Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Hallelujah! Thank goodness that the MC-ing has been completed for the evening. That was an awful lot of MC-ing and Rachel Brooking the Labour MP who has just resumed her seat is a new MP. She has yet to behold the delights of Resource Management Act reform and there will be plenty more opportunity for her to give speeches along those lines as we progress through that pathway over the next 10 years or so although she probably won't be in Parliament by that stage. But I want to try and move from the MC-ing and the theory of this bill to the practicalities of it and why we're supporting it and what it means in practical terms because yes it's got some quite complicated features about it this piece of legislation. But the intent is good and I think that it will have a positive effect on the speeding up of construction of particularly modular homes in the years ahead when the bill is eventually enacted and put into place. One of the things that did take place at the Environment Committee was that the committee recommended and the Government have agreed to extend the commencement date. Because of the fine detail in the legislation the select committee heard from submitters who were concerned about the need to bring up to speed particularly in terms of regulations and rules and that it would take a bit longer than was being given in the original bill that was presented to the House and considered by the select committee. So initially the plan was to have this legislation take effect 12 months after the Royal assent. The committee has recommended that that be extended to a 15-month period after Royal assent and I think that's sensible. I'm pleased that the Government have agreed to accept the select committee's proposal in that regard. But I too want to talk a little bit about the prefabrication provisions because that's the area that I think will have the greatest impact. Rather than go into the sort of the detailed analysis of it I would like to relay to the House the situation that I well remember when meeting with a business owner who owns and operates a building construction business in my electorate in the Coromandel in Thames. This is a business that builds holiday homes—baches—and they are largely of the same design. There are I think seven or eight designs that this builder builds and essentially you can have design No. 1 design No. 2 design No. 3 or design No. 4 and so forth but that's pretty much it. Really the only thing that changes in the design of each of those homes is you can maybe as a purchaser choose a different coloured paint on the exterior or different types of taps on the sinks taps on the bath or taps in the laundry but essentially the floor layout the design the construction and the plan is exactly the same. So if you buy plan No. 1 you're going to get plan No. 1 and that building will be constructed in a way that is identical to every other one as I say with only cosmetic changes. I remember going to visit this builder and in the Coromandel we have several district councils. The Thames-Coromandel District Council is one the Hauraki District Council is another and in those days the electorate boundaries included a big part of the Matamata-Piako District Council. This builder was at pains to show me and he said Scott here is the planning consent work for my building No. 1 from the Thames-Coromandel District Council."—and you'll forgive me a little latitude Mr Speaker because I can't remember which was which. But there was a relatively small pile of paper and that was the planning consent work that was required for building No. 1. Then he said "But building No. 2 if I take it to the Matamata-Piako District Council they require this much paperwork and if I take it to the Hauraki District Council it's actually this much paperwork." and yet the buildings were exactly the same. In fact the only thing that really differed between each of those buildings that were going to be built in different district council areas was in fact the piece of land that they were being built on. The actual dwelling was exactly the same.Although this builder was not prefabricating the design for all was exactly the same and he couldn't understand why it was that he needed to go through three different consenting processes for three separate district councils for what was essentially the same building. I at the time was sort of flummoxed and thought well he made a lot of sense and of course the whole essence of this piece of legislation is to try and streamline that process. If you look as people sometimes do at what happens in other parts of the world you would go to North America go to Canada and see some of the work that is done there in terms of prefabricated houses that are built in huge big warehouses using all the modern efficient tools that come with essentially almost a production line—in fact well it is a production line—of housing. The houses are designed to a plan to a template a bit in the same way that a car may be built. You get to choose the colour you get to choose the interior layout and maybe the carpet and the curtaining and what have you but the basic plan and design is identical and is the same. Then those prefabricated homes are built efficiently and priced effectively as well. They are put on large trucks and they are then delivered to the building site in a way that we don't see much of at all in New Zealand. Part of the reason that we don't see much of it in New Zealand is because it's been difficult to get consent it's been difficult to get the regulatory approval and it's been difficult to get through the red tape. This piece of legislation I think—I hope—will cut through much of that red tape in a way that will have a meaningful benefit to homeowners to first-time buyers and even to people who are looking to maybe downsize in the older age group. Maybe they're empty nesters and they're looking forward to building a beautiful home in the lovely Coromandel electorate where the quality of parliamentary representation is infamously good and they will find that they can build a prefabricated home in a less expensive more efficient more effective way and then free up what was maybe their old family home for another family. So this is all part of I think a good piece of legislation that when put into effect notwithstanding all the MCs and all the technical terminology—I think if we cut through what the primary objective of the legislation is and think about what the practical benefits will be I think that it won't be too long after the bill receives the Royal assent and 15 months into it we'll start to see reasonably quickly the benefits in a tangible way of this piece of legislation.I'd like to thank the submitters. There were quite a few and I did have the opportunity and the privilege of sitting on this committee in the last Parliament. So there were 93 submissions and over the course of that time we heard from 28 submitters. I think that that was a useful process it was an example of the select committee system working I think exceptionally well in quite a complicated area but with a good positive outcome. I will look forward once this legislation eventually does pass through into law to being able to take a copy of it back to that builder in Thames and saying "Well actually hopefully this will sort out your problem and your three piles of paper with differing consent requirements and differing district councils will no longer be required." So we're looking forward to supporting this bill. We'll participate in the discussion of the committee of the whole House and then look forward to its third reading in due course."