Woods Megan: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 17 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6830. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my pleasure to rise to take a call on this bill. I think this is a very important piece of legislation. This is about fixing a problem that impacts on a small number of people but none the less it is very important.For most New Zealanders their home and their house is the biggest asset that they will ever own in their lives and I think we need to acknowledge the uncertainty that a group of New Zealanders have been put through over the last few years in terms of weathertight homes. When you read through some of the media reports about families who have suffered through the leaky homes saga I think you will really be struck by what a terrible piece of the history of housebuilding in New Zealand this really has been.There is the story of the de Roo family in Porirua who discovered on Christmas Day 1999 that their home was a leaky building. They thought that it had been fixed but they discovered that their home was a leaky building when they got up to find that all the presents under their Christmas tree had been destroyed because the roof had leaked. So I think that we need to think about the human cost that sits behind the legislation that we are talking about here.As previous speakers have noted this bill went through the Local Government and Environment Committee with only three submissions coming in on it and only one submitter asked to be heard in person. I think that that really speaks to the fact of how far we have come on this issue. We are getting close to a resolution and I think that it was good that we were able to work in a non-partisan way to find a fair solution and of course with the legislation expiring next year there was an impetus on making sure that we did not leave people dangling. The changes that the select committee was able to make to this legislation have made it a piece of legislation that is all the better for that but it is another patch-up that we are doing in this area.Labour is supporting this legislation as my colleague Su’a William Sio has indicated. We do want to tidy up the Act because we want to ensure that those who deserve it get the compensation that is due to them. I think that without doubt all of us in this House can have a great deal of feeling for the people who have been through this. It has been going on for years and it is another piece of legislation we are having to be here to fix up.The claimants have been fighting for years for the right—we all think when we buy a house and it really is part of the Kiwi dream that it is going to be a warm and a dry house and it is not really going to become one of the biggest millstones around your neck. I think in the first reading of this bill my colleague Clayton Cosgrove noted how the Minister who is putting this current legislation through the House when he was in Opposition used to sit on the Opposition benches and bellow: “Just write a cheque.”—just write a cheque. That was Nick Smith’s approach when he was an Opposition spokesman but when he came to the Cabinet table and he came to finding some solutions maybe he found that the situation was a little bit more complicated a little bit more nuanced and maybe required a bit more thought than just simply bellowing across the House “Just write a cheque” to the then Labour Government. So I think that stands as an important reminder that what you interject in this House may sometimes come back to haunt you.Todd Muller: Indeed.Dr MEGAN WOODS: Well some people choose their interjections more wisely than others Mr Muller. So “Just write a cheque” did not prove to be under Nick Smith’s solution that we are seeing in the legislation that is before us today.I think it is important that we get on record—to pick up on the point that Su’a William Sio also raised—why we are in this situation that we are in. I think that it is an important point about deregulation and the fact that a whole cast of cowboys under the Bolger-Shipley Government was sent to go forth and build—anyone who wanted to. In his speech in the first reading debate my colleague Clayton Cosgrove said that he could have strapped on a tool belt God forbid and gone to build some homes. So I think that these are days that we can never return to—never return to.Regulation is there for a reason. We need to have people who are properly trained and we need to have legislation that properly regulates these industries. Reading through and listening to some of the comments that are being made today—I think that the chairman of the Local Government and Environment Committee talked about how great it is to have certainty and decisive legislation because otherwise homeowners are going to be put through lengthy and costly processes—I cannot help thinking of the parallels that we are currently seeing with the situation with foundation repairs in Christchurch at the moment.Again what we are seeing there is inaction and a lack of leadership from a Minister who will not make the decisive calls a Minister who will not give certainty to people. A number of people have been warning that the situation with many foundation repairs in Christchurch actually risks becoming the next weathertight homes saga—the next leaky homes saga—that we are going to have to deal with over a number of decades. My fear is that in a decade or so we are going to be in this House in this Chamber talking about legislation similar to this: a fix-up for what has been another blunder from another National Government that thinks that it does not have to show leadership that it can just let the market dictate and that it can just let things go willy-nilly.So that I think is an important and a very timely reminder for all of us as parliamentarians and as legislators that is contained in this because this is not something that we can allow to happen again. We have to learn the lessons of the leaky homes saga; it has been incredibly difficult for a number of individuals incredibly difficult for them to get on with their lives and we have to ensure that we never get there again. We have to remember how this first manifested itself first of all thinking it was decaying timber framing that was to blame. I mean we saw just how much more complicated the situation was as we went through.So Labour is happy to support this legislation. I am sure my colleague the ever-learned Hon David Parker will pick up the point about the area of law that this is in and the many fix-ups that we have had to make here but we do have to make sure we learn from this saga. We have to learn from this chapter of history. We have to see what just letting the market dictate in an unregulated and unfettered way can lead to and that is the personal hardship and the very personal stories that we have to remember lie behind the numbers that we talk about when we say that only a small number of people are affected by this and only a small number of people are going to need to have recourse to the fund to fix their homes.We have to remember that family that got up on Christmas Day 1999 to find not only that their Christmas presents were ruined but that the very place in which they thought they were safe they thought they were secure—their home—was not that at all. They found that the Government had failed to put in place the things to protect them to make sure that the people who were building their home were qualified and to make sure that there was a regulated industry that was going to ensure their home was safe and that the local authorities were inspecting it in a safe way. I just hope we are not back here in a few years talking about shonky foundation repairs in Christchurch and the same kind of fix-up legislation that may be required. Thank you.