Blumsky Mark: Building (Late Consent is a Free Consent) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Blumsky Mark: Building (Late Consent is a Free Consent) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:640;Page:10746] 
MARK BLUMSKY (National) 
: 
 I rise to stand and support my colleague’s Building (Late Consent is a Free Consent) Amendment Bill here in the House. I have to say that I have been in Parliament now for about 18-odd months and the select committee process has been one I have enjoyed. I feel it is in that process that one actually gets to see some real people and some real issues that are confronting New Zealand. 
The Local Government and Environment Committee is a good select committee. We have had some good bills come before us and I think we have made a positive impact on those bills. We have worked hard and I think with the right attitude. That is why Steve Chadwick must not let Clayton Cosgrove anywhere near our select committee. His performance today and the way he spoke to members of this House and the way he turned what I thought was a positive discussion into a personal attack on my colleague who sponsored this bill was sad. If he has that influence on our select committee which works well together then I think that will be a bad day I say to Steve for the business we do. 
Dr Nick Smith has done a huge favour; he has brought an issue out of the closet and put it on the front page in a way that it was not. He has done New Zealanders a favour and he has done builders a favour. We have to fully understand that late consents are an issue. I never understood that. I am not a builder. I look at a hammer and go looking for the instruction manual on how to use it. So it is not an area of interest to me at all. But it came through in the submission process and in the select committee process that it is an issue to one heck of a lot of people—not just builders but many hundreds of thousands of householders and homeowners. 
So I say to Nick Smith that I believe that a real difference has already been made by the fact that his bill has gone through the parliamentary process. He has woken up local government big time. He has woken up many councils that were just drifting along with this issue. I tell members now that the councils got scared. They got very nervous that this bill was real and that it would really create a wake-up call within their local authorities. 
The submission process did actually bring some pretty good feedback through and I know the committee chair Steve Chadwick brought some of the comments to the table. I thought I would also take the opportunity to bring some of the other submissions to the table because I feel that they add value to the debate as well. I have just chosen a couple. One of them is from a gentleman by the name of Colin Hill the former president of the august organisation Architectural Designers New Zealand. In his submission he slammed local authorities for the huge backlog of lodged consent applications that are just not being processed within the statutory period. His organisation represents architectural designers throughout New Zealand. As he says we can speak to any architectural designer builder or group housing company and they will tell us of numerous cases of building projects that have been postponed or put off indefinitely because of the unacceptably high level of costly delays by local bodies in the processing of consents. We are looking to be productive country a country that is encouraging growth and this sort of commentary would have to be of serious concern. Colin Hill is obviously very supportive of the bill that Nick Smith brings to the House. 
The other interesting submission came from the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development in a media release. It surveyed 418 interested parties and 63 percent of those supported the bill. I have to say that if we look just at those who are business proprietors or self-employed or business managers we see that that number goes up to 77 percent. The survey revealed that 23 percent of those who applied for a consent in the past year rated their council’s performance as good but 28 percent rated it as poor. Of the 400-odd surveyed 28 percent said that this member’s bill would improve council efficiency 21 percent said it would give them more certainty and allow them to plan and 20 percent said it would force councils to comply and take accountability. I have to say that if we add those numbers up we get something like 70 percent saying that this member’s bill would make a significant difference to their ability to do the business. 
It became very clear even from those who were not in favour of this bill that a high level of sympathy was being generated for the reason for bringing it forward. There was real sympathy from pretty much all the people who came in. They acknowledged—and this was a comment in the report—that more delays are occurring in the processing of building consents than is acceptable. 
Local authorities quite understandably are concerned about this bill. I can feel for them. They understand and feel the downside on this. If they miss a deadline they have to carry the can for it—it is all on them. They will get no fees and that is a concern for them for sure. So they understandably have a concern. 
But this is where Brian Donnelly has it wrong. He was talking about the fact that a lot of extra people would have to be employed if this legislation were to pass. He said that all the extra building inspectors that would have to be employed would add a cost to the council wage bill and that the wage bill would follow through in the rates. Well every consent that a council processes has a fee attached to it so it is a matter of self-recovery. There is no added cost to a council when building inspectors are employed. All the cost of all staff being added to the council wage bill will actually be recovered by cost recovery. 
One of the reasons I do not have the issues that the Government has with this bill and why I am very very supportive of it is that there is a very simple fix for the problem and that fix came though loud and clear in the submission process. It comes down quite simply to the fact that councils understand that the problem is caused by a lack of qualified staff—that is the issue full stop. Let us be honest about it. I have not yet met a kid leaving school who is saying: “I want to be a building inspector when I leave school.” It is not what one would call the sexiest profession. I do not think I have ever heard—or that other members have either—any one leaving school saying: “I’m going to be a building inspector when I grow up.” 
Jacqui Dean 
: They don’t say: “I want to be a politician.” either. 
MARK BLUMSKY 
: Yeah—I did not say that when I left school. I did not say I would be a politician. So the building inspector career is not one that people are racing into. We can compound that with the problem that my colleague John Carter alluded to and that is the fact that the Department of Building and Housing is absolutely taking the top people from local government. That is a fact for true. Also business is going great for private consultants because of the inability of local government to do the business so private consultancies are also taking the good people. 
But good things are happening because local government is actually making a difference. We heard very clearly that the answer is on its way in that the New Zealand Society of Local Government Managers has commissioned research into shortages and is developing a staff recruitment and retention programme. That is happening and the society is confident it will fix the problem. This means that the 20-day issue will not be a problem which means that a disincentive like a no-fee for a late consent is actually more effective because it will move the slack councils forward. It will move those who do not have the excuses to be late. It will move them onwards because they will not want to incur the wrath of ratepayers by having to write off fees. 
So the fact that a training and career programme is in development gives us the confidence that there will not be a shortage of building inspectors which means there will be enough inspectors to do the business which means that will not be an excuse for a late consent which means there should not be as many late consents which means those late consents are due only to very poor management or council governance and administration practices which means authorities jolly well should be fined by a late fee if they cannot do the business. So I say to Nick Smith that his bill is a cracker it has made a difference and congratulations.