Ardern Shane: Building Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Ardern Shane: Building Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:619;Page:14853] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 I have some new material Madam Chairperson that we have not covered. I say in response to Murray Smith who has just resumed his seat that that is what happens when we apply an academic answer to a practical problem. That is what happens; that is the result. What we get is 358 pages of legislation. It is a classic example of what happens when people apply an academic response to a practical problem. Let me just say to the Hon Richard Prebble who talked about trying to build an embassy in Vietnam that I went to Vietnam on a Speaker’s tour about 3 or 4 years ago. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Is it still there? 
SHANE ARDERN 
: Well it is a great building and it is still standing. Do members know what I found out through an interpreter when I was there? I found out that the Prime Minister had been there about 3 or 4 months before us. Now I know where the genesis for this bill came from. I wondered what she was doing in Vietnam. People said she had been tramping. She had certainly been tramping around the Government departments up there having a look at how to fix up the leaky housing problem in New Zealand. I can tell members that there are a few leaky houses in Vietnam. There certainly were some fairly dodgy-looking construction sites when I was there. 
But let us come back to the problem we face in New Zealand as a result of the leaky house inquiry. What the DIY’ers had to say when they came to the Government Administration Committee was that the bill was an overreaction to the leaky house problem. That is the first point they made. They acknowledged that there were some faults in the 1991 Act—and we accepted that that was so—and they said that most industry players had little appreciation or understanding of the existing Act which is over 100 pages long. In other words they were implying that the existing Act is too bureaucratic and that no practical person was ever going to sit down and study 100 pages of bureaucratic nonsense. They said people had no understanding of the current Act after 12 years of it being in existence and without significant expenditure and resourcing it was unlikely the industry would have any greater appreciation of the proposed legislation which was to be at least double the size of the current Act. Well the DIY’ers were wrong of course about that. They underestimated what the Prime Minister would bring back from her trip to Vietnam which was that doubling the size of the legislation was not enough. So we now have 358 pages—over three times the size of the original Act—of regulations and compliance costs. 
The DIY’ers said at the select committee that the compliance costs of this legislation may drive some businesses to cease trading. Nobody in the Committee tonight—or at any other time—has been able to come up with any evidence to say that that is not so. In fact most people have acknowledged that there will be additional costs. The industry itself through its submission on behalf of the do-it-yourselfers said that the cost would drive some people out of business. We know that there is a shortage of competent builders in this country at the moment and we can argue about why that may be so. We can talk about the training provided in the past. We can talk about careers advisors going around schools and telling everybody to be a rocket scientist instead of a builder. But the bottom line is that we do have a shortage of builders in this country. So perhaps a Government member could take a call on that issue. 
I know that the Minister in the chair the Hon John Tamihere has a lot of knowledge on this matter. Perhaps he could take a call and tell us how dumping the new regime that is in Part 4 and all the extra compliance costs on the industry will help to address the shortage of builders in this country. How will it help to train young people? How will it allow the older experienced builders who are semi-retired to carry on operating while training a young apprentice at their side? We all know in New Zealand that the best way to learn is by doing. There are some people who will never be rocket scientists. Despite what the Prime Minister might have found out when she was in Vietnam some people never will be rocket scientists—that is the reality. Some of her own caucus never will. That is for sure! But they may become builders; they may look for a career in the building industry once they leave Parliament at the next election. But they will not be able to get in because the Government they are members of and this Minister have regulated in such a way that they will never get a chance to get across the hurdle. 
One of the underlying causes of leaky buildings is poor design. It was interesting to hear Mr Smith talk about that. But where in this bill does it address those who are involved in architecture and draw up plans which builders then put into practice that result in poor design?