Street Maryan: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Street Maryan: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8570. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 It seems to me to be one of the great unanswered existential questions as to why the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board has had such a fraught and wretched history because every time I have ever employed a plumber a gasfitter or a drainlayer they have turned out to be perfectly jolly men and have got on with the job. So to have this level of controversy bedevil this board over many years is something that some of us in this House find fairly inexplicable. I do want to make a reference to the fact that this goes back to 2006 legislation as the previous speaker who has just resumed his seat Jami-Lee Ross said. That is absolutely true. It was a complex piece of legislation at the time. I remember it well as the member Chris Auchinvole referred to earlier and it had to be divided into two parts in order to try to get it right. But the interesting thing perhaps for the member who has just resumed his seat is that the fault with this bill did not become apparent to either Labour or National until 2010. So this is not something about which the National members can say “Oh we spotted this years ago and you guys just didn’t do anything about it.” It did not come to light. They were not aware of it. We were not aware that the provision would be misused in this way until 2010 when an additional levy was applied by the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board in order as I understand it to try to get the cowboys out of the industry and that is the purpose of the bill. 
But the purpose of the board was to gather revenue in order to prosecute and investigate any breaches of the Acts that covered their activities. But the Act applied to registered people only. So perhaps another lesson in this for the public is: for goodness’ sake make sure you get a registered plumber gasfitter or drainlayer and do not go for one of the cowboys who say “Oh I’ve got a spare piece of that in the back of my van—it’ll just do the trick.” So the lesson to any householder at home is to make sure that you get a registered person. However that is not the subject of the bill although it is the purpose of the bill as it says quite clearly to get rid of uncertified practitioners in the industry. As I understand it this is what the board was attempting to do with this levy which has turned out to be illegal. 
That discovery came through the application of the Regulations Review Committee. At the time that the original legislation was going through the House I was also on the Regulations Review Committee in 2005 and 2006 and most of 2007. I remember this coming there and I remember complaints and the board appearing in front of the Regulations Review Committee as well. But this has come to light because of the scrutiny of the Regulations Review Committee which goes to underscore just how important that committee is because it scrutinises things that otherwise do not get any parliamentary scrutiny. That is its purpose and it performs a hugely important function in that respect. Everything we vote on comes to this House for a vote. The things we do not vote on that are exercised by regulation promulgated by Ministers and Orders in Council do not get scrutinised by this House. So we need to respect the view of the Regulations Review Committee—not only respect its view but also respect its function. 
I need to say that I dislike to my core retrospective legislation and this is the second time in 2 weeks I have got up to make a speech about retrospective legislation. The last time was on the Tasman District Council validation of rates that had been misapplied. I hate it but we are in the situation where this House has very few alternatives. We either bankrupt the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board which is in nobody’s interests—not the industry’s interests not the members’ interests and not the interests of ordinary people who require the services of these tradespeople. So I have to bite the bullet on this one. I do not like retrospective validating legislation. It is correcting an error. Somebody has done something illegal and Parliament has to fix it otherwise people will suffer as a result. So for that reason Labour is supporting this bill but not without reservation. 
There is one other item that I want to bring to the House’s attention. I bring it to attention in this first reading because there is such a short time frame for the Government Administration Committee to consider this bill—and the previous speaker from the Green Party Holly Walker referred to that substantially—but there are some things in the content of the bill itself that require some reconciliation. I hope that the officials of the Minister for Building and Construction will during the week that the bill is in front of the select committee provide the select committee with some way of resolving new section 143(1) in clause 4 which provides the new process by which the board may legitimately apply a levy for disciplinary and prosecution purposes with the new section 171B which comes under clause 5 in Part 2 of the bill and refers to the fact that any amendment on the date or after the date that this bill comes into force will render the previous validation ineffective. So the validation that we are trying to pass here will cease to apply if the board moves to make an amendment to the fee on or after this bill has come into effect and become an Act. I think there is a contradiction between those two things. 
I think that if the section 142 power that was used by the board to prescribe the original offence fee was dubious enough to require validation by this bill then surely it cannot be a lawful basis for the board to use in amending the fee. If the bill is enacted an argument can be made that the section 142 power in so far as it was applied in prescribing the offence fee is implicitly repealed by the new empowering provision inserted into clause 4 of the bill. I do think that the policy intent behind new section 171B is to tell the board that if it amends the offence then it will not have the protection of the validation provided for in the bill. I think this sends confusing signals. I know the Minister’s office and the Minister are aware of my concerns in this regard and I would hope that officials would be able to mend what I see as a difficult set of competing signals before the bill is passed into law. Thank you.