Prasad Rajen: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Prasad Rajen: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:674;Page:19962] 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call on the third reading of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill. I agree that the Minister for Building and Construction has every reason to express satisfaction because he happens to be the Minister who has heard from everybody who has been suffering through this issue and he is the one who has brought a solution to this Parliament. The solution has currency and has been developed into this bill which has nearly gone through all its stages. So yes it is a time to acknowledge that that advocacy has been successful and everybody in this House has been a part of that. 
However it is not a time for recrimination of the type we have just heard. I was intimately involved in the development of this issue right throughout the period—through my own family and through many of my friends—and I know that solutions were being designed as people became more familiar with the problem. The Weathertight Homes Resolution Service was a solution that was probably best practice at the time in the view of those who had experience. To say that the last Government did nothing is looking for recrimination for no good reason and I think one must push back on that. Public opinion was at a particular place and the science was at a particular place and we have now understood more about it. So I thank Minister Williamson for acknowledging that and I acknowledge his contribution to this issue. 
I will talk about the specific provisions in the bill and what I am about to say leads into that but also it is time to reflect on the kind of failure that occurred and resulted in this problem. Minister Williamson has described it as multiple failures truly systemic. Yes it was so but also it was a failure of the private sector in many many ways. The private sector was allowed to run amok in the development industry devoid of the standards one expects in order for good buildings to be built. When the issue of building standards was brought together with the issue of untreated timber and things like that we realised that the issue we needed to address was that of unethical practice. Designs were faulty—and no good architect would say they were good designs—but they were cheap which is why they were adopted. There was no reason for the building materials to be abused in the way that they were. I was incredulous to see the workmanship that created this problem—and I know something about building having built houses myself. The normal guarantees that would be given were not there and indeed the assurances one gets in terms of inspection were not there. Those who inspected those buildings were from the private sector many of them contracted by local authorities. 
So here we are. This is a massive bail-out of a failure of the private sector and I want to acknowledge that. We trusted the sector to fix the problem and it did not. There are so many examples. I have seen top plates of curved buildings being made out of particle board plastered over railings drilled through them and simply sealed up. They became leaky buildings. That was a failure of design. If those buildings had been made with the same materials but with good workmanship good design and good inspection then this failure would not have happened but it did. The Minister is right that leaky buildings are as a result of systemic failure. 
The damage that leaky buildings did to many individuals and families is incredible. I entirely believe the Minister when he says that he has looked into the eyes of people from affected families and he has seen the enormous damage that has been done. I have looked into the eyes of my own children and I have seen the enormous damage that has been done to them. Luckily they had a parent who could sign a cheque to fix it up. The provisions of this bill do not take that damage away and we ought to acknowledge that. I know of some elderly people who sold the last pieces of their property and bought an apartment that would enable them to manage their expenses but it became leaky. They had nowhere to go. They are still there and this bill does not assist them. The bill is a good attempt to address the problem but it still leaves enormous problems unaddressed. I do not say that as a criticism of the Minister. I appreciate that there are limitations but it is a problem for this Parliament and for this Government. 
There is something difficult about understanding that one qualifies to make a claim only if one’s building is 10 years old. People whose buildings are 10 years and 1 month old do not qualify yet they are in exactly the same situation as the person whose building is 9 years and 11 months old. It is exactly the same situation. The personal hurt the impossibility of fixing it and the assistance from elsewhere are exactly the same yet the family whose building is more than 10 years old will not be assisted. There are many families in that area. I say to Mr Williamson that the problem has not gone away for a sizable part of our population. What is to happen to those people? Who will stand alongside them? I still think that solutions need to be developed for this group. Perhaps 25:25:50 is a generous offer for those who qualify and it could have been stretched a little bit further but I am sure the designers and the Local Government and Environment Committee looked at that. However it does create a problem and the provisions of this bill do not address it. 
There are others who do not qualify. I have talked only about those whose buildings are more than 10 years old. But there are those who have already commenced repairs and those whose buildings were approved by private certifiers. That is pretty hard because a private certifier was contracted to do a professional job. They did not do that and simply because of that fact the family the individual or the elderly couple in retirement now do not qualify for this assistance. So there is something unfair about these solutions as well. 
The bill is like the proverbial curate’s egg: it is good in parts. It is good as far as it goes and it is still a credit to the designers who have brought it this far. But it leaves a problem unanswered and that problem at some point will have to be answered by the Government or local authorities. 
I want to make one or two other points. I was very happy during the Committee stage to get the Minister’s assurance about the assessment process. When a building is assessed and an agreement is reached as to how much will be paid the building is opened up. When it is opened up as sure as night follows day that assessment has been found to be inaccurate. I have been really worried because I have seen with my own eyes the damage that has been done. The Minister assures me—and it is on the record of Parliament if lawyers ever need to go back to this—that owners who have received inaccurate assessments can go back to the assessor to have the building reassessed after the cladding has been taken off and another arrangement can been made about how much money is made available. I thank the Minister for clarifying that as I was quite concerned that it would be a problem. 
I still believe—and I disagree with the Minister on this point—that there is something inherently unfair about this bill and it is in relation to those who have purchased leaky buildings at bargain basement prices at sizable discounts. The people who originally owned the building have missed out. They have got out of it and somebody else has purchased it. Most of those purchasers are not young private couples; they are developers and speculators. They now have the ability to receive State funding for up to half the cost of repair and they can then harvest the capital gains that this would give them—and those gains would be enormous. I would rather that that money was utilised for the kinds of cases I have talked about—for those people who have no other means of fixing up this problem. The Minister has not been convincing on this point but it is a problem and I hope that at least priority will be given to those who are genuine homeowners who still own and live in their homes. Thank you.