Carter John: Building Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Carter John: Building Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:645;Page:14730] 
JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on the title of the Building Amendment Bill. There are two or three things I want to say. The first is: fancy putting as the Minister in the chair on something to do with housing someone who does not own a house. Fancy putting in someone who does not even know what homeownership is like. The fact is I do not think he has even owned a doll’s house let alone his own house. This person in the chair does not understand what it is like for the people in “Struggle Street’ who are trying to get their own house. 
The second point I make is that my colleagues today—Nick Smith Phil Heatley and others who have spoken—have talked about the costs of building levies and other costs associated with the local authorities. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: What would you do about it? 
JOHN CARTER 
: I would do a lot more than that member who is going out as well. People worry about the fact that the councils are putting their fees up. Nick Smith has explained the fees that have gone up in the various councils. Let me just clarify. Why are those councils putting the fees up? Let me tell the Committee why that happens. The councils have to match the bureaucracy that the Government has established by making rules and regulations. The Government then imposes those costs and the rules and regulations on to the councils which have to respond to them. The building industry the builder the architect and the actual suppliers have to respond to these costs. So there are extra costs loaded in right across. It is now estimated that compliance costs in total—if we take in not just the building fees and levy contributions but all the costs associated with the bureaucracy—are probably as much as $50000 a section for the red-tape side of it. 
That is an absolute disgrace. That figure is an estimate at this stage but up to $50000 could be loaded into the building costs per house development because of this Government’s rules. The sad fact is that the councils are merely responding to the responsibilities that this Government has put on to them. It is known that bureaucracy in the local authorities has grown more than 25 percent since Labour came to Government because the local authorities have had more and more costs imposed on them. The local authorities have to respond; they do not have a choice. They have to respond to what the Government imposes on them and the consequence is more costs more red tape and more bureaucracy. 
Even worse is that the Government members could stand here and say they have had to do all this to get over the problem with leaky homes and if this were going to fix the problem maybe they would have that excuse—not that it would be acceptable to the Opposition but nevertheless. But the sad fact is that right now not only is the issue of the leaky homes that we know about not being addressed but actually we are building more leaky homes in this country. If people in this Chamber and people in this Committee think that we have solved the leaky home problems they should think again. 
David Bennett 
: Labour’s leaky homes. 
JOHN CARTER 
: My colleagues have to believe it. The sad fact is that is there are more and more leaky homes being built. Right now there are leaky homes being built in this country. Poor unsuspecting homeowners are buying spec homes that look good and feel good. Sadly for them in the next 5 or 10 years and longer they will find that that new home they bought today built under the Government regulations is leaky. The Department of Building and Housing has grown from a staff equivalent to 31.5 people to one of over 385. There are 385 bureaucrats in there most of them with little experience in the building industry itself. Some of them are good people but a lot of them have no idea about building. They know how to write rules and regulations. The sad fact is that this bill and this Minister and that department are doing nothing to address the issue this bill is supposedly all about. 
That is why the Opposition will fight and rally against this led by my good friend and colleague Nick Smith by Phil Heatley and by others in this Chamber. We will fight this every inch of the way because it is doing a disservice to a whole lot of New Zealanders. 
There are many people in this country who would love to have the opportunity to own their own home. There are many people in this country who would love to have confidence that the home they buy whether it be their first their second or their retirement home is secure and that the money they put into it is an asset to them. They would love to be assured that the Government has got it right. They would love to know that the council has got it right. They would love to know that the people they have relied on to ensure the house is secure can guarantee that the house is going to last. Sadly that does not happen. There are far too many people in this country who are going to be let down because this Government has no idea what it is doing. 
It was yesterday or today that my colleague Nick Smith brought in the building consent application that one has to fill in for the Rodney District Council. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: 110 pages. 
JOHN CARTER 
: He brought in 110 pages of forms that one has to fill in just to apply for a building consent. This is just the application folks. That is not the largest local authority in New Zealand either so we can imagine the sizes of some of the other applications. Once that has been filled out the plans the architect designs and the specifications about the materials to be used have to be attached. It just goes on and on. When I was listening to my colleague Nick Smith speak I was thinking that the sad fact is that all the building applications that are made in this country—the pile of papers and all the papers that are associated with them—would in my guess over a year be the equivalent of about 10 houses if we had left them as wood rather than paper. We could have given 10 houses away made the houses secure and given people something they owned and respected. Instead all this Government is giving them is a whole lot of paper and form-filling. We could have given a house to Darren Hughes. Everybody would have been better off. 
But sadly we have a Government that insists on bureaucracy control hands-on form filling and a whole lot of rhetoric that does nothing at all. The Minister Shane Jones is going around listening and learning. He hears the various things that Nick Smith has talked about. He hears the very thing Phil Heatley talks about; that is builders who are good competent people who have got to the stage where they are saying “We are out of here. We have had enough of this form-filling. We cannot guarantee with all the paper and all the specifications and all the materials we have to supply that we can do a proper job for people who expect us to.” 
These are good long-serving competent homebuilders. These people know their job. They know what it is like to build a house. They know what it is like to have an asset. They know what it is like to carry the responsibility but sadly this Government will not listen to those people who actually understand. This Government will not listen to people who could actually tell them how to solve the problem. The one good piece of news is that Nick Smith Phil Heatley Bob Clarkson myself and others working in the team have an answer. We know how to fix this problem. Hang on folks help is on its way. It is all going to be fixed in due course. The policies we are developing are going to take a lot of this right out so that people will be able to get to the stage where they can invest with security and they can own their own home. 
Progress to be reported presently. 
House resumed. 
The Chairperson reported the Limited Partnerships Bill with amendment and that the Committee had divided it into two bills reported the Broadcasting Amendment Bill with amendment and progress on the Building Amendment Bill. 
Report adopted.