Bennett Paula: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Bennett Paula: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:641;Page:11023] 
PAULA BENNETT (National) 
: 
 It is very fortunate for the Committee that we have this opportunity to stand up and point out some of the comedy of errors that is continually happening with the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill. Everything to do with the bill has been an absolute comedy of errors and at the end of the day the Labour Government keeps forgetting the people who are trying to work their way through the issue. It is one thing for the Government to make a mistake and get the process a bit wrong but there are people at the end of this process. That is so easily forgotten. 
Let us work through the comedy of errors. I was not in the House in 2002 so correct me if I am wrong but in 2002 the Government rushed through all these changes. It rushed them through because it thought it was urgent and it did not need to get the legislation right but just had to get something through. It was all done in a bit of a hurry. Now we are taking up the time of the House once again trying to fix mistake after mistake. What gets me upset the most about these issues is that Clayton Cosgrove is out there telling the building industry to not stuff it up but to get it right. I say: “Get it right first time.” I say we cannot be fixing these houses—time and time again. That is a good message at the moment but would it not be better if the Government had got it right if not the first time then the second time or even the third time maybe? Just maybe it could get it right. The Government has only to fix this legislation once and if it had done it right once we would have already seen results. Instead we are taking up the time of the House going back to what should have been done the first time. We have had the first reading the second reading the select committee process and the Committee stage. The Government has been in such a mad rush to get the bill through that we have suspended the Standing Orders—suspended the actual way the House runs—so the Government can put through this flawed policy. The Supplementary Order Paper seeks to extend the deadline. 
I refer to clause 3 in quite some detail. I just cannot get over the fact that we need to go back to clause 3 and redo it when we are looking at line after line of stuff-ups by the Government that keep going back to the building legislation. The Weathertight Homes Tribunal was set up and is not going well at all for those people who are trying to work their way through the process. They have no faith in this Government to get it right. They are completely legitimate in their lack of faith. They are appalled upset and disgusted that the House has to go back to the same legislation—time and time again. There are mistakes that need not have happened if due consideration had been given to the importance of the issue. 
Members on the other side of the Chamber can make snide comments and sit there grinning but this is a really serious issue. It is affecting people’s lives and they cannot afford to have this level of hold-up. The Government needs to take a good look at itself. It needs to understand how it is getting the section wrong and why the time of the House is still being taken up with it.