Jones Shane: Building Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Jones Shane: Building Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:643;Page:13002] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Building and Construction) 
: 
 I move  
That the Building Amendment Bill be now read a second time 
. I think firstly that the Social Services Committee and in particular the chairman Mr Russell Fairbrother ought to be handed a bouquet and a vote of thanks for the very expeditious manner in which they have returned the committee’s report and the Building Amendment Bill 2007 to the House. The bill contains some minor adjustments to improve the workability of the Building Act 2004. I take this opportunity to remind the House briefly of how this bill came about and what it contains and to mention some of the select committee’s recommended amendments to it. 
A major suite of reforms is being rolled out over the next few years under the 2004 Act including: the licensing of building practitioners from 1 November 2007 to recognise existing competencies and raise skills and experience across the sector; an accreditation scheme for councils to improve the performance and accountability of building consent inspection and approval processes; and a new product certification scheme that will be tied into international standards of quality and accountability from next year. The Act is large and contains a lot of detail in these schemes that increases the performance and accountability of councils builders and building products. Like any large Act that introduces significant new schemes this one needs some minor tinkering to get the details right. In developing the Act’s new systems to regulate building products builders and councils who approve the plans for buildings were consulted widely. Input from industry representatives was valuable in identifying some minor tweaks to the Act that are contained in this bill. 
The next step was to introduce this bill to Parliament on 18 July this year and it was subsequently referred to the Social Services Committee for consideration. My predecessor the Hon Clayton Cosgrove set an accelerated time frame for the passage of the bill requesting that the committee report back to the House before 5 November 2007 in order to allow the legislation to be passed this year. That will allow for the speedy implementation of the new product certification scheme and a clearer framework for the restricted building work regime that is being developed. I would like to acknowledge the work done by my predecessor in introducing this bill and by the select committee in expediting the passage of the bill through the public submissions process to make the resultant legislation more accessible. 
The submissions made on the introduced bill represented a range of organisations in the building disability network utility and local government sectors. Thirty submissions were received on the bill and of those 12 submitters also presented oral submissions. There was general support for the bill’s proposed changes. Apart from the dissenting view from the National Party members there was majority support from the committee for the bill with some recommended changes to the bill as introduced. Those include redrafting the definition of “restricted building work” in order to clarify that the policy has not changed and to make Parliament’s intent clearer. Restricted building work must be carried out or supervised by a licensed building practitioner. Restricted building work will be defined in detail in a future Order in Council and will be building work that is critical to the integrity of a building. The recommended changes also include redrafting the building consent exemption clause to better deal with issues of normal maintenance durability including weathertightness and hot water cylinders. 
Some additional drafting issues that were not part of the bill came up during the committee’s deliberations and were incorporated into the reported-back bill. For example the bill now refers more accurately to dam failure rather than to collapse and the bill gives the Registrar of Licensed Building Practitioners a wider discretion to restrict access to the register. That will allow the registrar to limit access to information about practitioners such as their date of birth or residential address in order to protect their privacy. 
The Government agrees with all of the select committee recommendations. The National Party in its minority report opposes the bill on the grounds of wider concerns about the existing Act in the areas of compliance costs restricted building work and accreditation fees. 
To conclude this bill as reported back from the select committee proposes a number of positive changes to the legislative framework that underpins the building and construction sector. This bill will ensure that the Act is a robust instrument to regulate for a safe and quality building and construction industry into the future. I thank again the select committee and the officials for their work and I commend the bill to the House.