Shearer David: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Shearer David: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 It is good to be able to speak on the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill. But I have to make the observation that the calls from members on the other side have been short. 
Two weeks ago the Leader of the House told us that the legislative programme was in place and we would not need to take urgency in the last couple of sitting weeks. Members on the other side of the Chamber were probably as surprised as we were to find out that we will probably be here until Saturday. That is not a problem for us but it means that National members do not enter into the debate any more. 
The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill which was debated earlier today is one of the most fundamental pieces of legislation that will be put through the House. It balances national security against our human rights the protection of our human rights the protection of our privacy what can be done against it. National members did not speak on that part of the bill at all. They did not even take a call as long as Chester Borrows’ previous call. The cost of the disorganisation we are facing in the legislation right now is the absence of debate. We have National members just standing up and saying that they support this legislation. 
This bill is different from the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill obviously but it is different in another way in terms of the process. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Do you think it’s a bit different from the SIS bill? 
DAVID SHEARER 
: I tell Mr Williamson to wait for this. Unlike the SIS legislation I think there has been very wide consultation with the stakeholders involved. We will not have the opportunity to do that with the SIS legislation as it seems like the committee stage will be handled in secret unless Mr Key changes his mind again. 
I congratulate the Minister on bringing this legislation to the House. This bill will never satisfy absolutely everybody. People will be annoyed and not happy but it strikes a balance and I think the Minister has done a good job in bringing the legislation to the House. If we look back at the issues we see the problems that caused this debacle. The cost of it is eye-watering. We are looking at $11 billion and PricewaterhouseCoopers thinks it could be up to $23 billion. That is equivalent to the education and health budgets for 1 year. In fact the North Shore City Council came up with some interesting figures when it looked at the cost in 2008 dollars of the Napier earthquake. It was only $608 million versus possibly $11 billion here. 
There has been a systemic series of failures right through the last 20 years. We have talked about the deregulation of the building industry and I think that was definitely one aspect of the problems. There were the problems of poor shoddy workmanship as a result of a lot of the builders not having the right qualifications and the demise of the apprenticeship scheme. We have had a change in the style of housing. They have no eaves they have flat roofs and there is little in the way of control from the councils which should have exercised much greater control over the building process but did not. 
Also a lot of the houses were built with untreated timber and they were much more prone to rot. Interestingly I live in a house that is 130 years old. It has no rot at all except in the parts that have been renovated more recently in  
Pinus radiata.  
Although I have some constituents who come into my office to talk about leaky homes most of my constituents live in older style houses that do not have this problem. Their homes have been standing for 100-plus years in some cases and they are solidly built with eaves and have the right types of measures built in that are suited to the New Zealand environment and to the Auckland environment. The houses that were built much more recently certainly were not set up to have those features. 
Obviously 25 percent is an improvement on the 10 percent that the Government was going to pay originally. The Government is now looking at the council paying 25 percent and the owner paying 50 percent and that strikes a reasonable deal. 
Some issues with the details have been raised by my colleagues Phil Twyford and Moana Mackey. I expect those issues to be ironed out in the select committee. It was good to hear earlier in the evening the Minister say that that would be the case. 
We thank the Minister for the extra material he sent through because I think quite a few questions will be coming to electorate offices over the next few weeks about what this legislation is and what it might look to do. 
I will touch on some of those issues. We need some clarification around repairs. If for example the repairs are costed out at around $100000 and they look like they might be heading towards $150000 we have an issue about how an owner bridges that gap. If the repairs are not done to a satisfactory level what sort of come-back does the owner have against the council? The council is essentially not able to be taken to task. I think there needs to be the possibility of some sort of appeal mechanism. We cannot simply say that these assessors will be able to get it right every single time. There are a couple of issues around that. 
Obviously there is the big issue of people who are simply not able to afford to pay the 50 percent. We are all told that the best thing we can do is to buy our own home and have it mortgage-free by the time we get a bit older. Many of the people who have been affected by leaky homes are older with a limited ability to earn an income yet they are facing massive costs. I am not sure how we deal with that issue. I am sure submitters to the select committee will want to talk about that a bit further. 
The other issue is the situation where an owner decides to take on this particular package—to take the 25 percent from the council and the 25 percent from the Government—and then sue the builder. What recompense does the builder have at that point? In a sense we are moving the blame down the line. A builder could quite legitimately turn round and say that actually they built it to council specifications and it was all above board. But builders have no ability to go back to the council and seek recompense from the council as a result of buying into the scheme. 
Overall I think the estimate that about 70 percent of people will take up this offer is good. It was never going to fix everybody’s problems; this problem affects New Zealand at large. When somebody turns round and says that the council should pay for something I say that the council is funded by ratepayers which is ultimately our problem. So the whole issue goes round in a circle and we as New Zealanders will have to shoulder the burden collectively for this complex system of errors. 
I do not think we have many other options than to look at a solution such as the one that has been put before us. I think that with the right amount of discussion the right amount of communication to people out there about what is going to happen and the right amount of listening to whatever suggestions that they bring up this could be a useful solution to an enormous problem that is facing New Zealand. Thank you.