it also be part of that situation where a phoenix, indeed, has risen from the rubble of Christchurch. I would like to commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.