Williams Andrew: Building Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
Williams Andrew: Building Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
[Volume:678;Page:835] 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I would like to rise again on behalf of New Zealand First to respond to some of the comments of the Minister for Building and Construction. He mentioned local authorities and councils and that the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) would move some of the responsibility off them and on to builders and the building industry and homeowners. He sort of implied that basically the councils and local authorities in a sense were not responsible and were not the ones that should oversee and make sure this was the case. Unfortunately I do not necessarily agree with that because we have had a situation here for the last 20-odd years in this country of ongoing systemic failure within the building industry. There has been a combination of a litany of errors over many many years which allowed for instance for the building code to be lowered. Standards New Zealand allowed a change of the standards of the building code. At the end of the day this Parliament and this House oversees all legislation all laws within this country so in a sense these bodies which are quasi-Government organisations still have to report back in terms of those standards in the building code and everything else. At the end of the day it is this House that determines the final legislation that covers them. 
Therefore it is disappointing to hear from the Minister who said that basically it was not the Government’s fault back in the 1990s or whatever; it was the fault of other bodies other quangos and other Government organisations. At the end of the day it is the legislators who determine on behalf of the people of New Zealand so I am very disappointed to hear that because I feel that we in this House have to ensure that what we bring through in this House is in the best interests of the people of New Zealand and does deliver to them safe housing housing and buildings that they can live in or work in and commercial buildings that they can feel safe to be in. 
We have heard some astonishing stories from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Building Failure caused by the Canterbury Earthquakes in recent weeks and more and more comment coming through including from very learned expert witnesses saying that they had great concerns about some of the methods that had been undertaken in terms of some of the structures and buildings in Christchurch resulting in catastrophic failures in many cases. We must ensure that what we follow through on with this No. 3 bill and then with the subsequent No. 4 bill continues to provide the adequate protections for the people of New Zealand and for all our citizens and residents. 
The Minister mentioned that many of us would not get on a 737 and fly if we did not think there was a registered licensed pilot flying it. Well the same sort of people probably thought the same thing when they got on the  
Costa Concordia 
 for their cruise in the Mediterranean. They thought the captain was licensed and able to steer them safely through the Mediterranean waters. Sadly something like 20 to 30 people did not come back from that cruise. They worked on the basis that they thought that the regulators the legislators and the people controlling the waterways of the Mediterranean would be making sure that the standards were maintained and kept to to ensure that they were safe. Likewise we as a House and as a Parliament must ensure that what goes through this House ends up in very very good legislation to ensure that safety is the highest priority and that our building code is kept to the highest priority. 
The Minister also mentioned local authorities not really being responsible for signing off and seeing the final end result and that that was the responsibility of the builders. At the end of the day those local authorities were approving sign-off of buildings that were built in accordance with the building code. Those buildings were using air-dried untreated timber; they were using monolithic cladding in an unvented situation; and they were using sealants around windows to seal windows—in the old days you would put in decent flashing and decent overhangs—that after 7 or 8 years with our ultraviolet light in this country simply just break down and start allowing the water in. Those local authorities were approving on the basis of the standards that were set that were allowed for in the building code. Therefore although the local authorities were certainly mindful of approving building structures to that code they were not mindful of what the results would be from many of those products. With time with weather with ageing and with movement of the New Zealand types of soils—the hills the clay and all that sort of thing—they were not fully aware at that time of what the result would be from that. 
In closing I would just like to say that I think this is very much a shared responsibility. We cannot go from one extreme to another. We cannot go from the situation where it is only the council as the last man standing that has had to take the brunt of much of this to a situation where we are trying to put most of the onus on the building industry and the end consumer. If we go from one extreme to the other we could end up in a situation where we ask why we did that. Why did we take away a lot of the responsibility from the regulators and the people who were ensuring that there were codes of compliance and that the buildings did comply with the standards? Why did we put it on to an industry where as we have heard today there are a lot of concerns about how skilled some sections of our building industry are? Have they gone through the necessary licensing? Have they been approved? Are they still waiting in a queue to try to get a licence? And do we want to put so much pressure on that side of the industry that we could end up in a situation in years to come where we regret that we went too far too soon and too quickly? 
I am a bit concerned that there is a piecemeal situation to this bill and that we seem to be adding on. This is the No. 3 bill and the Minister has said that much of this will be addressed in the No. 4 bill. There seems to be a lot of legislation happening on the hoof here. We are seeing increasingly more and more of this coming through the House where we hear: “We’ll work on it with the next bill and we’ll get it right with the next bill.” Too often that is happening in this House. I think in this situation perhaps we need to take a breath. Having heard the results of the royal commission of inquiry from Christchurch having heard what has gone on in the likes of Pike River and having heard what has gone on in other disastrous situations around New Zealand do we want to push this through at such haste and find that we regret it later or do we just want to breathe the air and make sure we get it right? 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 11 in the name of the Hon Maurice Williamson to Part 1 be agreed to.