Carter John: Building Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Carter John: Building Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 13 March 2008. Volume:645;Page:14926. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) 
: 
 I firstly say that it just shows how important Government members think this bill is when they have one Minister come and speak on the bill—the Minister of Finance who actually has no idea about the building industry at all. He would struggle to build a dunny in a bush quite honestly. He would not know which end of the nail to put into the wall yet he spoke on the bill for about 2 minutes. Then we had a Government member who I understand is retiring but does not have a trip yet and she spoke on the bill. And that seems to be the Government’s contribution in defence of this bill. That just shows how important Government members think it is. It is surprising is it not that the Minister in charge of the bill has not yet come down to speak on it? He may well do and we are looking for that contribution. I will look forward to it but I am disappointed; I would have thought that that Minister would have wanted to lead this debate. So we are looking forward with some pleasure to his contribution. 
The second thing I will say is that I listened closely to the contribution made by Dail Jones and I just want to remind him about the time he was here in the House. I was reflecting on whether he was actually in the House in 1990. I have a funny feeling that he was not. 
Dail Jones 
: No. 
JOHN CARTER 
: He was not. I thought I heard him say that he was in this House— 
Dail Jones 
: 2002. 
JOHN CARTER 
: Oh it was 2002 of course. Well the member certainly was in the House at that time. I knew that he had been in the House earlier but I could not remember just how much earlier. I think it was up until 1984 from memory and then he came back in 1999. 
Dail Jones 
: 2002. 
JOHN CARTER 
: Oh in 2002 he came back—right. Then he resurrected himself again and here he is. But he made the point about the whole issue of responsibility and where it should lie. There is a simple answer and soon we will make clear what it is. 
I will pick up on one point the member made. He talked about the North Shore City Council and about the fact that some unfortunate person had been levied $83000 I think he said. I cannot speak on the particulars of that case but it is true that the North Shore City Council was certainly charging way above what it should have been charging. The member may know that that council was taken to court and there is now case law that stops that sort of activity. Most local authorities have not charged at that level; most local authorities have been responsible. The North Shore City Council was made an example of and has now had to reduce its whole charging regime and that has set an example for local government across the country. Local government has actually picked it up. 
The real problem—and this is the dilemma—is that what is happening and what will happen even further is that this bill is loading costs on to councils it is loading costs on to builders and it is loading costs on to homeowners. That is where the tragedy is. Even worse is the fact that the bill is not just loading on costs rules and regulations but it is not addressing the problem. In fact this is the fourth time this Government has endeavoured to fix the problem. The tragedy is that the Government has the Department of Building and Housing which the last time I looked employs 385 people but that number has probably gone up— 
Bob Clarkson 
: It’s 500 now. 
JOHN CARTER 
: No I cannot believe it is 500. 
Bob Clarkson 
: It was in the media this morning. 
JOHN CARTER 
: The member is kidding me! No 500 people cannot be employed there; that is not possible. It was only 385 a couple of weeks ago. Oh I suppose anything is possible under this Labour Government. The point is that most of the people who are there to advise the Government have not got much if any background in the building industry itself and they misunderstand it. 
Chris Tremain 
: Are these people builders? 
JOHN CARTER 
: Well some of them are builders; most of them are not. They would line up with Michael Cullen and have about as much expertise in building as he has. 
Bob Clarkson 
: Sorry John were you talking about the ones who work in the department or the ones who are employed there? 
JOHN CARTER 
: I am talking about just the ones who are employed in the department. 
Bob Clarkson 
: Oh not working? 
JOHN CARTER 
: No. Here we go again with these speakers; something is echoing. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: No I think it is your constant turning round. 
JOHN CARTER 
: The tragedy is that we have this department that writes these rules and regulations causing great costs in the industry and in fact even ensuring that some people will exit the building industry because they cannot stand all the rules and regulations. The local authorities have to match them so the bureaucracy in the local authorities has increased significantly—25 percent in the last 9 years. Of course that also adds in extra costs. If the system were working then maybe one could defend it. But the real problem is that this bill is the fourth attempt at addressing the problem but it is not addressing it. We are still building leaky homes in this country today. Not only have we got the leaky home problem that we know about—and it is estimated and registered at the moment that that involves about 3200 homes but it is guesstimated that somewhere between 15000 and 30000 homes may well be found to be leaky in due course—but we are building more leaky homes today. That is the real tragedy; we are actually building more leaky homes right now. That is the problem. We have not fixed the problem. The Government has not fixed the problem. All it is doing is making more rules and regulations. 
Some common sense should be applied instead of our saying to local authorities and ratepayers “You are responsible for the failure of building.” That is what happens: local government ends up being responsible when a building fails because the builders have generally exited the scene the architects have usually gone and the suppliers of materials cannot be pinged so the last person standing is the local council. Of course the council’s insurance company says to it: “Well we will be a bit careful about how we back you on this.” and the burden ends up going on to ratepayers. So ratepayers have become responsible for the failure of building in this country and that is just wrong. It should not be the case. But this Government is not prepared to accept that. It says: “Oh well if that is how it is because councils have some role in inspecting these buildings and therefore have some certification councils should be the ones that are finally responsible. If there is no one else we will load it on to ratepayers.” Quite honestly that is just fundamentally wrong. It should not happen. 
We should be saying to the Minister and to the Department of Building and Housing: “Find a way of putting the responsibility back on to the building industry.” I can tell members that the building industry itself is asking to be made responsible for its buildings. It wants to be responsible for its buildings; it does not want all the rules and regulations. Those in the industry or most of them are quite capable of building good sound non-leaky—what is the word I am looking for? 
Colin King 
: Weatherproof. 
JOHN CARTER 
: —weatherproof; I thank the member very much—homes. They are quite capable of building something that is not only weatherproof but will last. Whether it is “weathertight” or “weatherproof” it does not matter; it will stop the blasted rain getting in. That is what we are talking about. 
Most of those people in the building industry are quite capable. There are some tremendously skilled people in the industry. We should allow them to get on with the job. What we are doing instead of allowing that to happen is putting rules regulations and restrictions in their road that stop them actually getting on with the job. 
I say to the Government that this bill will go through—unfortunately. It will add to the pile of red tape. It will add to costs and bureaucracy because the Government will now have to put out more rules and regulations as a consequence. The Department of Building and Housing will already be out there—all 358 500 or however many there are—writing rules and regulations. Local authorities will then have to read them and will have to try to employ somebody else to implement them. 
Colin King 
: Some expert. 
JOHN CARTER 
: Well the trouble is that we have run out of experts; it will be just anybody who happens to be hanging around. I can see there might be some people leaving Parliament who might get a job in the Department of Building and Housing or in local government. Unfortunately the tragedy of this situation is that the bill will not work. It will continue to fail. The builders know it will fail. I am sure that in their heart of hearts the people in the Department of Building and Housing know that it is not working. Certainly the Minister in charge of this bill—if one speaks to him very carefully—will say it is not working. But unfortunately his Government is saying that this is the route down which we have to go. There is a bit of good news however that people will find out shortly when they get a National Government and we fix this problem.