Fairbrother Russell: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Fairbrother Russell: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:640;Page:10145] 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) 
: 
 I do admire that man’s optimism. We thought that he came to the House as a retiree but he will have to leave it as a centenarian if he wants to get a chance to be around the housing and building ministries. His continued life in Opposition is certainly destined by that speech. We cannot of course fix leaky buildings by legislation but we can provide remedies by legislation. That is what this Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill is all about. It is interesting that the Weathertight Homes Tribunal has now been going for 10 weeks and already a layperson has obtained a settlement as a result of taking a matter right through the process to a stage where he describes himself as being 100 percent happy. He has obtained a confidential settlement and has emerged from the process saying he is totally happy. So already we are seeing the fruits of an efficient piece of legislation. 
Another example of efficiency is the Social Services Committee which I have the pleasure of chairing and whose membership comprises the most happy and agreeable collection of individuals that is possible. We progressed this bill through the committee with all speed because we appreciated that it corrected an aberration in a point of law taken in the High Court and accepted by the judge as perhaps having some validity. The judge Justice Stevens was no doubt supported by an opinion of a retired High Court judge the Hon Sir Robert Smellie who postulated in the 
 New Zealand Lawyer 
—not a conservative publication—that perhaps the new law did not allow for general damages. But that was a tentative conclusion and it was in the face of several District Court decisions that the Act did allow for general damages. In fact after the article was written Judge McElrea of the District Court very carefully analysed the Act comparing it with the existing Act and held that the retired High Court judge was wrong. 
All that this bill does is to save litigants further costs. That includes the costs of the applicants and the respondents because it was always the intention—and that is reflected in the National Party’s minority report in the commentary on the original legislation—that the legislation should include the right to general damages. When the High Court decision came out that argued that general damages were not available it did not say there could be no general damages; it said that if a litigant wished to claim general damages then he or she had to follow that issue through the general courts. So we had the farcical situation of a specialist tribunal—the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service—being able to decide everything except the quantum of general damages which the litigant would then need to follow up on through the general court. 
How would that save anybody money? How would that save the country money? How would that go towards the speedy resolution of disputes? Well it simply would not. So this bill amends the earlier Act which is a sound Act that has withstood judicial scrutiny on several occasions. But to be cautious we are meeting the challenge laid down by Justice Stevens and making it crystal clear that general damages are the entitlement. 
I want to refer to a letter dated 15 June that I received earlier this week from Wellington City Council lamenting the passage of this bill. Its understanding of the bill seems to be entirely amiss. I will deal with the points it makes about it. The council claims that this legislation will open a Pandora’s box. It seems to have failed to read the National Party’s minority report in the commentary on the original bill in which National pointed out that it felt general damages should be included but was concerned that a decision such as the one made by Justice Stevens might become apparent. However the National Party was too timid to take that matter further by voting against the bill or by putting forward any substantial amendments. It was a “straw in the wind” sort of approach. When this amending bill came back before the select committee the cooperation in getting it dealt with expeditiously was splendid. In fact the deliberation took all of 46 seconds. That was possible only with the splendid cooperation of the venerable National Party which realised that this was a bill of short order that made crystal clear a legal right that does exist whether it be through the Weathertight Homes Tribunal or through the general courts. 
 Wellington City Council is wrong when it says this bill opens a Pandora’s box because general damages is not a goldmine that people are entitled to have access to. General damages is the award of a sum of money intended to put a person back in the position that he or she was in before suffering a harm. That is not a Pandora’s box; that is justice. If that council is not concerned about its citizens achieving justice then it clearly needs to look carefully at what it is there for and at what its elected representatives are seeking to achieve. So this bill does not deliver a Pandora’s box to be opened by litigants; it is merely a bill to sort out what everyone believed was the law. It is as simple as that. It brings the resolution of weathertight homes issues into a specialist tribunal which has already proven that it can deal with them expeditiously and efficiently. 
The previous speaker the member for Tauranga Bob Clarkson who was a member of the committee lamented that somehow legislation should be able to solve the problem of leaky buildings. He opined that if ever National got near the Treasury benches then Dr Nick Smith would become the Minister for Building Issues. That in itself is a strong argument for National members not to be made members of a Government because the same Dr Nick Smith ushered in the Building Act which gave rise to this fiasco. Until the Building Act came in people who bought houses knew that the houses were properly built because there were sets of specifications and requirements that everybody understood. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: And he abolished apprenticeships too. 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER 
: Oh yes of course. Abolishing the apprenticeships left us with untrained builders. All that one needed when Dr Nick Smith had finished was a ute a dog and a radio and one could call oneself a builder. So if we have Dr Nick Smith back on the Treasury benches assisted by the octogenarian Bob Clarkson then we will return to the chaotic days that gave rise to the leaky buildings syndrome. 
It is not a good thing to have a leaky building. It is one of the most traumatic things that could happen to any individual. Resolution of such a problem is not to play games within our courts’ processes. All that the owners of leaky buildings want is justice. Every person who buys a house expects to get a valid deal and if that deal proves to be invalid then he or she does not have to be driven to the wall financially or mentally in trying to litigate a way through the minefield of court processes that are littered with the antics of high-paid lawyers employed by people such as the protesting Wellington City Council. Instead through the Weathertight Homes Tribunal and through the work of my good friend the Minister Clayton Cosgrove who has steered this legislation through and given real leadership to this whole issue we have a New Zealand that can handle the leaky buildings crisis and put it behind us. My thoughts are with the owners of leaky buildings. It is to my regret that the neo-liberal policies of the previous National Government brought in a situation of open slather where people could build anything put a paint job on it and sell it at an overpriced value. 
This Government does not support ripping off householders. Perhaps National’s lament is that that right has gone. This Government supports people’s major investment in homes as being a long-term sound investment. This bill puts right what the previous National Government put wrong.