Walker Holly: Building Amendment Bill (No 4) — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Walker Holly: Building Amendment Bill (No 4) — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 01 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:1825. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
HOLLY WALKER (Green) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on behalf of the Green Party on this Building Amendment Bill (No 4). I spoke before the adjournment in the Committee stage of the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) which preceded this bill and which has subsequently passed its third reading in this House. That bill as we have heard and this one form part of the Government’s response to the Building Act review which was completed in 2009. Although the Green Party supported the previous bill at its first reading we were concerned when we heard the submissions at the select committee stage at the piecemeal approach that the Government had taken. And we have just heard from Mr Twyford that the Government is taking a very incremental and tinkering approach to the Building Act review. Those submissions on the previous bill highlighted the shortcomings of that approach. Especially because the previous bill lacked reference to consumer protections we in the Green Party found ourselves unable to support the previous bill at its final stage. I am therefore pleased to see that this bill the Building Amendment Bill (No 4) does address the very important issue of consumer protection in the building industry and the Green Party is therefore pleased to support the bill at its first reading tonight.  
Before I talk a little bit more about the provisions in this bill I want to provide some of the really important context in terms of why we must ensure that the regulatory environment gets it right for building and housing in New Zealand. We have a housing crisis in New Zealand and it is a crisis both of housing affordability and of housing availability. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Christchurch where demand for rental housing is out of control. We have seen people needing short-term rentals while they wait for their own homes to be repaired we have seen people needing long-term rentals if they have had to relocate out of a damaged rental property we have seen homeowners selling investment properties or moving back into their rental properties and displacing tenants and we have seen an influx of tradespeople putting extra demands on the rental market in Christchurch. Many State council and community houses are damaged and unavailable at the present time and in that context we need to be thinking about what the building regulations are and what the regulatory environment is going to be as we repair and rebuild Christchurch.  
So far the Government has been satisfied in Christchurch to more or less let the market find the solution but the market will not favour those on the lowest incomes those in the most need—beneficiaries sole parents and people with disabilities. There is a real crisis brewing. There has been some movement we think but not enough.  
As well as short-term intervention in Christchurch to deal with the housing crisis that we are seeing there and temporary assistance from the Government we also need longer term a better regulatory environment for building and construction because there has been a similar crisis brewing in Auckland. We heard from the previous speaker about market failure in the building industry in Auckland. The result is that people are finding it extremely difficult to find a home and extremely difficult to afford to either rent or own their own home.  
This bill is important because it sets the regulatory context in which the construction and the rebuild of Christchurch will take place and it puts in place as we have heard very important consumer protections which the Green Party supports. We have heard already in the debate so far that the bill will introduce mandatory written consents for work valued over a prescribed amount. It will introduce mandatory disclosure of certain information by building contractors. It creates new offences for breaches of these requirements. It adds new powers for territorial authorities to deal with buildings that are at risk because they are near or adjacent to dangerous buildings. It increases the maximum penalty for doing building work without a building consent. It clarifies the powers of the Chief Executive of the Department of Building and Housing to review the performance of territorial authorities regional authorities and building consent authorities and as we have heard in a rather unrelated clause it makes some amendments to the dam safety scheme including giving regional authorities the power to investigate and refer dams for classification.  
We think that the consumer protections in this bill particularly around mandatory written contracts for building work over a prescribed amount and mandatory disclosure of certain information by building contractors are very important. The reason that they are important is because of the vacuum of regulation in the building industry that we have had previously and that was born out of the deregulation of the industry by subsequent Labour and National Governments in the 1980s and 1990s. As we have heard it was this vacuum of regulation this period of deregulation that allowed for the leaky homes crisis to occur and we have seen the terrible consequences for homeowners when poor regulation and poor building and construction standards allowed that to take place. So we think in that context that these consumer protections absolutely need to be reinstated because what we saw with the leaky homes crisis is that many homeowners were left with very inadequate protections and when everything went pear-shaped and when their homes were found to be substandard they did not have adequate protections and we have had to legislate to make up for that fact. So in that context it is really important that we get it right when things go wrong for consumers who have taken the plunge to construct or build their own homes. We support the protections in this bill.  
However the Green Party wishes to emphasise that better warranties and better consumer protections although they are important are only the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. When things go bad—God forbid—and a homeowner finds that something drastically has gone wrong with their property and it is no longer habitable these protections are great for that scenario. But we need also to be thinking about how to regulate to ensure that buildings are constructed to a higher standard before things go wrong and before we need that ambulance at the bottom of the cliff of greater consumer protections. We have not been convinced by the Government’s approach to the Building Act review in the form of the previous Building Amendment Bill and this bill that the Government’s approach to the reforms is going to achieve an improved regulatory environment that means it is less likely that buildings will be constructed to poor standards to begin with.  
We are looking forward to the contributions in the Local Government and Environment Committee on this bill but I think we would echo the concerns of the previous speaker that taking such an incremental and tinkering approach when what really is required is a more fundamental review of the building regulation environment in this country means we are unlikely to make the really fundamental changes needed to ensure that we do not have to rely on these consumer protections although it is important that they are in place when things go wrong.  
I do want to thank and acknowledge the Minister for Building and Construction Maurice Williamson for the way he has engaged with parties across this House on this legislation and I do look forward to hearing the contributions at the select committee and particularly hearing from consumers about how the consumer protections will affect them and whether they are adequate to meet the needs of building consumers. The Green Party is pleased to support this bill at first reading and we look forward to engaging further in the debate.