Catchpole Brent: Building Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Catchpole Brent: Building Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:619;Page:14823] 
BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First) 
:  
This part as mentioned earlier on is substantial. The building consent provisions require the owner to apply for consent. They also require the owner of the building to apply for the code compliance certificate at the end of the whole process. The bill has altered the status slightly from the previous Act in that the regional and territorial authorities are required to keep a much better record of those compliance documents. 
As I mentioned in the debate on an earlier part the outstanding building consents that the territorial authorities have failed to follow up on and match the code compliance record details of amounted to tens of thousands. Those outstanding consents relate not just to buildings still under construction but to buildings that have been completed and I have examples where they have been completed for in many cases 5 to 10 years. Those buildings still have outstanding code compliance. That is an area that this bill is tightening up on and it is requiring territorial authorities to tighten up on it as well. 
Another area in this particular part highlights the requirement for disabled access and it has brought access for the disabled further forward in the bill because it is recognised that public buildings do need to be accessed by everybody in the public not just the able-bodied but also the disabled. I am very pleased that the provisions relating to disabled access have been brought a lot further forward in the bill. They are now a substantial part of the bill and receive proper recognition which is a much improved situation for the disabled. All public buildings will be recognised as having disabled access available. 
The next part I want to touch on is the dam safety assurance programme. This is a programme being run by the dam owners and the bill recognises that. The expertise to be able to examine dams and ensure they are up to a particular standard is just not there within territorial authorities. Often these dams impact on more than one territorial authority and therefore the industry has got together and put together a substantial and internationally recognised dam safety programme. This bill recognises that programme and ensures that there are audit safety checks and other safeguards to make sure that the dam safety assurance programme is up to date. They require a regular audit and the world international standards are recognised within that audit. 
It must be pointed out that the safety programme has to be notified to the territorial authorities so that they can see that it is being operated in a satisfactory manner and should the territorial authorities require an independent audit that that is available to them. In particular with dams that are considered to be high risk those audits are essential and certainly the dam safety programme is essential. On the other hand there are a lot of very small dams on farms. In fact one submitter who came to us had 26 dams just on his property alone. For a territorial authority to be able to identify every single one of those dams would be a major task. 
Brian Connell 
: That’s a damn big property. 
BRENT CATCHPOLE 
: I guess it would be a damn big property; it certainly had a lot of dams on it. The requirement by the territorial authorities to be able to identify those dams is essential because they impact on other people at various stages. We have seen during the floods in particular that additional disasters can occur if any of those small dams gives way. It is important that those dams are obvious. 
Shane Ardern 
: Not just the dams but the stopbanks. 
BRENT CATCHPOLE 
: The stopbanks are important as well.