Huo Raymond: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Huo Raymond: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Sitting date: 30 January 2013. Volume:687;Page:7671. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RAYMOND HUO (Labour) 
: 
 The Prime Minister’s opening statement was great because it at least proved one thing: that on this planet we will all be judged by our actions and not our words. The problem with the Prime Minister’s speech is that it had too many high-sounding words and too few actions. In the Government’s second term and in its fifth year all we have got is one thousand people a week leaving for Australia unemployment of 7.3 percent—the highest in 14 years—85000 young people neither in work nor in training and New Zealand having the worst economic growth of any Government in the past 51 years. 
No wonder the Prime Minister has changed from “Mr Nice” to “Mr Grumpy” and “Mr Angry”. Instead of outlining his Government’s plans and policy priorities the Prime Minister used his speech to attack. He attacked the Greens 11 times and Labour more than 23 times and it is not hard to understand why. In its second term and fifth year the National - ACT - Maori Party Government has failed to deliver. From the Prime Minister’s statement it is all someone else’s fault. He has got an excuse for everything and a solution for nothing. 
For example take housing affordability. The  
New Zealand Herald 
 reported last week that an International Housing Affordability Survey listed Auckland as one of the most unaffordable cities in the world. It found that housing in New Zealand has become more unaffordable in the last year with median house prices now 5.3 times the median income. All eight of New Zealand’s property markets are seriously or severely unaffordable and London New York and Los Angeles are all ranked as more affordable than Auckland. And the response from our Prime Minister? He accused Kiwis of crying wolf. 
As Labour’s spokesperson on building and construction I say that the flow-on issue would be how to get new houses built and that brings us to the serious issue of the building law review. The Minister for Building and Construction the Hon Maurice Williamson has so far presented two Bills. The Building Amendment Bill (No 3) has now become the Building Amendment Act 2012 and the Building Amendment Bill (No 4) is likely to receive its second reading in the near future. The No 4 bill is the second of two bills to implement National’s building law review policy decisions. The Building Act review initiated by the last Labour Government has gained cross-party support. The review found weaknesses in consumer protection and a need to better allocate responsibility and accountability amongst consumers building consenting authorities and building professionals. Unfortunately all we have got from Minister Williamson is nothing substantial just public gimmicks. 
For instance under the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) Minister Williamson moved to get the code compliance certificate changed. Any property lawyer will advise his or her clients of the importance of obtaining a code compliance certificate. The first question they would normally ask is whether the property has a CCC—namely a code compliance certificate. Minister Williamson changed that and replaced the code compliance certificate with a new one called a consent completion certificate. What is the difference? The difference is that the responsibility and accountability among the consumers building consenting authorities and building professionals have been reallocated meaning that the protection that consumers would otherwise have is now further reduced. 
I agree with submitters that it is a step too far until such time as the licensed building practitioner regime matures. According to the reports in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 at this stage the regime is more a system of “ticking boxes” than a means to upskill the industry. The new consent completion certificate is different from the old code compliance certificate and this change will almost certainly have a detrimental effect on desperate homeowners seeking redress for severe losses. It is unacceptable and outrageous that it is now the consumers who will be left to pick up most of the bill for any claims arising from substandard building work. 
It is equally unfair to building consenting authorities and building professionals. The measures in the bills do little to remove the risk that the building consenting authorities and building professionals would be left to pick up more than their fair share of the cost of defective building work. 
 One overarching concern from those submitters was that the bills sought to redistribute the responsibility and the liability from the building consenting authorities in the event of building failures. We agree that the fact that the liability has until now rested with the consenting authorities as the last man standing is unacceptable. This is because ratepayers have had to bear the cost of negligence claims brought against building consenting authorities. Ironically submissions from some consenting authorities made it clear that the proposed changes would not improve their potential liability positions. They argued that in the absence of a more genuine reallocation of accountability—for instance through mandatory home warranties the introduction of proportionate liability and mandatory insurance—all parties including the consumers building practitioners and building consenting authorities will continue to be financially exposed even for defects not of their making. 
In their submissions two of the country’s biggest city councils namely Wellington and Christchurch city councils urged the Government to include measures such as warranties in the bills to avoid a repeat of the leaky building saga. But such warranties must be backed by unbreakable long-term mandatory warranties and insurance. 
Both matters of a warranty and surety scheme and joint and several liability versus proportionate liability have been referred to the Law Commission for review. Fair enough. But again we are convinced that the Government is not ready to introduce a comprehensive reform package. The partial instalment will cause uncertainty and create false hopes for parties in the building and construction sector. 
This indicates that the Government cannot or will not introduce the broad reform package needed to genuinely achieve its stated goals. Do Government members care? I do not know. At best they were not ready to introduce the much-needed reform and therefore took a piecemeal approach in both bills. At worst they are still driven by the magical word “deregulation” and have just let history repeat itself. 
It is regrettable that Minister Williamson has not been nominated to be the next Speaker. He would be a fine and very experienced Speaker. Of course he is experienced. He was the Minister who passed the Building Act 1991 which is responsible for the leaky buildings. Thank you.