Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:641;Page:11014] 
Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 8 August. 
Clause 3 Principal Act amended  
(recommitted) (continued) 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I want to remind the Committee of the debacle we are in. In 2002 under urgency and with a Supplementary Order Paper the Government set up the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service to try to deal with the plight of thousands of New Zealanders stuck with leaky homes a problem that the Prime Minister described as being paramount. Labour messed it up. It got it wrong. So in 2005 Clayton Cosgrove came into the House in a hurry and put a second bill through the House in order to fix the stuff-up that the Government had made in 2002. But the Government made a stuff-up in the fix-up on the stuff-up and that is what we are trying to fix up with this bill. 
Shane Jones 
: Boring! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: No it is absolutely true. Mr Jones says it is boring but I think that it is not boring. It is not boring for those 10000 homeowners with leaky homes for whom 5 years after this Government first said that it would fix their problem the Government has solved only 15 percent of it—less than one in six cases. If Mr Jones is so heartless to think that it is boring then I say that it is not good enough. I also say that it is not good enough that the Government tried once to fix it and stuffed it up tried a second time to fix it and stuffed it up and is now trying for a third time. 
Let us remind ourselves of what we are actually doing here. We have already had a Committee of the whole House stage on this bill and it went through to the third reading. But then the Government said: “Oops! We have made another stuff-up so we will have to go back to the Committee stage to change the bill.” Not only did the Government do that but also it has had to suspend the Standing Orders—the rules of Parliament—to try to do this latest patch-up job. That is an extraordinary move. It is years since this Parliament has had to suspend its own Standing Orders its own rules about how we process legislation and we are doing it to try to correct this latest stuff-up. 
Shane Jones 
: Parliamentary sovereignty. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Mr Shane Jones says: “Parliamentary sovereignty.” Let me remind that member of Sir Geoffrey Palmer. This is what Sir Geoffrey Palmer calls unbridled power—that is the Government tabled new legislation outside the scope of a bill only yesterday and it wants to bang it through as law today. Opposition members say that the Government told them that it had got the legislation right the first time and it had got it wrong. Then the Government told them it had got the legislation right the second time in a hurry and it had got it wrong. The Government told Opposition members a third time that it had got the legislation right and to trust it as it rushed it through. Opposition members say that as the Government has got it wrong three times it does not deserve another chance. Members on this side of the Chamber say that owners of leaky homes deserve better. 
 Let me just point out to the Committee that the Government has spent $85 million of public money on the Weathertight Homes Tribunal. That works out at $111000 per case that has been resolved. Do members know what the average settlement is for each case? The average settlement is $70000. Hang on a moment the Government is spending $111000 on the bureaucracy of the process of the Weathertight Homes Tribunal only to provide the homeowner with an average settlement of $70000. It would be cheaper frankly to write the cheque out and send it to the homeowner. I say to the Minister that rather than waiting for 5 years to get a resolution we would have had some of these homes fixed. 
I have to say that I do not know of any area that has resulted in as big a mess and as many bungles as we have seen from this Government both on the issues with the Weathertight Homes Tribunal and with the building law. Of course the Government has got right to the end of this process and said: “Oops we’ve got another mess-up.” The Minister having only just assured all the councils that they would be accredited by 30 November this year suddenly changed his mind yesterday and said: “Oops they are not going to make it.” What he wants to do is rush through an extra amendment to extend that through to 30 June next year. 
Well we simply say to the Minister that his bullying will not work. You see it was a stupid provision to put in the law to say that no building consents could be issued until such time as a local authority was accredited. I ask the Minister in the chair the Hon Mita Ririnui—who I understand is also an Associate Minister of Health—why it is in respect of councils’ health responsibilities that to try to get higher health standards they are not threatened with a withdrawal of their capacity to do their health functions if they do not do what the Minister says. We do not do it in health we do not do it in resource management and we do not do it in any other area so why is it that Clayton Cosgrove in the area of building law wants to have this bullying power to say to councils that consents cannot be issued in their area? Is that a practical mechanism for driving quality? 
Well let us think of the consequence. Let us say that any council in New Zealand—for example my own Nelson City Council—is prohibited from issuing consents. That would bring about absolute chaos and so too for any other area. Over 80000 building consents are processed each year. It should never have been in the law that councils could be stopped from being able to issue consents; that is punishing the community not the councils. It should never have been at 30 November—that date will not be met. 
The irony is this. I have been speaking just this morning to the Building Officials Institute of New Zealand. It has said that to meet the bureaucracy of this law and the Department of Building and Housing all of the council building officials have had to respond to the demands of the department rather than processing building consents. That means we have had record levels of building consents not being processed on time with all the grief that that is causing. 
Why does all this matter? Well we are in the middle of a debate about record high home costs. With record high interest rates and record building costs we are seeing homeownership rates deteriorate under Labour to their lowest level. Homeownership rates are at the lowest level for 50 years. They have dropped by 1 percent for every year that Labour has been in Government. 
That is why John Key is right. In the keynote speech that he gave on the weekend he said we need to sort out our building laws so that we are driving quality by the lowest-cost method because— 
Shane Jones 
: You created this problem. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Mr Jones the new member says this is National’s fault. Well I ask Mr Jones to explain this to me. Why is it that interest rates went down from 15 percent under National in 1990 to 6 percent and since Labour has been in Government from 1999 to now interest rates have gone up to 10 percent? Does the Minister in the chair know that for the average house the cost of servicing a mortgage has increased threefold under this Government? This problem needs resolving and not by these sorts of juggernaut techniques. 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 I find it intriguing that we are talking about clause 3 “Principal Act amended”. We have seen in the course of this debate the introduction of a Supplementary Order Paper that does not affect the principal Act the Weathertight Homes Resolutions Services Act 2006 but the Building Act which was passed in 2004. It is interesting to us that this Labour Government would introduce legislation to this Parliament that is right outside the Standing Orders so that Parliament has to set aside its normal rules to deal with something that would normally go before a select committee and be well considered. Why has the Labour Government in dealing with the leaky homes issue and the issue of hundreds and thousands of families across the country now being unable to afford their first home dealt with that by rushing legislation through this Parliament without due consideration? I ask the Committee whether that is good process. 
Hon Members 
: No. 
PHIL HEATLEY 
: Committee members say that no that is not good process at all. It is not good process at all. 
We have a situation here where some New Zealanders were so distraught in 2001 and 2002 because their homes were leaking like sieves that the Government rushed legislation through this Parliament. It gave them no practical help at all so in 2004 the Government rushed through more legislation to fix what was wrong with its previous legislation from 2002. It rushed through a fix-up job in 2004. We are now debating another fix-up job in 2007 and the Minister sneaks in a Supplementary Order Paper—amendments that have not been considered by the Social Services Committee or the wider public—to fix up the fix-up that fixed up the fix-up. That is a sad state of affairs indeed. If only the Government had considered the views of the building industry of house owners themselves of district councils right across this country and of everyone who has been affected by the leaky homes crisis and the home affordability crisis then today we would be considering good legislation. 
I am going to say hello to the members of the House again next year in 2008. I can almost guarantee that National will be here to fix this legislation which is being rushed through the House. That is my concern. This is the third time that National members have stood here and challenged the Government to put up decent legislation that will help families in leaky homes and help families to buy their first home. We have been here three times now and we will be here again next year. At least the Labour Party members are guaranteeing themselves a job. If they keep stuffing up they will keep having legislation to fix and they will keep turning up in their LTDs and collecting their pay. 
But it is with distress that the National Party members are here because we would really love to see solutions from Labour rather than see legislation piled upon legislation piled upon legislation piled upon legislation. District councils and city councils themselves have asked the Government not to accredit them and give them more regulations. They have asked the Labour Government not to stuff up the time frames that they have for giving resource consents and building consents to those who want to build their homes because what then happens is that district councils have to pass the costs associated with that on to first home buyers. They have to pass tens of thousands of dollars of costs on to first home buyers and first home buyers resent that. The legislation that the Government is passing forces district councils to raise the prices on first home buyers and district councils do not like to do that. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairman. I have a very important point of order which I ask for your considered ruling on. The Minister has tabled not just Supplementary Order Paper 133 but also Supplementary Order Paper 134. I want you to reflect on the motion that was passed by the House to overrule the Standing Orders. The motion is to “permit the Committee of the whole House … to consider Supplementary Order Paper 133 relating to that bill …” . That motion relates to the suspension of the Standing Orders. The suspension of the Standing Orders is an extraordinary power of the Government. It says that the Government is going to throw out the normal rules of the House. 
But the House agreed to throw out the rules of the House for the consideration of Supplementary Order Paper 133 only. The motion is quite specifically about Supplementary Order Paper 133. Then early in the Committee stage a ruling from Mr Robertson a very competent Chair said that in debating the recommittal of this bill we needed to debate Supplementary Order Paper 133 because in the motion that was moved by the Minister he said that we needed to recommit the bill for the purposes of considering that Supplementary Order Paper. 
The ruling I seek from you Mr Chair is that it is not proper within the instructions that we have from the House for any consideration to be given to Supplementary Order Paper 134 and that it would be a breach of the processes of the House for us to consider any motions in respect of that Supplementary Order Paper. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: If I could address the issues you have raised Dr Smith we have been dealing with two motions. The first of course was that in notice of motion No. 1 on the Order Paper. Then we moved to the motion to recommit which dealt with the division of the bill. It dealt with Supplementary Order Paper 133 and the dividing of the bill which is on Supplementary Order Paper 134 albeit the motion did not mention Supplementary Order Paper 134. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 If the Government wishes to suspend the Standing Orders in order for us to consider Supplementary Order Paper 134 that should have been in the Minister’s motion. The Minister’s motion is quite explicit; it refers only to Supplementary Order Paper 133. I cannot see that the Government has any wiggle room to now claim that we have to consider another Supplementary Order Paper of amendments when the specific instruction from the House was that Standing Order 261 was suspended only for the purposes of considering Supplementary Order Paper 133. 
I further point out to you that the suspension of Standing Order 261 is with regard to considering matters outside the scope of a bill. The matters covered on Supplementary Order Paper 134 are specifically outside the scope of the bill. That Supplementary Order Paper deals with issues that are now to be in the Building (Consent Authorities) Amendment Bill. 
I think there has been an error by the Government. The proper process for the Government is to go back to the full House. If the Government wishes to continue to pursue this matter we would need to consider a new motion from the Government to suspend the Standing Orders for the purposes of Supplementary Order Papers 133 and 134. 
TIM BARNETT (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 In response to that I make a couple of points. Firstly my understanding is that the Committee of the whole House which we are now in has an inherent power to divide legislation. That is the first point I would like to make. Regardless of whatever the motion said that brings us to the point we are at now that inherent power is held by the Committee of the whole House. Secondly the recommittal motion does refer to the splitting of the bill albeit it does not refer to the number of the Supplementary Order Paper which is 134 and to which Dr Smith referred. 
ANNE TOLLEY (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 We had considerable debate in this Chamber last night at the beginning of the Committee stage about exactly what we were able to debate in the Committee of the whole House. It was made very clear to us that we could debate only what was set out on Supplementary Order Paper 133. Hence there was no wide-ranging debate on Part 1; we were confined to the clauses on Supplementary Order Paper 133. We were not allowed any debate on Part 2 and moved straight into Part 3—again as set out on Supplementary Order Paper 133. At no stage during that whole process was Supplementary Order Paper 134 and the dividing of the bill referred to. We were instructed by the Chair to stick to Supplementary Order Paper 133. He did say that he would listen carefully to our debate and that if we erred beyond that slightly he would make a judgment call. But his direction to us was quite specific: that we were to be focused on Supplementary Order Paper 133 only. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Thank you for contributing to the point of order raised. My recollection is that the House agreed to two motions yesterday. The first was the motion to suspend Standing Order 261 and when that was agreed to the House went on to recommit the bill by motion to consider the amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 133 and to divide the bill. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Those words were never used. 
Hon CLEM SIMICH 
: That is my recollection of what Mr Cosgrove moved. We proceeded from there. Of course we are now on clause 3 which is a separate question altogether. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. How is it possible for the Committee to consider Supplementary Order Paper 134 when the House has given no direction to enable us to do that? It is simply dancing on the head of a pin to say we should assume that we were going to divide the bill and that to divide the bill we need Supplementary Order Paper 134 so on that basis we can do what we like. I am sorry but if the Government wanted the House to consider Supplementary Order Paper 134 it needed to record that in its additional motion because it is absolutely clear that the provisions on Supplementary Order Paper 134 would breach Standing Order 261 in going outside the scope of the bill. 
TIM BARNETT (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 Further to that point of order I very much appreciated your comments just now Mr Chairman but I would maybe invite you to address the couple of the points that I made. One is the understanding that the Committee of the whole House has the inherent power to divide a bill. That is inherent to the Committee; it does not need any particular permission to do that. I say firstly it is an inherent power of the Committee of the whole House to divide a bill and secondly the recommittal motion refers to that process but does not refer to Supplementary Order Paper 134. By dealing with Supplementary Order Paper 134 we are carrying out the intention of the motion. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: It seems fairly clear that the Hon Clayton Cosgrove moved that the order of the day for the third reading of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill be discharged and that the bill be recommitted for the purpose of considering the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 133 and dividing the bill. So notice was given to the House of that intention. I assume that is what the Minister said. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I was here in the Chamber. I want a clear ruling from you Mr Chairman. I have to say that when we suspend the Standing Orders of the House it is a very serious and very rare provision particularly if it is done by a plain majority of the House. If despite the fact that Supplementary Order Paper 134 was never mentioned in the motion before the House it is your intention to rule that Supplementary Order Paper 134 will be considered then I have no choice but to recall the Speaker if you go down that track. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: You may do that of course Dr Smith but there were two motions agreed to by the House. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: That’s right. 
Hon CLEM SIMICH 
: That was yesterday. One was to consider Supplementary Order Paper 133— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: And the second was to recommit. 
Hon CLEM SIMICH 
: No—and the other was to divide the bill. The other one was to consider— 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 Can I read for the benefit of the Committee the exact motion: “That Standing Order 261 be suspended to permit the Committee of the whole House on the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill to consider Supplementary Order Paper 133 relating to that bill and for the committee in its consideration of the bill to have the power to adopt if it thinks fit the amendments set out on the Supplementary Order Paper.” There is no mention in that motion of the subsequent Supplementary Order Paper 134 tabled in the name of the Minister. I simply say that I cannot find any interpretation that will allow our Standing Orders to be suspended for a different Supplementary Order Paper. For instance if I tabled a Supplementary Order Paper right now to do A B C or D then you Mr Chairman would rightly say I cannot do that because it is outside the instructions from the House. 
Now there was a second resolution that the House considered as well which was that the bill not proceed with its third reading and be recommitted. That is perfectly proper but it was recommitted for the purpose—and the motion was quite explicit; the Minister quite explicitly said that the bill was to be recommitted for the purpose of considering Supplementary Order Paper 133 not Supplementary Order Paper 134. That is why I think the Government again has got itself into a mess. The only proper course to take is for us to come out of Committee and for a Minister if he or she wants to further dig a hole to move that Standing Order 261 be suspended so that the new Supplementary Order Paper can also be considered. 
TIM BARNETT (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I thought I would offer some further helpful advice. This is really to reiterate in a different way what I said previously. Once a bill has been recommitted to the Committee of the whole House which is the situation we are now in it is within the power of the Committee of the whole House to consider amendments within the scope of the bill which is what we are now doing. We are now in the Committee of the whole House and we are considering those amendments. I think it really is as plain and simple as that. 
ANNE TOLLEY (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 I am sorry but we argued that point with the Chair last night and it was firmly ruled that we could debate only what was on Supplementary Order Paper 133. We were told that just because we were in Committee that did not mean we could debate anything else. Our debate was confined clearly to what was on that Supplementary Order Paper— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: With some allowances. 
ANNE TOLLEY 
: —with some allowances. But we could not widen the debate. We could not have a debate on Part 2 for instance or on other issues contained within Part 1. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 The key issue here is the suspension of Standing Order 261. The suspension of Standing Order 261 was related only to Supplementary Order Paper 133. Now Mr Barnett has argued that well no we can do this because Supplementary Order Paper 134 is within the scope of the bill. Well I want to draw your attention to Supplementary Order Paper 134. It refers to the Building (Consent Authorities) Amendment Act. I want you Mr Chairperson to refer to the base bill we are debating which is the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill. That Supplementary Order Paper is outside the scope of the bill. That is why the resolution was required for Supplementary Order Paper 133 and why it is absolutely irrefutably logical that that must also apply to Supplementary Order Paper 134. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I thank the member. He is quite correct in most of the issues that he outlines. Standing Order 261 is about the subject area of the bill. The suspension of that Standing Order enabled this bill to become an omnibus bill. The division of the bill does not require the suspension of the Standing Orders. That is an inherent power of the Committee of the whole House under Standing Order 305. The subsequent motion to recommit the bill was as follows: “That the order of the day for the third reading of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill be discharged and that the bill be recommitted for the purpose of considering the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 133 and dividing the bill.” The motion to move Supplementary Order Paper 134 is next on the list after we have dealt with clause 3. That motion will be debatable. Now I cannot really take the matter too much further than that. Supplementary Order Paper 134 divides the bill and is thus provided for under the motion to recommit the bill. There is no doubt that this is in order. That is my final ruling. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The purposes of dividing the bill are fine. What the Minister does not have the right to do is to introduce a second Supplementary Order Paper. He could have included the issues that are set out on Supplementary Order Paper 134 on his original Supplementary Order Paper but he does not have the capacity to introduce a second Supplementary Order Paper. So I have to take the step of recalling the Speaker to get a definitive ruling on whether the Committee in fact has the power to consider Supplementary Order Paper 134. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: It is entirely for the member to take us out of Committee if he wishes to do so. It is my ruling that this matter is in order. But if the member wishes to proceed down the suggested course I await his decision. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I move  
That the Speaker be recalled so a ruling may be put on this procedural issue. 
Motion agreed to. 
House resumed. 
Speaker Recalled 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Madam Speaker you have been recalled to give a ruling on whether the recommittal and the process we are going through to divide the bill are in order. Representations have been made by a number of speakers particularly the Hon Dr Nick Smith in this regard. The ruling I gave was that what the Committee had done and the procedures we had gone through were in order. I gave that as my final ruling; hence you have been recalled. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Thank you for that. I have considered the matter and I have taken advice on it. I accept the advice that the Chair has already given to the Committee. The suspension of Standing Order 261 is a separate matter; to give authority for the consideration of an amendment that creates an omnibus bill is a separate matter. The recommittal motion dealt with the consideration of the amendment and the division of the bill. The Committee has the authority of course to override the bill. So the ruling that the Chairperson gave was correct. But further to all that Standing Order 305 gives the Committee the inherent power to divide the bill. That appears to be the issue—whether there is in fact power to divide the bill. That as far as I am concerned is the ruling I am giving. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I think it is important that we are very clear about the issue. It is a very unusual procedure which has been used on very rare occasions to suspend the normal Standing Orders of Parliament for the way in which law is considered. For the Government to use its majority to suspend those Standing Orders is very unusual and it is a mechanism that should be used with great restraint. I could quote you Geoffrey Palmer’s comments about the use of that power. 
The issue is not the division of the bill. It is clear that the two resolutions that were passed were firstly to suspend the Standing Orders; and secondly to discharge the bill to refer it to the Committee and to allow the bill to be divided into parts. The issue is whether Supplementary Order Paper 134 can be considered by the Committee. Supplementary Order Paper 134 deals with issues that are outside the scope of the bill. It deals quite specifically with issues in the Building Act whereas the substantive bill deals only with issues in the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act. The question arose during the Committee debate on the bill. Points were raised last evening. The Chairperson said very plainly that we could debate only the issues that were in Supplementary Order Paper 133. 
I think the correct ruling for you to make Madam Speaker is that it is not possible for the Committee to consider Supplementary Order Paper 134. If the Government had wanted the Committee to consider Supplementary Order Paper 134 that should have been specifically listed in the motion that was put to the House. So I seek clarification from you and I say that in this area of the suspension of the Standing Orders we should have very tight rules because to pass law without the normal process of a first reading a select committee process and a second reading goes to the heart of the powers of Parliament. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member and I will take a moment for some advice. I thank the Deputy Clerk and also the member for his comments. I agree with him that it is an important process and one that is used rarely and that therefore it is important to get it right. But the reality is that the process and procedure that has been followed however extraordinary it is has been followed correctly according to the Standing Orders. 
In any recommittal motion—and maybe I did not explain this carefully before—it is not actually required to specifically mention the Supplementary Order Papers though that motion of course did mention the division of the bill. So we are dealing with two separate matters. There was the original issue of the suspension of the Standing Orders to consider the Supplementary Order Paper; that was dealt with. Then there was the recommittal motion. It did not have to refer specifically—as I understand the member’s point—to the Supplementary Order Paper. It was passed. That was the correct process. The ruling given by the Chair in the Committee was the correct one and that is my ruling. Thank you. 
In Committee 
Debate resumed. 
Clause 3 Principal Act amended ( 
recommitted) (continued 
)  
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Now having had the Speaker’s ruling that the very wide powers that the Committee has enable the movement of a Supplementary Order Paper on pretty much anything can I seek your clarification that it is now quite permissible for me and my colleagues to move a Supplementary Order Paper to change the Building Act or the Finance Act or the social welfare legislation or any other Act of Parliament and for those motions to be put to the Committee under the title of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Thank you for raising that matter Dr Smith. It would appear that you are not entitled to do that. A ruling on the matter can be found in Speaker’s ruling 112/1 which states: “If a bill is recommitted for the purpose of considering amendments proposed on a Supplementary Order Paper the committee can only deal with such matters as are stated in the motion for recommittal.” We are dealing with Supplementary Order Paper 133 and with the division of the bill which is the subject of Supplementary Order Paper 134. The Speaker has ruled that those are the issues that the Committee is considering so there is no power to allow any member to bring in any extra matters or Supplementary Order Papers in fact. So can we move on to clause 3 and the question that it stand part. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 We are debating an awful legislative bungle that has occurred both within the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act and within the Building Act. The Government passes a law does it in a rush and makes a botch of it. It then passes another law to fix up the botch-up but when it goes to fix up the botch-up it realises there is a mistake so it brings another bill to the House that it wants to ram through to try to fix it. I remind the Committee that the Minister in charge of this bill has a mantra. His mantra for the building industry is “Do it once do it right.” Well it is a pity that the Minister for Building and Construction has not applied his rule of “Do it once do it right.” to his own legislation because what we have here is a bill to fix the fix that went wrong and then to fix the subsequent fix. 
We also have the Government using an extraordinary power to suspend the Standing Orders to enable it after the second reading and Committee stage to send the bill back to the Committee to include new provisions to fix another one of the Minister’s mess-ups—not a mess-up in the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act but in the Building Act. So what we have is a series of botch-ups in trying to fix the leaky homes and another set of botch-ups in terms of the Building Act. 
The Government has set a deadline of 30 November this year when every council has to be accredited as a building consent authority and some councils are quite clearly not going to meet that deadline. The difficulty I have is that the Government has known of this for months. My colleague John Carter pointed out that he was told over a year ago that councils were not going to meet this deadline. I heard as early as 6 months ago that councils were not going to meet this deadline. So the question I have for members of the Government concerns why given that we on this side of the Chamber have known about this problem for over a year in a mad rush this week Government members have had a rush of blood to their heads and suddenly rushed to the House to pass another set of amendments. 
A further question I have for the Minister of Corrections Damien O’Connor who is the Minister in the chair—the Minister who is overseeing more messes within the Department of Corrections than before in living memory— 
Hon Damien O'Connor 
: Not as many as you. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I was proud to be Minister of Corrections. What I find really interesting is the number of questions the then Labour Opposition asked me during my period of 18 months as Minister of Corrections. Do members know how many questions it asked me? Zero! The only questions I got in my entire period as Minister of Corrections I say to Mr O’Connor were patsies from my own side. So I find it quite extraordinary that the Minister of Corrections who has seen one botch-up after another is now the “Minister of Correcting the Problems of the Minister for Building and Construction”. Actually he is quite appropriately named. The Minister of Corrections is correcting Clayton Cosgrove’s stuff-ups. 
What I would like Mr O’Connor to explain to the Committee is why in 2002 the Government said: “Trust us. These amendments we have got here will fix the leaky homes.” It got it wrong and in 2005 it had to come along with the amendments to fix the botch-ups of 2002. Again the Government said to the House: “Trust us. We’ve got the detail right. There’ll be no troubles.” and it rushed legislation through the House. Now this bill is to fix up the botch-ups that occurred in the 2005 legislation. I ask Government members given that they got it wrong in 2002 when they did it in a rush and they got it wrong again in 2005 when they did it in a rush why should members in this Chamber trust the Government to get it right on the third attempt when there has been no select committee process and the legislation was tabled in the House only yesterday? 
I put this to the Committee: I bet that not a single member of this Parliament has read through the more than 120 lines of changes to the law that we are making right now. I bet that no member has gone through and checked each line of that legislation. I say to this Parliament that it is a dereliction of our duty that we would pass 110 lines of legislation knowing that the Government has got it wrong three times previously. Why would we in a mad rush pass a law today that the Government tabled only yesterday? I further point out there is not a mad rush. Can the Minister in the chair explain why we need to rush this bill through today given that we have until 30 November to do it? 
PAULA BENNETT (National) 
: 
 It is very fortunate for the Committee that we have this opportunity to stand up and point out some of the comedy of errors that is continually happening with the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill. Everything to do with the bill has been an absolute comedy of errors and at the end of the day the Labour Government keeps forgetting the people who are trying to work their way through the issue. It is one thing for the Government to make a mistake and get the process a bit wrong but there are people at the end of this process. That is so easily forgotten. 
Let us work through the comedy of errors. I was not in the House in 2002 so correct me if I am wrong but in 2002 the Government rushed through all these changes. It rushed them through because it thought it was urgent and it did not need to get the legislation right but just had to get something through. It was all done in a bit of a hurry. Now we are taking up the time of the House once again trying to fix mistake after mistake. What gets me upset the most about these issues is that Clayton Cosgrove is out there telling the building industry to not stuff it up but to get it right. I say: “Get it right first time.” I say we cannot be fixing these houses—time and time again. That is a good message at the moment but would it not be better if the Government had got it right if not the first time then the second time or even the third time maybe? Just maybe it could get it right. The Government has only to fix this legislation once and if it had done it right once we would have already seen results. Instead we are taking up the time of the House going back to what should have been done the first time. We have had the first reading the second reading the select committee process and the Committee stage. The Government has been in such a mad rush to get the bill through that we have suspended the Standing Orders—suspended the actual way the House runs—so the Government can put through this flawed policy. The Supplementary Order Paper seeks to extend the deadline. 
I refer to clause 3 in quite some detail. I just cannot get over the fact that we need to go back to clause 3 and redo it when we are looking at line after line of stuff-ups by the Government that keep going back to the building legislation. The Weathertight Homes Tribunal was set up and is not going well at all for those people who are trying to work their way through the process. They have no faith in this Government to get it right. They are completely legitimate in their lack of faith. They are appalled upset and disgusted that the House has to go back to the same legislation—time and time again. There are mistakes that need not have happened if due consideration had been given to the importance of the issue. 
Members on the other side of the Chamber can make snide comments and sit there grinning but this is a really serious issue. It is affecting people’s lives and they cannot afford to have this level of hold-up. The Government needs to take a good look at itself. It needs to understand how it is getting the section wrong and why the time of the House is still being taken up with it. 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 I want to make a couple of brief points. The first one is that the esteemed member of Parliament for wherever Shane Jones mentioned— 
Shane Jones 
: A very good member! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: That is right; he is a cousin of Hone Harawira the intrepid journeyman in Australia. He is a very close relative. 
Pita Paraone 
: “MP for the Northern Territory”! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: He is the “MP for the Northern Territory”. I digress. Shane Jones said we are talking about minor details but if they are just minor details then why were the Standing Orders suspended? The history of the House would not have been put aside if they were just minor details. I concur with my colleagues who have said that the first attempt to fix this problem happened in 2002 when the House promulgated— 
Shane Jones 
: That was in the past; look to the future. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Well let us look to the future after we have looked at the diabolical nonsense we have had from Labour over the last 5 years. It attempted to fix the problem in 2002 then in 2005 and now in 2007. The member says we should look to the future. Well a couple of words come to mind—“déjà vu”. We are doing something that should have been done in 2002 and should have been done in 2005. Now in 2007 we have put aside the history of the House by suspending the Standing Orders just so that we can try to fix the diabolical nonsense of this Government. It could not organise a you-know-what in a brewery. 
Dave Hereora 
: Talk about clause 3. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Why do we need to amend the principal Act? The only reason—[ 
Interruption 
] Mr Hereora is murmuring and muttering away but he will not take a call. There is not a mutter not a murmur from him—as a member of the House is wont to say. The member opposite would not even know what is in clause 3. The Government has suspended the Standing Orders but for what reason? It has done so— 
Paula Bennett 
: To make another stuff-up. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: —to make another stuff-up. Mr Jones wants me to talk about the future. Well what is going to happen in the future is there will be a new Government and it will be the new Government’s responsibility to fix up all of the mess and all of the mistakes made along that little way by that little Labour Government. [ 
Interruption 
] Exactly and we will take on the mantra of Clayton Cosgrove and we will do it once and we will do it right. That is what will happen; that is what the National Government will do in 2008. 
Shane Jones 
: 2080! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: No no not when that member is still here. Not when he is still here at the age of 100-and-whatever. What we will do is figure out things. We will get the experts in—not Clayton Cosgrove not the Minister of Corrections and certainly not Shane Jones—to deal with this issue and to sort it out. If Shane Jones is anywhere near the Minister’s seat we will be going through this again and again fixing up the diabolical mess and the diabolical nonsense that this Government has been on about for the last 7 years. There have been a number of stuff-ups and botch-ups just in this legislation. It behoves us all to make sure that when a bill is put before the House it is done right we do not waste the country’s time and we certainly do not waste taxpayers’ money. What this Government has done is a total waste of taxpayers’ money the hard-earned stuff that Shane Jones would not know about. 
KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 I speak to Supplementary Order Paper 134. Interestingly I was speaking last night to Supplementary Order Paper 133 because I thought that was all there really was. I did not realise there was a Supplementary Order Paper 134 as well. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: It is clause 3 that we are speaking to. 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: Sorry—it is clause 3 that we are speaking to. It is interesting because I am on the select committee that looks at these bills. We read them and we get submissions. There is a robust process when we make legislation. There is a first reading where we talk to it. It goes to a select committee and we get submissions in. It is really important in this process to listen to what people out there say about how the legislation affects them and to listen to what the specialists in the industries say about the legislation we are trying to make. After that we adjust the legislation bring it back into the House debate it in a second reading debate it in a Committee stage go on to the third reading and then the bill is passed. 
We have a very robust system in New Zealand and one we should be proud of. But I must say that today I think the system has let us down. It is disappointing when we attach Supplementary Order Papers to bills and put them through without the opportunity of their going through the proper system that we have in place. When I look at clause 3 and I look at all the other things that have happened in the building industry I see mistake after mistake after mistake. 
The Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act 2002 came in to fix leaky homes. Well it kind of fixed leaky homes; leaky homes are still being built so the problem actually has not been fixed. It was repealed and the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act 2006 came in to make the situation a bit better because obviously the legislation had been rushed through as has every piece of building industry legislation that has been presented here. We were here again yesterday to talk about the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill. It is being rushed through yet again and we did not even ask for submissions on that legislation which is about the distress and anxiety of owners of leaky homes and giving them some form of compensation. That is fine; we are talking only about leaky homes and that is what the initial bill was about. 
But then I looked at the Building Act 2004 which is relevant to clause 3 as it does relate to the building industry. Then I looked at the bills before the select committee in 2007. All these bills should go there to be made right. The Building Amendment Bill is sitting there and gosh is this relevant to that bill or not? Well you know it actually should be because it has nothing to do with leaky homes. 
That is interesting because when we look at the purpose statement of the 2007 bill we see that it was drafted to make the 2004 bill more workable. We have a pattern here a pattern of legislation made incorrectly rushed through not properly worked through the system and we are back here again and again. It is really disappointing especially as I am so new to the House to see legislation and the process let us down over and over again. 
I will talk about the split this Supplementary Order Paper 134 is making to the bill. It is splitting the bill into the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill and the Building (Consent Authorities) Amendment Bill—which is pretty close to clause 3 I do believe Mr Chairman. Anyway I think we have let down the people. We have let down homeowners and we have let down the building industry. 
Colin King 
: We haven’t; the Government has. 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: I have not; I believe that the system is wrong. We have let down the homeowners and we have let down the building industry. We have let down all those people who voted us into Parliament to represent them because they believed we can make good legislation to make this a better country for them all to live in. 
When we witness something like this we are not witnessing good legislation or a process we should be proud of. Everybody out there who has listened to this debate should be disappointed in what has happened to clause 3. All the people in Auckland who are in their cars now driving along at 1 kilometre per hour with another hour to go before they get home to their leaky homes will not be helped at all by any of the legislation that has been put through in the last 2 or 3 days. 
NATHAN GUY (National) 
: 
 Following on from Katrina Shanks’ very very good and informative address on clause 3 I was thinking about her mentioning the people sitting in traffic jams in Auckland. I was also thinking about the building inspectors who occasionally work in Wellington trying to get to the Kapiti coast where I live but who are snarled up in traffic as we speak. Those building inspectors who have been listening to their radios in their cars this afternoon will be having a quiet wee smirk at the Government over the shonky process we have seen in the Chamber in the last day and a half. 
Nick Smith has done extremely well to expose that here this afternoon. Those building inspectors will be thinking that this is the third attempt to change the Building Act. They are sick of heading off to conferences and seminars. They are sick of having to carry around all this bureaucracy and these large documents. They just get au fait with something and then the Labour Government brings in yet another change. So what do they have to do? They have to get in their cars and head off to another seminar down in Wellington and then turn round at 5 to 6 in the evening and get in the terrible traffic jam and head back out to the Kapiti coast. 
This legislation is a shambles. We have exposed the fact that the Government wanted to dismantle the 402 Standing Orders yesterday and Nick Smith and his team of Katrina Shanks Phil Heatley and Bob Clarkson have done extremely well in exposing the Government. What we need to be aware of is that in 2002—and I am speaking to clause 3—when the Building Act was amended by the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act it was meant to provide homeowners with a speedier more flexible and cost-effective alternative to the courts. Well I want to tell all those building inspectors who are quietly smirking in their cars as they listen to their radios that since 2002 when that Act was passed only 16 percent of those cases have been concluded. So 84 percent of people are still waiting to have their cases heard to try to get a conclusion after 5 long years of this Government. So what I want to say to Mr Cosgrove who talks about doing it once and doing it right is that we have seen a really shonky display in the last 2 days in this Chamber. What an embarrassment it has been to the Government. 
Progress reported. 
Report adopted.