Smith Nick: Standards and Conformance Bill — In Committee 
Smith Nick: Standards and Conformance Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:634;Page:5458] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I firstly want to support my colleague Nicky Wagner in the quite powerful points she has made to the Committee about the mess the Government has made in respect of standards for noisy exhausts. The member for New Plymouth Harry Duynhoven was rolled by members of the noisy industry as a self-confessed boy racer. As a consequence I myself and Nicky Wagner have heard complaints from communities all over New Zealand—Nelson Christchurch Hamilton almost every corner of New Zealand—about the hopeless Government response to noisy boy racers. The Government allows 7000 vehicles a year that are imported into New Zealand to have perfectly good muffler systems ripped out of them and be replaced with ones with wide bores that are designed to be as noisy as possible. In fact I found out that in my own community of Nelson the equivalent of a 747’s noise is being created by the wide-bore muffler industry every single week. 
What has the Government done? I can recite the contents of six press releases from Tim Barnett of Christchurch who said he would bring a member’s bill into this House in 2004. That is over 2 years ago. Well I have searched through the papers gone to the Clerk’s Office and crawled over the desks looking for Mr Barnett’s member’s bill and it is nowhere to be seen. He got the sexy story in the Christchurch  
Press 
 but he has not done a single thing. 
And we keep getting statements from Harry Duynhoven. He issues press releases—I think he has them in the fax machine on automatic release every 6 months. “I am going to do something about noisy exhausts.” he says. He puts the press statement out and nothing happens for another 6 months. He puts it out again; nothing happens for another 6 months. It has become farcical. 
Thankfully there is somebody who is taking this issue seriously. Nicky Wagner has launched a proper member’s bill to deal with noisy racers and to set some standards in place. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Bit late—it’s already done. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well I ask Mr Duynhoven why the standard of noise for a car in New Zealand is less than that for a 12-axle truck in Australia. I sort of thought that New Zealanders were more environmentally conscious than Aussies but here we have Harry Duynhoven and his boy-racer mates allowing that sort of abuse of New Zealanders. People staying in hotels are refusing to pay their bills the next morning and are walking away in disgust. Cafe owners in my own electorate of Nelson are frustrated out of their tree with this problem. Thousands of people have signed a petition launched by Nicky Wagner. And still the Government does nothing. 
So I challenge the Government in respect of this Standards and Conformance Bill to actually do some doing actually walk the talk because for all the rhetoric for all the waffly provisions we see in this bill this Government in important areas like building standards and exhausts standards is doing nothing. In fact I will re-emphasise a question that I have put to the Minister ad nauseam. Standards New Zealand says there is one set of standards for the treatment of construction timber for houses but the Department of Building and Housing is saying something different. A number of building associations are saying: “Please tell us what the rules are.” The Minister in the chair Lianne Dalziel cannot tell us. She refuses; she does not know. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Part 2. We are doing Part 2 of the bill. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Yes and I have a simple question for the Minister. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: This has got nothing to do with Part 2 of the bill. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well the bill is about Standards New Zealand and Standards New Zealand has introduced a change in standards for timber treatment. We want to know what the standard is to which we have to build a house today. The Government does not know. So why should we be ramming through this Parliament the Standards and Conformance Bill when the Government cannot answer something as basic as that? The reality is that for the first time in New Zealand history we have two different agencies of Government telling different stories about what the right standard is for something as critical as New Zealanders’ most important asset—their home. We do not know from this Government what the correct standard is. Why on earth should this Parliament advance a bill of this type when there is that sort of confusion in the Government ranks over an issue as important as the standard of timber treatment which is critical?