Ewen-Street Ian: Building Bill — First Reading 
Ewen-Street Ian: Building Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:611;Page:8432] 
IAN EWEN-STREET (Green) 
: 
 I rise to make a contribution to this bill on behalf of my colleague Sue Kedgley. We welcome the bill’s introduction and we will be voting to support it going to a select committee. 
First I refer to the significance of the building industry. The building industry is a multibillion-dollar industry in New Zealand at around 4 percent of gross domestic product. It consumes large amounts of natural resources and also uses in the production of building components large amounts of toxic substances. Many of those processes have resulted in long-term toxic pollution in the past—for example from timber treatment plants. The building industry also produces the places in which we spend a great proportion of our lives both at home and at work and hence it has an enormous influence on our patterns of resource use and health. Buildings last for many decades; hence the decisions made today will have long-term consequences for the health and resource use of future generations. 
I have some general comments to make on the bill and I will turn first to leaky houses. It is the perception of the Green Party that this bill has been primarily driven by the leaky houses fiasco and it is good that the Government is responding to the problems in the housing regulatory system that resulted in the leaky houses problem. But we also believe it is important to use this opportunity to review the entire regulation of the building industry and not just those parts that are specifically related to leaky houses as this industry is far too important just to tinker with around the edges. We have already made and in the select committee will continue to make a variety of suggestions to improve the bill in relation to healthy houses and environmentally sustainable building practices. 
I turn to the regulation of the industry. The leaky houses syndrome has made it clear that the current laissez-faire system of regulation is simply not working and has not worked since the current Building Act was introduced in 1991. We therefore welcome moves to make the regulatory system more robust and to move away from the market fundamentalist mindset that led to a building industry that no longer could build waterproof houses. Those who support that ideology said that the market would fix that. Well the market did not fix it and now the Government has to step in to fix up the mess. It is perhaps one of the more damning proofs of the failure of the new-right ideology that its supporters were unable to develop a building regulatory system that could keep water out of houses. God only knows what will happen if they ever get their hands on health care. 
However committed as we are to ecological sustainability and to the rights of building owners we are also concerned that owner-builders and innovative eco-friendly builders could be unnecessarily caught up in building regulations. Hence in the select committee we will be looking to ensure that the bill provides sufficient space for Kiwis who want to build their own homes and especially for Kiwis who want to use ecological building principles in building their own homes. In terms of the provision in clause 3(b) regarding the level of amenity that buildings must provide it seems hard to believe that that was not previously in the purpose section of the Act and we certainly welcome its inclusion in the bill. 
I turn to the issue of health. It is great that the purpose of this bill includes ensuring that people can use buildings without endangering their health—unlike the old Act which just referred to safety. That is a major advance. The select committee inquiry into leaky houses on which my colleague Sue Kedgley sat revealed that indoor air quality is a major health issue. The danger that spores from  
Stachybotrys 
 mould pose to human health is a little-appreciated aspect of the whole leaky buildings problem. But there are many other issues of indoor air quality such as the formaldehyde and the like that comes off particle board floors in gases for many many months after houses are built. Many people have experienced ill health after moving into new or newly renovated buildings because of the toxic gases released from newly produced building components. There are also issues of toxic timber treatments such as copper chrome arsenate being used on exposed timbers. That is now being phased out in other countries. However with regard to health there is a gap in the bill as it stands which is the absence from clause 22 of any factors related to health that the chief executive must take into account when writing the building code. We will be seeking to amend the bill at the select committee to introduce such factors. 
In terms of ecological sustainability we welcome the inclusion of a sustainable development clause in the purpose of this bill. We appreciate the efforts the Government went to to ensure that it was part of the bill it introduced. But we also believe that careful attention needs to be paid to the definition of sustainable development. We believe that it should not mean that economic growth continues ad infinitum regardless of its ecological impact. On the contrary we support sustainable development that means that the resources used today are renewable and can be used by our children and our children’s children. We are pleased that in clause 22—the factors that the chief executive needs to take into account when compiling the building code—we find the whole-of-life costs of a building. It may be cheap to build a house from copies of Richard Prebble’s book 
I’ve Been Thinking 
 but the house would not last long and pretty soon we would need to pull it down and start again. We are also pleased that the same clause includes “the need to facilitate the efficient use of energy and energy conservation and the use of renewable sources of energy in buildings”. If more attention had been paid to that over the last decades we would not have faced the recent power shortage. Again we are also pleased that the same clause includes “the need to facilitate the efficient use of water and water conservation in buildings”. 
In conclusion while we seek to deepen the bill’s commitment to healthy houses and ecological principles we will also seek to ensure that owner-builders and eco-builders are not driven out of house building. We welcome this bill and look forward to its progress through the House.