Building (Overseas Building Products, Standards, and Certification Schemes) Amendment Bill

We come now to the debate on Part 2. This is the debate on clauses 9 to 17, “Amendments to other provisions of principal Act”. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

I want to ask the Minister about the way that clauses 9 and 10 will operate. This isn’t a long issue that we need to traverse really thoroughly, but it is something the select committee looked into and wasn’t necessarily finished with as a topic of discussion and also with submitters.

The issue is around the advice from the building advisory panel that’s created under section 171(1) of the principal Act. And the question from the select committee was: is it appropriate for there not to be a provision that protects the Minister if he does not seek industry feedback on one of his decisions? Because this is a bill that’s designed for a sort of back and forth with the industry. This is something that has been used by successive Governments, particularly in this area of building products and the building system, to make sure the industry is very closely tied in with Government decision-making. But at the same time, you want to ensure that if the Minister is scheduling decisions either at the beginning of this process that are anticipated and are largely non-controversial, that Minister could do so without a consultation requirement; but also in future, where there is a particular public interest in making an allowance for overseas products very quickly, that the Minister wouldn’t be in any way held up from doing that because of these, what are meant to be, enabling provisions for a Minister to seek advice or input from a sector.

I will also ask now the question around monitoring “emerging trends in building [and] design, etc,” and reporting annually. Does that “etc” include competition issues and those good things that this bill is heralded to achieve, and that Labour supports?

Thank you very much, Mr Chair, and I thank the member Arena Williams for her questions. In terms of the Minister or the chief executive of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) taking advice, I think he or she would be well advised to seek such advice, unless one is a technical expert oneself, and, in fact, even if that’s the case, I think it’s prudent to seek a wide range of views that are expert. So the consultation that we’ve talked about in a couple of other contexts earlier today, I think would be something that a prudent decision maker would undertake in terms of a particular scenario in which a quick decision might be made.

I suppose I should make the obvious comment that a consultation that’s reasonable in the prevailing circumstances would be wise. I suppose, in terms of challenging these decisions, as always, a Government decision maker—an executive decision maker—can have their decisions challenged by way of judicial review. That’s not usually very practicable, as the Hon David Parker referenced in relation to scraps over the issuing or non-issuing of building consents. I will say, however, for the sake of completeness, that the MBIE determinations route is available for those who are having such discussions or disputes to resolve those.

I thank the Minister for Building and Construction for that advice, and that is helpful to clarify his thinking.

If it is the intention that, in all circumstances, the Minister or the chief executive would be seeking consultation before making a decision to recognise a particular scheme or a particular product, then I guess the question in my mind is: in a particular crisis like the one that New Zealand experienced in the availability of plasterboard, would we be looking to, say, an expert task force to be providing that sort of quick consultation? It’s been well canvassed in the first part of this debate that there are competition issues at play in the New Zealand market, and so a consultation with New Zealand players on any given product might result in feedback through that consultation which wasn’t conducive to increasing the market power of importers. It might not be the sort of useful advice that the Minister might be seeking in any given time, so I just wanted to clarify that.

My other question is: does section 169 and the change to the regulation-making power here consider that it would be useful for the chief executive to report annually on competition issues in the building sector?

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I thank the member for her latest questions and comments. I attempted to cover the scenario that she’s described in the case of building-supply shortage, perhaps through supply shops, as we’ve experienced previously in this country, by saying that the consideration of expert advice should be, as you know, reasonably necessary in the circumstances. And, of course, if the circumstances dictate an expedited process, then that might well be the prudent course of action for the Minister or the chief executive. I do note, however, that we haven’t set up a specific legal requirement. That, itself, could be a matter of unnecessary bureaucracy or time when, of course, the whole purpose of the legislation, in the first instance, is to be more enabling in this space.

Part 2 agreed to.

Clauses 1 to 3