Williamson Maurice: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliamson Maurice: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 05 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13349. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Building and Construction): Before I start my call on this particular bill the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill I want to pass on my condolences for the loss yesterday from the building and construction sector of Mr Bill Smith. He was probably one of the most lively and known characters in the building and construction sector. He actually endedup with the title of “Mr Pink Batts” at one stage because of the company he had worked for and for bringing in insulation. Bill died yesterday and I just want to pass on my condolences as Minister to his family.This is a bill that I would like to take the House through the specifics of and then get to the issue that I think concerned Metiria Turei more than anything and that is the element of retrospectivity. What happened was that in 2006 the Labour Government of the day passed the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Act. That thing has not been without trouble. Michael Cullen while he was Minister sacked two entire Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Boards. So it is a bit rich to come along and say that somehow it is Maurice Williamson who is causing these troubles. These troubles precede Michael Cullen; it goes a long way back. I would actually say that now the new board and the people we have managed to get on there—including a character called Peter Jackson who is not the same Peter Jackson who most people in the House would know—are working quite well.The problem with the Act was that it had some mistake in its wording. I have gone and looked at the drafting instructions and I have even looked at the intention of the bill and I have even looked at the speeches of the then Minister Michael Cullen. It was quite clear as members of this House would expect it to be that the Act was to allow plumbers and gasfitters to hold to account poor practice and bad behaviour of not just registered and licensed practitioners but anybody else trying to work in plumbing or gasfitting or drainlaying who actually may have no licence. It would be hellishly dangerous if someone just happens to arrive in New Zealand walk off a plane have no qualifications and say “I might have a crack at gasfitting.” The wording in the Act was wrong and the wording actually allowed the board to go only after licensed practitioners. It was a mistake. It was not intended.Think about it in another industry. How would we feel if the Civil Aviation Authority was entitled to go only after licensed pilots and prosecute them for poor behaviour? If someone said: “I’m going to have a crack at flying a Boeing 747 and I’m not a licensed pilot—you can’t touch me.” everyone would just laugh at you. You would say it was just ridiculous. Fred is up there flying a Boeing 747 and the only reason you cannot touch him is because he is not a licensed pilot. Or in the medical fraternity if a guy said: “Well I’ve got no qualifications at all so I’m going to have a crack at brain surgery this afternoon. Now because I’m not a registered doctor you can’t touch me.” It is just crazy.The board is there to protect human safety public safety and its role is to go out and catch and prosecute people who are performing poor practice and that was the intention at the time. Ask Michael Cullen—ask him. That was the intention that was in the drafting instructions but the Labour Government got the wording wrong. I feel a bit miffed that as Minister I am now trying to fix that and bring it into line with every other industry sector so that the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board can legally go after both registered licensed practitioners and unlicensed practitioners.Somehow the Opposition has decided it is going to oppose it. I understand that the Green’s main opposition to the bill is that it is retrospective. Well I am really looking forward to the next time a local government rates validation bill appears on the Order Paper. Oh Lianne Dalziel might be really interested in what needs to be done with Christchurch. I will be watching with great interest. If Labour says “Oh well it’s not fair to make those rates that have been collected for 5 or 6 years illegal because the wording was wrong in the Act or the wording was wrong in the rates and now we are going to pass a validation bill through this House.” which we do regularly to retrospectively validate an action that was thought to have been the case but was wrong I am going to watch it. I have actually got a big list of the validation legislation thatLabour members have voted for over the years retrospectively validating a whole range of things. They never got up once and said: “Oh well I’m going to watch Lianne Dalziel with great interest for the Christchurch validation.” I want to hear her get up and say “Well it’s not fair to keep all those rates from those poor people in Christchurch because the rates were not set properly. We should give them back all that money from over those years and start only from now.”Well I am going to bet you a dollar to a doughnut that Lianne Dalziel will vote happily to have some rates validation and the Labour Party in Opposition will vote happily for a whole range of other validating legislation. This is actually even more sickening because it was the Labour Government that cocked up. It was Labour that got the legislation wrong. It was not me. I would actually be going to them cap in hand if I had got the 2006 Act wrong and saying “Look I’m really sorry about this I really screwed up. I wrote the wording wrong in the Act. Please help me.” That is what I would do. I would say: “Please help me. Is there a way we can get through this?”. But it was not us. It was them. It was the Labour Government of 2006 that got the wrong wording and now all this tiny little bill does is validate the fees that have been collected over those years since 2006 because they are illegal—just like with rates in Christchurch just like with a whole lot of other rating validation bills and a whole lot of other local bills and things that we see through this House on a regular basis.The fees were illegal and if they stayed illegal the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board would be in liquidation and would need to have millions of dollars from the taxpayer to bail it out. I say that is not right. I say that the individual people who work in the profession—that is the plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers—have got an obligation like pilots do with their licensing and like doctors do through their fees and so on to pay for a body to be there to guarantee public safety and guarantee standards.So I repeat to the listeners tonight—to that adoring drive time audience in Auckland who listens to me while they are stuck on the motorway heading home—that this bill is so trivial it is not funny. All it says is that in 2006 the Labour Government passed legislation where it thought that the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board could levy its members and use that money to go after both registered licensed practitioners and unlicensed practitioners. The wording was wrong. Since 2006 those fees that have been collected from those practitioners have been used illegally. We have found that out only when a handful of disgruntled people took it right through to the Regulations Review Committee and so on. I actually said that there is only one way through this. We really need to validate what was expected.So again I repeat that I am one of the strongest opponents of retrospective legislation in this House. I hate it. But I vote for it every time if it is trying only to validate what everybody thought was the case back there anyway. So if we were passing retrospective legislation today to make the tax rates 60c in the dollar back to 2005 I would be opposed because everybody knew what the expected tax rate was. But if we are doing this which is validating something we expected—in fact something Labour expected and then we came to power 2 years later and just carried on with that expectation. All we are doing is just telling the vast bulk of the practitioners—in fact every plumber gasfitter and drainlayer whom I have talked to up and down the country has said “I thought you always could.” I said: “Well we did too but it turned out there is just some mistake in the wording just like in the Christchurch rating thing.”So I repeat again: I want the next Labour speaker or the next Green speaker to say that when they get the next validating legislation of some mistake like a rates validation bill they will make sure they vote against it because they are opposed to retrospectivity.Chris Auchinvole: Like Damien O’Connor.Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Like Damien O’Connor. Well actually I could name any of the members over there. As I have said to the previous person in the chair the Assistant Speaker but I will say it again to you: I bet you a dollar to a doughnut—or in your case Mr Deputy Speaker a crayfish to a whitebait—that when the next validating bill of any sort comes through this House they will be like lemmings racing over a cliff to vote for it.