King Annette: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 02 July 2013. Volume:691;Page:11735. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai):I want to continue on from where Chris Hipkins was in his contribution to this Plumbers Gasfitter and Drainlayers Amendment Bill.Hon Members: Oh!Hon ANNETTE KING: Oh I am so pleased members opposite are welcoming my contribution. It is going to be a serious one. In fact I am going to quote from probably one of the member’s own constituents whom I met with recently. Chris Hipkins said we know that problems exist in this area and we are very keen to find solutions. I think where we ought to start is to take seriously complaints that have been made about what is going on in this industry. I am aware that there are three complaints currently beforethe Regulations Review Committee—three complaints that those who have made the complaints want heard before this bill passes. They have asked for them to be heard before this bill passes.I have spoken to the chair of the Regulations Review Committee Maryan Street. She is keen to put these complaints on the agenda and have them heard. I will predict however that the members of the National Party who now have the majority on that committee—it is unheard of in this Parliament that you have the Regulations Review Committee without it being a committee that has even numbers on it—will not allow those complaints to be heard. I will predict that. If the members opposite can tell me that they will support the hearing of these complaints when the chair calls for them to be heard say it today. What I suspect is that this bill is going to be rushed through and the complaints are going to be denied to be heard by that committee before the bill is passed. That is what I believe is going to happen and so do those who have made the complaints.You see this is what has happened because of uncertainty this last year in particular around this bill and around what is going to happen. The bill was introduced in March and the House was told that the Government needed to pass it very quickly in a short time and then it truncated the number of submissions that could be heard. In fact not all the submissions were heard. It needed to be passed by 1 April I think it was said at the time and here we are really on 4 July although it says 2 July on the Chamber calendar and it is still only now being debated. In that year I have received as other members have from the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board the figures on the number of certified and licensed plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers for the year 2012-13. So what has happened while we have had this uncertainty—the lack of resolution around the problems in this area? We have seen in the last year an overall loss of certified plumbers of 558. We have seen the loss of certified gasfitters of 88. We have seen 761 certified drainlayers lost. In fact the total loss of licensed and certified drainlayers over this last year is 2173. Can we afford to have that sort of loss particularly of licensed drainlayers? They are the ones who actually go out and do the job. Can we afford it at this time—Mike Sabin: The board’s there to make sure the unlicensed ones don’t get away with the rubbish they do.Hon ANNETTE KING: —when we need to have such—what is the member over there crowing about?Mike Sabin: The unlicensed ones are the ones whom the board is there to protect the licensed ones from.Hon ANNETTE KING: Well the licensed ones are leaving the industry because of the lack of certainty—Mike Sabin: And I think you’ll find they’re being replaced.Hon ANNETTE KING: I am not talking about unlicensed plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers Mr Sabin. Get the figures. These are the licensed ones so stop yelling and listen for a change. We have seen a loss of 2173 gasfitters drainlayers—[Interruption ] Mr Chairman.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Interjections should be rare and reasonable and barracking across the Chamber is unacceptable. I ask the member to calm it down and I come back to the Hon Annette King.Hon ANNETTE KING: Thank you Mr Chairman. Maybe Mr Sabin would like to take a call rather than just scream from his seat. What I am saying to this Committee is that that is a huge loss of licensed plumbers and certified plumbers drainlayers and gasfitters over the last year.There does need to be resolution around this bill. I have had something to do with it in the past. This Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Act used to be under the Minister of Health so I did have some contact with this Act in the past. But now we have so much uncertainty and we have those who will not pay a licence fee because they believe—