Huo Raymond: Building Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third Reading 
Huo Raymond: Building Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third Reading 
[Volume:678;Page:918] 
RAYMOND HUO (Labour) 
: 
 Ni hao. I would seek to table that report by way of a point of order but that is out of the scope of my contribution. But in light of what the Minister for Building and Construction just said defining this Building Amendment Bill (No 3) as one piece or the very first piece of a package I would like to quote what the Hon Lianne Dalziel quoted in her contribution in the Committee stage last night. 
Mr Peter Mumford said that “Effectively New Zealand moved into an unknown future while burning its bridges to past practices.” Mr Peter Mumford was involved in the 2004 building legislation and his 2010 PhD thesis was referred to in an article that the Hon Lianne Dalziel mentioned in her speech last night. The article commented again: “the 1991 Building Act was a massive reckless nationwide social and economic experiment with a radically new and unproven building-control system for which the public will continue to pay dearly even though the public never asked for it.” 
It is really more in sorrow than in anger that we have no other choice but to oppose this particular bill. We did support this bill to the Local Government and Environment Committee and we are in broad agreement with the direction of the Building Act review which was initiated under the last Labour Government. The aim of the Building Act review was to better allocate responsibility accountability and liability between regulatory authorities building practitioners and consumers but this bill which has been rushed through to meet the Government’s time frame has misplaced this responsibility liability and accountability. 
We listened to the submitters and agreed that this bill shall not proceed. Having said that I do echo what the Minister for Building and Construction has acknowledged in his speeches—that there has been a high degree of cross-party commitment to the Building Act review process going back to the mid-2000s. I want to therefore acknowledge the work and efforts of the current Minister the wonderful Hon Maurice Williamson and also the former Ministers the Hon Shane Jones and Clayton Cosgrove and also former Minister of Commerce the Hon Lianne Dalziel. 
I acknowledge the Hon Lianne Dalziel because I learnt from some of our top structural engineers in this country that she was such a hard-working Minister who like other Ministers or members of Parliament received but read the open letter by Mr John Scarry in 2002. I did not hear Minister Williamson’s comments on television saying that nobody agreed with Mr Scarry but I do agree with my colleague the Hon Lianne Dalziel that there are at least two reports to confirm that there are genuine concerns that Mr John Scarry had raised. I also read the report by IPENZ the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand and also a report prepared for the Department of Building and Housing. 
Shortly after the second reading debate Mr John Scarry sent emails around to members particularly to the members opposite who supported this bill. Mr John Scarry said in his email to those members that had they been aware of the state of the construction industry in New Zealand particularly with regard to structure adequacy as opposed to leaky buildings those members would not have supported this bill. This bill does nothing to improve productivity and accountability and it reduces the already poor protection new homeowners have at present. 
We all heard the news or read the report that the main contributing factors towards the collapse of the CTV Building in Christchurch were poor standards of construction and deficient building materials. Specifically hollow core slender concrete walls brittle wire mesh and deficient floor diaphragms are the main issues which apply to other at-risk buildings I believe. It is appalling to read in the  
New Zealand Herald  
that deregulation of the industry had allowed manufacturers to pay for the development of standards to justify their own products. I am not quite sure whether the Minister agreed to that report in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 
otherwise I would seek leave to table that report for his reference. 
Even according to the Minister himself leaky homes are still being built and still being built in his own electorate. I would like to salute the Minister who was quoted in the media as saying that therefore “a ‘dramatic overhaul’ of the Building Act is needed desperately to end the crisis”. However this bill fails to address those issues; rather it is nothing but partial instalments. 
 We also heard comments from Minister Williamson that the defining feature of the construction industry in liability issues through the leaky buildings saga has been that of the councils. The building consent authorities are the only ones that have been left as the last man standing simply because they are the ones who have deep pockets—courtesy of the ratepayers. But if the Minister’s answer in the bill is to scale back the liability of the building consent authorities through new sections—I believe in clause 10—there is no equivalent reallocation or reapportionment of responsibility accountability and reliability. So simply shifting the accountability and responsibility to the other parties no matter whether they are the building practitioners or the consumers is not the answer. 
I do look forward to the progress of the Building Amendment Bill (No 4). In particular I would like to hear more from the Minister in respect of measures such as implied warranty surety and enhanced supervision funded via for instance building levies. 
To summarise under this bill the role of the building consenting authorities is being reduced but until there is a more genuine reallocation of accountability this bill risks exposing the consumer to greater risk. It is our view that it is risky and unwise to legislate such a piecemeal set of measures at a time when the industry is facing a surge in demand from the rebuilding of Christchurch leaky building remediation work and a huge skills deficit. 
I would like to conclude by quoting a PricewaterhouseCoopers report that found that homes constructed after 2005 have a low failure rate of 0.2 percent implying that less than 150 homes built between 2006 and 2008 are likely to be leaky. Does that tell us anything? It tells us that the Building Act 2004 enacted by the Labour Government has worked and has worked to that particular extent. That demonstrated leadership—the leadership that we desperately need now. We need leadership because we are not talking about statistics we are talking about safety and we are talking about human lives.