Smith Nick: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill — Recommittal In Committee 
Smith Nick: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill — Recommittal In Committee 
[Volume:641;Page:10960] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I have a few questions for the Minister in the chair the Hon Clayton Cosgrove and I want to just remind the Committee of the history of the leaky home issue. If we go back to 2001 we will remember well when the issue was raised by the  
New Zealand Herald 
. The Prime Minister Helen Clark said she did not know what the  
Herald 
 was banging on about. There was a denial from the Government that this issue which affects thousands and thousands of New Zealand families was completely ignored by the Prime Minister. 
I have to commend my colleague Wayne Mapp who pursued the then Minister George Hawkins. Would members believe that we have had seven different Ministers in this portfolio area? It is sort of like a game of pass the parcel within the Government; I think we have had John Tamihere we have had Speaker Margaret Wilson we have had Mark Burton we have had George Hawkins of course and now we have Mr Clayton Cosgrove. 
My question to Mr Cosgrove relating to the bill is this. The Government has spent $85 million on the bureaucracy to deal with the leaky home problem. The average settlement for a homeowner has worked out at $70000. The cost per settlement for the taxpayer has worked out at over $120000. That $120000 has not been to fix the houses but to pay for the bureaucracy of the legal mechanisms in this very bill. Can the Minister not see that he has wasted millions of dollars of public money? How could any person with so much as an ounce of common sense defend what has taken place since the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service was put in place in 2002? I find it indefensible that we would spend more money— 
Darren Hughes 
: Is that what you tell the judge? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Darren Hughes pops his head up. I ask him whether he thinks it is a good system if it costs $120000 per settlement for the bureaucracy of the settlement process when the settlement for the homeowner is only $70000. 
Darren Hughes 
: Explain a better process then. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The member opposite is interesting. He asks me to explain a better process. Well I put this to him. Does he accept that the process in place is a dog? I think members on this side uniformly agree that it is a dog. 
It seems like common sense to us—as my colleague Bob Clarkson has argued up and down the country—to spend the money on fixing the homes not on the lawyers and the bureaucrats. So I ask whether this Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill will spend the money on fixing the houses. No it will not. All it does is continue the mad system that has failed for 5 years. 
I simply ask the Minister in the chair to get to his feet as he is responsible for this huge vote.  
[Interruption] 
 Maybe the member moron opposite might explain. 
Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Of all the members in this Chamber of all 121 members Nick Smith would have to be the last member who should accuse another member of the name he just used for one of my colleagues. It is unparliamentary and he should not do it—[ 
Interruption 
]—and Mr Henare should not interject on a point of order. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: If a member takes objection to something that is said the member himself or herself should take objection. It not for another member to do so on behalf of someone else. The Committee has listened. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: My simple challenge to the members of the Government is to answer this question: are we as a country getting value for money? I ask Mr Hughes whether we are getting value for money from the Weathertight Homes Tribunal. No we are not—$85 million has been spent with only 15 percent of cases resolved and those cases cost more for the bureaucracy to resolve than what goes to the homeowner. That is clearly not fair. 
I further wish to ask why it is that the Government under urgency in 2002 rushed through the legislation establishing the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service made a botch of it came along in 2005 with the Minster in the chair—in a rush again—and botched it up again and the third time around brought a third bill to the House to fix the botch-up yet we are no closer to fixing the plight of leaky home owners.