Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Amendment Bill

I move, That the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Amendment Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Amendment Bill be considered by the Government Administration Committee, that the bill be reported to the House by 22 March 2013, and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 188 and 191(1)(b) and (c).

The bill validates a disciplinary levy and an offence fee set by the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board under the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act 2006, which have been scrutinised by the Regulations Review Committee.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Members, please show some courtesy to the Minister who is speaking. It is contagious, and it is within the spirit of the Standing Orders and the Speakers’ rulings.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: I am not contagious!

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I know that you are not contagious, Minister, but something else is.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: The bill resolves the issue considered by the Regulations Review Committee by empowering the board to charge a new disciplinary and prosecution levy to fund the costs arising out of the board’s prosecution and discipline functions. In addition, the bill also ensures that all Gazette notices containing disciplinary levies set by the board under the 2000 Act are valid.

Essentially, this bill addresses inconsistencies between the board’s functions and the funding provisions in the Act. All of the board’s functions are funded entirely from fees and levies charged to plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers registered under the Act, as is usually the case with other occupational licensing boards within the building and construction portfolio.

The board regulates the plumbing, gasfitting, and drainlaying industry so that the public can have confidence that people undertaking those trades are qualified, registered, and regulated. Therefore, it is important to ensure the board has funding for all of the functions it is required to carry out. One of the board’s statutory responsibilities is to prosecute people who carry out illegal sanitary plumbing, gasfitting, and/or drainlaying work. The board had funded this function through part of the disciplinary levy and then the offences fee. However, the Act empowered the board to set a disciplinary levy to fund the costs of complaints and discipline only in relation to registered persons.

In February 2011 the Regulations Review Committee concluded that the disciplinary levy imposed by the board since 31 July 2010 should be drawn to the special attention of the House of Representatives, and the Regulations Review Committee recommended disallowance of the disciplinary levy. As members may remember, on 12 May 2011—in fact, I am sure they remember it vividly—the chair of the Regulations Review Committee moved a motion to disallow the disciplinary levy with effect from the end of the board’s registration year, 31 March 2012. However, this motion was not agreed to. As a result the board changed its fee and levy structure and removed the part of the disciplinary levy that was funding prosecutions against non-registered persons and set an offences fee to fund its prosecution function instead.

The Regulations Review Committee is currently considering the validity of the offences fee prescribed by the board. If the Regulations Review Committee also recommends disallowance of the offences fee, the board could be left unfunded to carry out its statutory prosecution functions. Therefore, without this validating legislation the board would be placed under significant financial pressure and would be unable to carry out its important statutory functions that directly affect the safety and the well-being of New Zealanders. It is essential that we resolve this matter and resolve it quickly.

I move that the Government Administration Committee consider the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Amendment Bill, that the bill be reported back to the House by 22 March, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time—and I think I have already moved all of that accordingly. In fact, I had better finish moving it, because I think I have to finish the moving. OK?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Not until the debate is concluded, Minister.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Correct. That is what I thought—that it should be done at the end, but it is in both parts. Someone in my office is doing a bit of a belt and braces here by putting it at the start of the speech and putting it at the end. I will leave it until the end. All I say to the House is that this needs to be done and it needs to be done quickly.

Whenever I have to take a call after the Minister for Building and Construction, the Hon Maurice Williamson, I feel professionally, politically, and morally obliged to raise some important points of clarification. The first point of clarification is that the purpose of this bill, the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Amendment Bill, which the Minister has just introduced, is to validate some actions taken unlawfully by the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board—namely, the board that the Minister appointed. The action concerned referred to the moneys collected by the Minister’s board unlawfully, so we are dealing with an ultra vires issue.

The second point of clarification is that the Minister’s bill will apply retrospectively. The bill in its current form will apply retrospectively in order to address this board’s ultra vires acts.

The third point of clarification is a bit historical. The Minister lectured the chair of the Regulations Review Committee quite nicely in relation to the committee’s unanimous disallowance motion. However, his lecturing in May 2011 was rather misleading. In his speech on 12 May 2011 the Minister said: “I say to the chair of the Regulations Review Committee that … if a small group of people from whatever industry, from whatever sector, come to a select committee and say to that committee they are unhappy and think something is wrong, then that committee has an obligation to go out and ask whether there is any industry association or any large body out there that represents that industry, and to get them to find out their view.”, and so on and so forth. Of course the committee has such an obligation, and as far as the issues were concerned, the complaints were not from a small group of stakeholders. The sector is unhappily divided and, in the Minister’s own words, the whole issue of the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board has been quite shambolic for a long period of time.

The Minister seems to have criticised the Regulations Review Committee for its diligence and professionalism, so the point of clarification here is that the Regulations Review Committee is a very important part of Parliament’s processes. Its decision then, in relation to the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board (Fees) Notice 2010, was made unanimously with the support of both the Government and Opposition members on that committee. The committee did give the board the opportunity to reply and it did not consider the submissions in isolation.

Also, it is appropriate for me to point out that there are actually two professional associations representing the vast majority of the sector. The master plumbers association the Minister referred to in his speech, the Master Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers (NZ) Inc., is one. The Minister said in 2010 that it had 733 businesses as its members. There is another association called the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Federation, and, using 2010 data, it shows that it had 900 or so members. To be fair and scientifically truthful to the sector the Minister cannot support one and ignore the other.

The federation alleges that the board members are made up largely of members of the master plumbers association. If it is true, it may help explain why the master plumbers association was opposed to the disallowance motion of the Regulations Review Committee. It also helps to explain why the Minister has to resort to such a bill to bail out the board.

Other allegations made so far include that, firstly, the reason why the Minister has to resort to introducing such a bill, which has retrospective effect, is to try to stop the federation from taking more legal action against the board.

Secondly, both the board and the Minister knew the money had been taken from the industry illegally, and this will prevent the industry from ever claiming that money back. Therefore, this bill is nothing more than a cynical exercise by the Minister, Maurice Williamson, to cover his mistakes of the past.

Thirdly, recent events have revealed that some of the information being supplied to the public by way of the board’s electronic gas certificates is false, incomplete, and misleading. The federation believes that this affects thousands of gas certificates that were integrated into the current electronic gas certificate system. This is a very serious allegation. The complainant believed that the nature of the false and misleading information places at risk the public and tradespeople alike.

I agree that the board has a colourful history. It has been the subject of a complaint to the Office of the Auditor-General, Parliament’s Regulations Review Committee, the Office of the Ombudsmen, the Charities Commission, and the Inland Revenue Department. I wonder what the Minister might say now in light of his statement in 2011 that the board was poor in the past, OK at present, and “looking to get the future quite tidy.” Resorting to such a bill to validate unlawful acts does not strike me as something tidy.

Labour supports, with reservations, this bill’s referral to a select committee. It is important that concerned parties have the opportunity to debate and air their concerns about the bill at the select committee stage. By supporting this bill’s referral to a select committee, Labour is not uncritically sanctioning the board’s conduct in 2010, when it acted ultra vires, or beyond the scope of its levy power as defined in section 143 of the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act. Rather, enabling the bill to reach the select committee stage will give all concerned parties an opportunity to be heard on these issues. It must be emphasised that validating legislation needs to be approached with considerable caution, and this is such a bill. It makes actions that were previously thought lawful and that have since been found unlawful actually lawful.

As Labour’s spokesperson for building and construction, I wish to emphasise that we are supporting the board, the master plumbers association and the federation. The sector, namely the board, the members, and all tradespeople involved, protect the health and safety of the public, and, specifically for the board, it fulfils its statutory duty by regulating and ensuring the competency of the tradespeople carrying out sanitary plumbing, gasfitting, and drainlaying work. Although we are facing bigger issues such as the leaky buildings saga, I urge the Minister to be cautious, because we are talking about the quality of people’s lives. Thank you.

May I say what a pleasure it is to rise to speak in favour of the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Amendment Bill as sponsored by the Minister for Building and Construction, Maurice Williamson, and indeed to follow the previous speaker, Raymond Huo, who clearly understands the circumstances and the situation of this bill coming before the House. I must say it is a pleasant continuum of my parliamentary career, because in 2005 I served on the Commerce Committee. Even though we were in Opposition, it none the less had an Opposition chair. At that stage we handled the Gasfitters, Plumbers, and Drainlayers Bill. I see the Hon Maryan Street nodding. You remember the event?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): No, I do not actually, so please do not bring the Speaker into the debate.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I notice that the Hon Maryan Street does remember, and it was a fascinating and very engaging bill. They are a remarkably dedicated body of people, and I found the whole thing particularly interesting. They did have problems as an organisation and I like to think that we were able to help them. The problems continued on for a while, but consistently there have been improvements in the direction that this very, very important industry has been going in.

I note the concerns of the previous speaker that we should be cautious with this, that it is retrospective, that it is validating, and that sort of thing. He is quite correct, but it is a very important bill, which we progress none the less. It is a bill that will capture few, if any, headlines, but this does not take away from the importance of its field or its intent. The bill tidies up legislation around the funding of the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board so that it can effectively do its job of protecting public safety. The bill also validates the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board’s disciplinary levy, which funds investigations and prosecutions of plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers who are found to have been in breach of best practices or who are practising without the proper skills or qualifications.

Let us remember the difficulty we had in maintaining the volume of plumbers that we needed. Recently during a prime ministerial visit to the West Coast we visited a plumber’s business that had been highlighted by the development trust on the West Coast as the business of the year. It is fascinating to see the level of skill, qualification, and dedication that is required to ensure that the services are properly passed on to houses. Plumbers, in fact, may I suggest, do more for longevity than the health services do at a medical level, because they look after our well-being prior to illness and disease.

The amendments that are being proposed are in keeping with the original intent of the law. That is the reassuring bit. It is clear that the Government’s intention was always for the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board’s prosecution function to be funded by the industry. All its statutory functions are funded through fees and levies charged under the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act 2006—that famous one that Maryan Street remembers. The clarifications this amendment bill makes are simply a move to reflect the true meaning and purpose of the law as it should have been put forward. I look forward to working towards this with my colleagues on the Government Administration Committee, who have proved over recent months their ability to handle with competence and focus bills both large in prognostication and division as well as those of a forthright and logical nature like this one. I support this bill coming to the committee, and I call on the House to do the same.

Talofa lava, Mr Assistant Speaker. I want to say to the member who just spoke, Chris Auchinvole, is this it? Is this all we have? On this Thursday we are debating plumbers, drainlayers, and gasfitters? Is that all there is from this Government? What about unemployment? What about the 16 percent of Pacific Island people who are unemployed? It would not be so bad if we were talking about injecting money to create more jobs. It would not be so bad if we were injecting money for the education of young people so that we would have more plumbers, drainlayers, and gasfitters. But is this it?

I say that because earlier this week we had a petition of the people—boxes and boxes of thousands of petitions, signed by over 390,000 people, who are saying to this Government: “Stop the sale of assets.” And yet on Thursday, instead of debating that, we are having to debate the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Amendment Bill—

Hon Maurice Williamson: This will lead the news. This will lead the news.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO: Ha, ha! I would say I think it is the wrong priority for this Minister for Building and Construction to introduce this bill. It may be important, and it may be necessary, but in so far as the New Zealand public are concerned this is not the priority—this is not the priority.

As my colleague Raymond Huo has outlined, it is unfortunate that the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act of 2006, after so long, now requires amendment in order to correct some anomalies that have occurred. I suppose, to be fair, the board protects the health and safety of the public by regulating and ensuring the competency of persons carrying out sanitary plumbing, gasfitting, and drainlaying work. The board is funded entirely by the fees and levies charged to plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers registered under this Act, and it is very similar to other occupational licensing boards.

But the board made a mistake. Although I am not a member of that particular select committee I have to ask why it was that the board did not recognise the mistake that it had made. If it were not for the vigilance of the Regulations Review Committee, which in 2011 picked up on what had occurred and concluded that the board appeared to have made an unusual or unexpected use of the levy power, it would not have been picked up, I suspect.

In so far as Labour is concerned there are some issues in this bill that we have reservations about, but we will support this bill going to the select committee because I think the select committee is probably the more appropriate place for those who are directly going to be affected by the bill, those who are in this industry, and all other interested parties to raise their concerns, to raise their questions, and to allow members of that select committee to critique, analyse, and make appropriate recommendations with regard to making sure that the bill achieves its particular purpose.

I understand that the purpose of the bill is to get rid of the uncertified practitioners in the industry. I am sort of surprised that whilst collecting moneys from the plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers solely for the purposes of prosecuting them, that the board also started using this particular money to prosecute those who are not registered. That is of concern.

Hon Maurice Williamson: Well, every other profession does that. Architects do it. Electrical workers do that. This only brings them into line with everyone else.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO: Yes. I understand that the board imposed a disciplinary levy to fund the enforcement of its activities against those who breached the law, but it went outside that law and began to then also look at those who were not registered.

So I think it is a good thing that we do bring it in and ensure that the industry maintains its credibility. It is about ensuring that the New Zealand public are protected—and we see it on television time and time again. In fact, I have had some dealings in my own personal situation where one plumber came in and carried out some work, and a few months later I had to call another plumber, and that particular plumber raised the fact that the first plumber had been using the wrong materials. So in terms of making sure that we have got protection for our consumers and our communities, I think that is particularly important.

I think what needs to be made clear, though, is that Labour is not uncritically sanctioning the board’s conduct—that it acted ultra vires, or beyond the scope of its levy power. Rather, I think it is going to be particularly important that this bill goes to a select committee, and that anybody and everybody who has an interest in this ought to be given an opportunity to submit.

In essence, one thing that, really, I have difficulty with—and I made this point earlier—is that what this bill does is takes actions that were previously thought lawful and have since been found unlawful, and tries to make them lawful again. There are some other cases around this country that, I think, will cause some serious concerns in local communities.

I think that the work the Regulations Review Committee did when it first considered the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board fees notice in 2010 ought to be commended. The select committee considered that the board had made “an unusual or unexpected use of the levy power in section 143 of the Act.”, as the board used the disciplinary levy to fund enforcement action against non-registered persons. I note that section 143 provides for the board to set a levy to fund only the cost of complaints and discipline in relation to registered persons. I also note that the disciplinary levy validated from 1 April 2007 to 31 March 2008 inclusive is $25. Look at how this quickly picks up. From 1 April 2008 to 30 July 2010 inclusive it becomes $50, and then from 31 July 2010 to 11 January 2012 it is $266.

Regarding those who are in the industry and those who are practising their craft, I would call on all of those organisations to make sure they have a say, because I think that they would be seriously concerned about the quick movement of those particular levies, particularly when there is such high unemployment currently in our country. Despite the job opportunities that this Government attempts to spin to the media, the fact remains that we still have high unemployment. It is the highest in 13 years. In fact, for Pacific communities it is 16 percent.

But, as I said, is this all that this Government has for us to debate? Is this it—that, despite the worst economic history in 51 years, we are here tonight debating the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Amendment Bill? I think the public listening in to this will be saying to every member of that Government there: “Is this what we put you in there to do?”. It is tweaking all around these plumbers and gasfitters, these little things that the board itself should have taken care of. Instead, we are here on Thursday debating this when there are the more serious issues of families struggling to make ends meet. This Government should have made that the priority rather than plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers. How sad is it that this Government is debating this when there are so many people looking to it for leadership. I think that they will be very, very disappointed, not only in this Minister but in the entire Government on that particular side.

When we were first approached by the Minister for Building and Construction, Maurice Williamson, about this Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Amendment Bill, the Green Party was prepared to indicate our tentative support for the changes that it made. However, we did have substantial concerns about the process, including the constrained period of time for the select committee to consider the bill, and at this point we have to say that those concerns remain and are so substantial that we are unable to support the bill at this time.

We know in the Green Party that the grievances and complaints concerning the levies and fees charged by the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board have been ongoing for some time. As we have heard, in the past that board used to charge a disciplinary levy to all those registered under the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act, and this levy was used to fund the board’s complaints and disciplinary processes. In 2010, after considering a complaint, the Regulations Review Committee recommended that this levy be disallowed, as it was being used to fund complaints and disciplinary processes against unregistered people as well as those registered under the Act, while only registered people were paying the levy. In response to the report of the Regulations Review Committee, the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board replaced that levy with an offences fee, which carried essentially the same function. Now, as we know, a second complaint about this offences fee is currently before the Regulations Review Committee, and although that committee is yet to report on this complaint, there is a risk that if the offences fee too is disallowed, then the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board will be required to refund the moneys it has collected under both the levy and the fee, and that will leave it in a financially unviable position.

When the Act that created the board was passed in 2006 it was arguably and quite likely the intention of Parliament that the board’s disciplinary and prosecutorial role would be funded by a levy of this nature paid by those registered under the Act, as is the case in other construction industry boards. However, the Act as it is currently worded seems to fall short of this. [Interruption]

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am finding myself rather distracted by interjections flying between other members of the House. If we could have a stop to that, it would be great.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Yes, can I just advise the member that interjections from one side to the other are perfectly in order. However, I recognise that because of where the member is sitting—and the member should know this now; she has been here long enough—any interjections from the cross benches can affect the microphone.

HOLLY WALKER: As I was saying, the Act as it is currently worded seems to fall short of what Parliament intended in 2006. So this amendment bill would fix that loophole by retrospectively validating the funds collected through both the levy and the fee, and allow the board to continue to collect in this manner. As I mentioned at the beginning, when approached about this the Green Party was prepared to offer tentative support to allow this bill to be sent to a select committee so that the issues could be traversed. The amendments in this bill are, we believe, potentially sensible and they may settle what has been a long-running dispute between the board and some of its members.

However, I think all members of this House would agree—at least, I certainly hope they would—that legislation with retrospective application should be approached very carefully indeed and with meticulous precision and scrutiny. The Green Party has serious concerns about the process and time frames proposed for this bill, to allow that level of scrutiny to occur. We know that the bill has had to be drafted quite quickly, and although that is no criticism of the drafters, simply a statement of fact, when legislation is drafted very quickly it can often contain errors or omissions. These are picked up, ideally, by the scrutiny applied at the select committee hearing. However, in this case that hardly seems likely, given that the time frame proposed for the select committee to consider this bill is just 1 week. I believe we will have a chance soon to debate this shortened time frame, when the Minister seeks permission from the House for that. But for now, suffice it to say that, especially because of its retrospective nature, this bill requires very close scrutiny and it will not get that from a 1-week select committee process.

Furthermore, as a number of speakers have already noted, the issues and complaints regarding the levies or fees raised by the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board have been controversial and the source of much strife and division over a number of years. So therefore there are likely to be many individuals affected by this bill, not least the authors of the most recent complaint to the Regulations Review Committee who deserve to be treated with natural justice and due process. The rushed process followed with this bill, I believe, risks creating a new injustice that will only compound the strife and bitterness now so ingrained in this sector. Given that this bill is designed primarily to put a stop to that, we should be very careful about risking compounding the sense of unfairness and injustice in that sector.

It may very well be that we need to fix the messy situation that the board has now found itself in. The Green Party could support fair, thoroughly drafted legislation to achieve this, provided we were satisfied that a proper process has been followed. But we cannot be confident of that at present. We have indicated to the Minister our willingness to support changes, like those proposed in the bill, but our concern is about the time frame as proposed. Retrospective legislation should not be entered into lightly. It should be very rare, and when it occurs it should be meticulously drafted and scrutinised. In our view the bill at the moment does not meet this test. The 1-week select committee time frame proposed would not allow for the appropriate level of scrutiny for a retrospective piece of legislation, and the Green Party therefore cannot support it.

I am happy to support this piece of legislation, the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Amendment Bill. Clearly, it is a piece of legislation that we wish we did not have to deal with right now, but it is important because when Parliament made some decisions in 2006 on the existing Act it made some mistakes. [Interruption] I hear the member from New Zealand First calling out. I might remind her that it was a Labour - New Zealand First coalition at the time that it was in place, so, hey, if she wants to take ownership of the mistake, she is welcome to. But it is clearly a mistake that we have to fix up.

The reason why we have to fix this up is that the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board is an important occupational licensing body that is in place to protect New Zealanders. We need to give it the mandate and give it the ability to fund an important part of its job, which is keeping the public safe by ensuring that plumbers are doing their jobs properly and that gasfitters are not operating without a licence and in an unsafe manner. There have been situations where members of the public have been put at risk, have had their lives put in danger, because unlicensed individuals have not been doing work appropriately. We expect this body that we are debating to be able to go out and do its job, look after the public, and ensure that unlicensed individuals are not putting lives unnecessarily in danger. It has to be able to fund that work.

Clearly, there was a situation in 2006 where an incorrect clause in a piece of legislation was put in place, which has led to us now having to fix it up. It is not good, but we have to do it. I say to the members who are opposed to this bill that opposing it, and potentially getting into a situation where the board is unable to fund its activities if the regulations were ever to be disallowed, would lead to a very precarious financial situation for the board. The board could potentially become insolvent, and then it just could not operate at all.

It is not desirable to do this on a regular basis, but sometimes it is important to do so. We are doing it to protect the public and to ensure that the board can do its work properly. That is what the legislation is all about, and this party supports that.

It seems to me to be one of the great unanswered existential questions as to why the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board has had such a fraught and wretched history, because every time I have ever employed a plumber, a gasfitter, or a drainlayer they have turned out to be perfectly jolly men and have got on with the job. So to have this level of controversy bedevil this board over many years is something that some of us in this House find fairly inexplicable. I do want to make a reference to the fact that this goes back to 2006 legislation, as the previous speaker who has just resumed his seat, Jami-Lee Ross, said. That is absolutely true. It was a complex piece of legislation at the time. I remember it well, as the member Chris Auchinvole referred to earlier, and it had to be divided into two parts in order to try to get it right. But the interesting thing, perhaps for the member who has just resumed his seat, is that the fault with this bill did not become apparent to either Labour or National until 2010. So this is not something about which the National members can say “Oh, we spotted this years ago, and you guys just didn’t do anything about it.” It did not come to light. They were not aware of it. We were not aware that the provision would be misused in this way until 2010, when an additional levy was applied by the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board in order, as I understand it, to try to get the cowboys out of the industry, and that is the purpose of the bill.

But the purpose of the board was to gather revenue in order to prosecute and investigate any breaches of the Acts that covered their activities. But the Act applied to registered people only. So perhaps another lesson in this for the public is: for goodness’ sake, make sure you get a registered plumber, gasfitter, or drainlayer, and do not go for one of the cowboys who say “Oh, I’ve got a spare piece of that in the back of my van—it’ll just do the trick.” So the lesson to any householder at home is to make sure that you get a registered person. However, that is not the subject of the bill, although it is the purpose of the bill, as it says quite clearly, to get rid of uncertified practitioners in the industry. As I understand it, this is what the board was attempting to do with this levy, which has turned out to be illegal.

That discovery came through the application of the Regulations Review Committee. At the time that the original legislation was going through the House, I was also on the Regulations Review Committee in 2005 and 2006, and most of 2007. I remember this coming there, and I remember complaints and the board appearing in front of the Regulations Review Committee as well. But this has come to light because of the scrutiny of the Regulations Review Committee, which goes to underscore just how important that committee is, because it scrutinises things that otherwise do not get any parliamentary scrutiny. That is its purpose, and it performs a hugely important function in that respect. Everything we vote on comes to this House for a vote. The things we do not vote on that are exercised by regulation promulgated by Ministers and Orders in Council do not get scrutinised by this House. So we need to respect the view of the Regulations Review Committee—not only respect its view but also respect its function.

I need to say that I dislike, to my core, retrospective legislation, and this is the second time in 2 weeks I have got up to make a speech about retrospective legislation. The last time was on the Tasman District Council validation of rates that had been misapplied. I hate it, but we are in the situation where this House has very few alternatives. We either bankrupt the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board, which is in nobody’s interests—not the industry’s interests, not the members’ interests, and not the interests of ordinary people who require the services of these tradespeople. So I have to bite the bullet on this one. I do not like retrospective validating legislation. It is correcting an error. Somebody has done something illegal, and Parliament has to fix it, otherwise people will suffer as a result. So for that reason Labour is supporting this bill, but not without reservation.

There is one other item that I want to bring to the House’s attention. I bring it to attention in this first reading because there is such a short time frame for the Government Administration Committee to consider this bill—and the previous speaker from the Green Party, Holly Walker, referred to that substantially—but there are some things in the content of the bill itself that require some reconciliation. I hope that the officials of the Minister for Building and Construction will, during the week that the bill is in front of the select committee, provide the select committee with some way of resolving new section 143(1) in clause 4, which provides the new process by which the board may legitimately apply a levy for disciplinary and prosecution purposes, with the new section 171B, which comes under clause 5 in Part 2 of the bill, and refers to the fact that any amendment on the date or after the date that this bill comes into force will render the previous validation ineffective. So the validation that we are trying to pass here will cease to apply if the board moves to make an amendment to the fee on or after this bill has come into effect and become an Act. I think there is a contradiction between those two things.

I think that if the section 142 power that was used by the board to prescribe the original offence fee was dubious enough to require validation by this bill, then surely it cannot be a lawful basis for the board to use in amending the fee. If the bill is enacted, an argument can be made that the section 142 power, in so far as it was applied in prescribing the offence fee, is implicitly repealed by the new empowering provision inserted into clause 4 of the bill. I do think that the policy intent behind new section 171B is to tell the board that if it amends the offence then it will not have the protection of the validation provided for in the bill. I think this sends confusing signals. I know the Minister’s office and the Minister are aware of my concerns in this regard, and I would hope that officials would be able to mend what I see as a difficult set of competing signals before the bill is passed into law. Thank you.

This vexing issue has been before the Regulations Review Committee for the entire time that I have been part of this House, which is a bit over a year now. Certainly, as the previous speaker, the Hon Maryan Street, alluded to, it has been before the Regulations Review Committee since around 2010.

Before I make a few comments on that, I do want to comment on a couple of issues that Su’a William Sio raised, because I think they need some addressing. One could be depressed by the current cricket score, but, also, you could definitely have been depressed by the first minute or so of his speech. He clearly lost his way, as the policies of this Government will almost certainly provide more and better-paid jobs for people, and certainly for plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers in New Zealand.

Having got that off my chest, I just want to go on to make a few points about this bill, the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Amendment Bill, because it is quite important, I think. Although I am not keen on retrospective legislation, and I do not think anyone in this House is keen on it, it is at times necessary to put in place legislation that tidies up some issues for us. All boards in the building and construction sector are funded by fees and levies charged to their industry. This bill validates that situation for the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board, and puts it on a par with other industry bodies. The matter arises from its desire to rid the industry of unskilled and unqualified operators. There is no way to protect its members and clients from what may be termed unskilled or shonky operators other than for the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board to pursue and prosecute as required. We need to remember that this activity also protects the consumer from this danger or shonky work, and that is certainly a very important part of this Parliament’s work.

As I have said, the bill has arisen after a number of attempts by both the Regulations Review Committee and the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board to rectify the situation. I must also defend the Minister for Building and Construction, because I do not recall him ever criticising the Regulations Review Committee, as Raymond Huo stated earlier. This is a pragmatic approach to a problem that was clearly an error in earlier drafting of the Act, both in 2000 and in 2006. It was clearly the intention of the Government of the day that the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board have the ability to police its own industry, to keep it under control, and to make sure that it was run rationally and in a manner that certainly protected its clients and the public from what was going on.

I have got no problem in recommending that this bill go to the next stage. I am also pleased to see that it will be back in the House very quickly, as I think it is necessary that we get this sort of work done quickly, tidied up, and moved on. I also have some sympathy for the complainants in this matter, as they have spent a lot of time and energy putting those complaints to the Regulations Review Committee. I am sure that this solution will overcome those problems for the industry. Thank you.

I am willing to lay a bet that when the Hon Maurice Williamson took up his warrant as the building and construction Minister, sorting out the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board was probably not high on his list of strategic priorities—Maurice’s to-do list. I guess one late night 4 years ago he was sitting in the Bolton Hotel scribbling a list of things he wanted to achieve as Minister, and sorting out the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board probably was not one of them.

It is fair to say that the problems of the plumbing, gasfitting, and drainlaying industry and the problems associated with that industry’s board have been the bane of the lives of a number of building and construction Ministers over the last few years. It is a troubled industry. The dysfunctional relationships in that industry—I think it is fair to say—have plagued the operation of the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board, and that sort of entrenched animosity between members of the board and people involved in, I think, two different industry associations has tied up what should be an effective mechanism to regulate and clean up an industry. It has been plagued by fighting and animosity for some time. This bill, the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Amendment Bill, is not the first plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers legislation to come before this House in the last few years. I think we are probably all hoping that it will be the last.

Darien Fenton: Oh, no!

PHIL TWYFORD: Labour supports this bill. Well, you know, I have a lot of sympathy for the remarks of Su’a William Sio, who pointed out—I think quite rightly—that the people of New Zealand would like this Parliament to be focusing on things that are more of a priority for them. They want education sorted out. They want jobs. They want child poverty dealt with. They want Auckland’s housing crisis addressed. Instead, the Government, Ministers like the Hon Maurice Williamson, and this Parliament are having to spend time on what for most Kiwis is a pretty obscure piece of legislation.

I want simply to underline some of the comments that my colleagues Raymond Huo, Maryan Street, and Su’a William Sio have already made, and that is that Labour is supporting this bill going to the Government Administration Committee, because we feel that the issues deserve to be aired and that the various warring parties in the industry deserve the opportunity to come along, have a say, and see whether or not this bill can sort out the mess that the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board has got itself into.

We have rehearsed already our discomfort with the fact that this is retrospective legislation that is seeking to validate a practice that should never have taken place. The Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board should never have been using a levy that it extracted from registered members of its industry to prosecute and discipline members of the industry who are not registered members. As the Minister said earlier, it is perfectly normal in this kind of situation for an industry body like this, which is charged with maintaining standards and regulating the industry, to exercise a disciplinary role for registered and non-registered members. The problem is that the enabling legislation for this board restricted its purview to registered members of the board. So the board has got itself into a real pickle here, and it needs this House to retrospectively validate those levies that have been spent in a way that they were not supposed to be. As Maryan Street said, we can thank the Regulations Review Committee, which has done its job well. It identified what I think it described as an unusual or unexpected use of the levy power, and it has pursued this issue with some diligence over the last year or so. So we owe thanks to the Regulations Review Committee.

My colleagues have pointed out also that Labour, by supporting the bill at this stage, is not uncritically supporting the conduct of the board. We are not endorsing the behaviour of the board in acting beyond the law—acting, in fact, beyond the scope of its levy power. Rather, what we want to do is send this bill off to the select committee, try to get the problem sorted out, and give all the parties a chance to get in the room and express their views.

I want to just provide some background about the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board for those people listening. Its job is to protect the health and safety of the public by regulating and ensuring the competency of people in trades carrying out sanitary, plumbing, gasfitting, and drainlaying work. This bill allows the board to continue to collect offence fees. Currently, it is about $600,000 a year from registered persons for this 2013 licensing year. This bill validates both the disciplinary levy and offence fees in the past and changes the rules for the future. The effect of this is that the board cannot be required by registered persons to refund the moneys that were collected unlawfully by the board. I think, as Maryan Street pointed out, if we do not do that, basically, the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board will go belly up, and that will make a complicated and difficult situation much worse. So we support the bill on the basis that it is a necessary evil and something that needs to be done.

The last thing I would like to do is just touch on the main provisions of the bill. Section 143 of the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act is the empowering provision, allowing the board to impose a disciplinary levy on registered plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers. The board is allowed to use that levy for investigations into allegations or complaints against registered persons only and for disciplinary proceedings. Well, what this bill does is it empowers the board to impose those levies against registered members, but it enables the board to use those levies for prosecuting or disciplining any—either registered or unregistered—players in the industry. So it extends the purpose for which the board may impose the levy, and clause 4 of the bill amends section 143 of the Act in that way.

Finally, Part 2 of the bill is the validation clause. What it does is it retrospectively validates the disciplinary levy and offence fees that were imposed between 1 April 2007 and 11 January 2012.

Although I am happy to take a call in support of this bill, the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Amendment Bill, it is fair to say that no one takes any pleasure from speaking to a bill that seeks to validate, essentially, mistakes of this House. All that said, this is not a situation where the intended purpose of the original Act, drafted in 2006, has not been sought to be achieved. I am one of the members of the Regulations Review Committee, which has tangled with this issue over the past year, or certainly since I have been a member of this House, and it was obviously a problem long before that.

It is fair to say that the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board has had its fair share of challenges and troubles over the years, and this has certainly complicated the challenges that it has. Having said that, it is quite clear that the board, which is funded entirely through levies, has gone about executing its role, in terms of disciplinary prosecutions and procedures, in the best interests of the entire industry and, in fact, in the best interests of all New Zealanders, because of the inherent dangers that would come from shonky practices, as alluded to by the Minister. Where the difficulties have arisen is that in the original drafting of the law there is some degree of difficulty about the difference between a levy and a fee, and the fact that the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board sought to take prosecutions against people who are not actually registered plumbers. Submissions by plumbers and gasfitters to the Regulations Review Committee certainly alluded to their concerns about this, but I think it was generally accepted by all that it is actually in the best interests of the industry as a whole that those who are not registered and who are bringing the industry into disrepute and putting members of the New Zealand public at risk are actually held to account, and the board is really the only body that is geared up to achieve that.

So what we have in this validation legislation is retrospectively dealing with the ultra vires problems that have arisen through a board that has actually followed the intent of the law, but the law in itself has not provided the appropriate platform. It sounds black and white talking about it here, but I can absolutely say that it is not, and that is something that the Office of the Auditor-General has also had some challenges in tangling with. But I think the important thing in terms of supporting this bill in a timely manner is that what we are doing here is validating practices that were in line with the original intent. It is very important to give this industry some certainty to New Zealanders and this board, and in that I am happy to commend this bill to the House.

I am going to give the call to the Green member. This is normally a 5-minute call, but you can actually take 10 minutes if you wish.

I will not need 10 minutes, but I am pleased to speak to this Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Amendment Bill. It is unfortunate that there is a retrospective aspect to it, but it would seem appropriate if this organisation, the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board, is going to keep its funding. We oppose this bill at this point but look forward to engaging at the Government Administration Committee, because we think that if this works well, we might be able to revisit our opposition to it.

There is clearly a gap in the legislation, but there is also clearly a dysfunctional board as well. The industry is somewhat split. There is some resentful membership, and it seems like in some cases it is the small operators versus the larger operators that the board seems to look after in a much better way. This might be an opportunity for some amendments that can send signals about the functionality of that sector.

There is the membership, of course, but there are also outliers who still practise under a mate’s ticket or registration. In some respects, the board and maybe some of this legislation have helped drive that. There are part-timers or tradespeople who are working a range of different skills who are not just drainlayers, for example, or plumbers. I was speaking to one as recently as yesterday, who pointed out that he pays a $300 levy. It might not matter to some people across the House—it may seem a drop in the bucket—but for someone who is doing only drainlaying—

Hon Maurice Williamson: That’s a good expression for plumbers.

STEFFAN BROWNING: —it is a good pun—and who is working only occasionally, but is still very skilled, and has to travel and then has to pay on top of that a further $380 to do the refreshers to brush up for the registration, this is driving skilled people out. And it is getting into the grey area of operating under someone else’s registration and ticket. The board, in keeping its—let us call it—“disputed funds” will need to look at it. I dare say that the board is listening, and I am hoping that it is listening to the debates that go on through this rather shortened process.

The board needs to better reflect on what it needs for the whole industry, to be fairly introspective, to make sure it is not operating with conflicts of interest, and to look after New Zealand in total by looking after all the tradespeople, so that we can have good tradespeople who are able to afford to retain their registration and be kept up to date at an affordable rate, so that everyone in the community can benefit.

We oppose the bill at this point, to a fair degree because of the shortened process, although understanding that there is some rationale behind it, and we look forward to how that is distilled through the select committee process. Thank you.

I am pleased to stand as the final speaker on this side of the House for the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Amendment Bill. One of the things that has disturbed me in this debate was the opening contribution by the Labour member of Parliament Raymond Huo, who was so disrespectful to this industry that I was quite shocked. I was quite shocked and I was very disturbed at the tone in which the first Labour speaker spoke about this group of people, who are hard-working New Zealanders, who contribute to the economy, who are local employers, who have trained hard to do the work they do, and who have a really important job in terms of the health and safety of New Zealanders and the sanitation that is available to each and every one of us, and to suggest that this was not important work for the Government I find quite horrendous.

One of the things that I do not know whether I do or do not enjoy about being the final speaker on this side of the House is that I follow some very able colleagues who have spoken at length about the bill, particularly my colleagues whom I want to commend for being on the Regulations Review Committee. It is a committee that is not often given high profile in this House—

Mike Sabin: We’re the unsung heroes.

LOUISE UPSTON: —but it does do very important work. Unsung heroes—that is correct, Mr Sabin. Those on the Regulations Review Committee are the unsung heroes of the parliamentary select committee process and have the very important job of looking at regulations that are put in place. These ones with the plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers are particularly interesting, and the fact that there has been an issue in terms of the levies that they have been charging and the work that they are using as a result of the levies charged. It is an interesting group, because I have had very, very lengthy conversations with a Taupō constituent about this exact organisation, about the work they do, about how they are registered, and how their fees and levies are applied. It is one of the things that as a member of Parliament you have the opportunity to get involved with and learn about organisations, trades, and employers in areas that you have not really had the opportunity to learn about before coming to this House.

This bill will tidy up a piece of legislation that has been challenging those important people who work in the plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers field. It will be very important for them that the board is able to do the work that it is put in place to do, and this piece of legislation that is brought to the House by the Hon Maurice Williamson enables it to do that. Unlike the other side of the House, I think the work that the plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers do for this country is important. It is important for our Parliament to support the work they do, to support their board, and to make sure that they are able to undertake the work that they need do. I am pleased to support this bill at its first reading.

I move, That the Government Administration Committee report the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Amendment Bill to the House on or before 22 March 2013, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 188 and 191(1)(b) and (c).

The shortened select committee report-back period is essential, as the new licensing year commences on 1 April and practitioners are already making licensing payments to the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board. This legislation will provide practitioners and the board with certainty. May I say that if the Regulations Review Committee does actually disallow the old fees and payments, it could be that the board would find itself completely insolvent, and there would be no regulatory body controlling the industry. That is why there is a shortened period.

I will take just a brief call in this debate on the shortened process for the Government Administration Committee’s consideration of the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Amendment Bill. As I mentioned in my substantive contribution on the bill, the Green Party is concerned about this shortened select committee process.

Having sat on a select committee dealing with a bill in a shortened 3-week time frame and having found it impossible in that case to do justice to the complex issues or apply the appropriate level of scrutiny to the bill, I cannot imagine how that can be achieved in the 1 week proposed for this bill. In our view, 1 week would be insufficient to adequately deal with any bill through the select committee, let alone one that has retrospective application. In such cases an even greater level of scrutiny should be applied than to a normal bill, and this will be impossible for this bill in 1 week.

Furthermore, we can predict that because of the long-running issues and complaints that prompted this bill, there will be a significant number of affected parties wishing to make submissions and follow the select committee’s process. These people deserve the opportunity to do so, because in many cases the changes proposed in this bill will impact directly on their daily lives and their businesses. One week is not sufficient for these stakeholders to prepare, present, and submit on this bill.

So the Green Party remains strongly opposed to this shortened select committee process. Although we understand that there is some rationale for that shortened process, those concerns are very fundamental. However, we will, as always, engage with the bill at the select committee as constructively as possible.