Mackey Moana: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Mackey Moana: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I intend to move that all the words after “Committee” be deleted. Labour will be supporting the first reading of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill. I commend the Minister in charge of this bill the Minister for Building and Construction for the work that he has put in to come up with a resolution for what is undoubtedly one of the more difficult issues that this Parliament has had to deal with. It certainly goes right to the heart of the livelihoods of thousands and thousands of families and we cannot underestimate the difficulty of navigating a path that attempts to protect the Crown’s position the householders’ position and local government’s position. I congratulate Maurice Williamson on that. 
I was also very pleased to see that during the speech given by my colleague Phil Twyford the Minister was very open to the questions that the Opposition has been raising about how this bill could be improved and whether some aspects of it opened up other areas of risk or other areas of unfairness. I was very pleased to see the Minister indicate that he was open to any solutions and that we would not get the usual thing with National members at select committee where they use their voting power to block changes regardless of whether those changes make sense and would actually be in the interests of the New Zealand public. I certainly hope that that openness translates itself to the Local Government and Environment Committee and that we can make some changes that undoubtedly will make this legislation better. 
This is an incredibly complex issue and its reach is enormous. For example I have been contacted by people in the Auckland region who have rented a property that they did not know was a leaky property. We have had some homeowners who own leaky buildings trying to get some kind of financial recompense from the situation by renting the buildings out to people without telling them that they are leaky. Clearly that is unacceptable but it just shows how far this issue reaches into other areas of legislation. Again we do not underestimate the task of trying to find a solution that as much as possible is acceptable to all parties. 
During this debate we definitely need to keep in mind why we are here in the first place. The deregulation that came with the Building Act in 1991 had an enormous impact on the building sector and we have never really caught up in terms of the professionalisation of that sector and the protection of consumers who purchase products assuming that those protections are in place but then find out once they have invested their entire livelihood in a property that in fact those protections were not there to begin with. 
I found another example recently having toured around boarding houses in Wellington. I wondered how it is possible in New Zealand for properties like that to be rented out to people—and to the most vulnerable people in New Zealand. I was told by the Wellington City Council that prior to the 1991 Building Act changes councils actually had responsibility for boarding houses. Boarding house owners were required to tell the councils where they were and the councils were able to go in and ensure public health standards were being met. The council said that when the 1991 Building Act changes came in it lost that ability. Now if it knows where a boarding house is it will go in and use whatever public health powers it has to look after the tenants. For example one boarding house did not even have running water or connected sewerage. Once the council knows about a problem it will do something about it but it said these tenants would not tell them because they were vulnerable and they were terrified that they would be evicted. That was another thing that came out of those 1991 Building Act changes. 
It is a salient lesson to all members of this House when people go on about red tape red tape red tape. None of us wants to see people having to jump through legislative and regulatory hoops that they do not need to but we have these protections in place for a reason. 
Jo Goodhew 
: That doesn’t sound like the philosophy of the Labour Party. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Apparently according to the Government junior whip the deregulation of the 1991 Building Act and the leaky homes that came out of it is a good thing. That probably sums up the one-eyed view of some of the National members. If she had actually listened to what I was saying she would have heard that I was agreeing with what the Minister is doing. Instead she is just chipping away negatively like she always does not listening to what anyone else has to say and just assuming that because I am from Labour I am not interested in having a constructive debate on this issue. That of course is not at all true. As I said we are supporting this legislation. 
One of the major parts of this bill is the Crown indemnifying itself. The select committee needs to do some serious looking into this part because it is quite a major step. We agree that if people want to go down the path of accepting this package which involves 25 percent from the Government and 25 percent from local government—although my colleague Phil Twyford has raised some concerns about whether there is actually certainty around that 25 percent from local government—then they should not also be able to sue at the same time. One either goes down the path of accepting the solution in this legislation or one can go down one’s own path. We think that is absolutely fair enough. 
But when it comes to the indemnification for future grievances that people might have against the Crown we question whether that is a fair thing to do. For example if during the course of repairs it is found that the Department of Building and Housing assessors have not done a proper job in assessing the damage the homeowner is no longer allowed to have any recourse against the Crown for that mistake. We think the select committee will need to look at that issue. 
We also have to appreciate that the people we are talking about trusted building officials in the first place and this is the position that it got them into. To say to them that they have to trust a whole raft of officials again despite what happened the first time around when councils signed off on building plans and products is asking an awful lot. Some people have lost a lot of trust when it comes to this area of Government regulation. If the officials are wrong again even though it may be completely different officials those people will have no ability to come back against the Crown. We will certainly want to look at that at select committee. 
A lot of risk is also built in for builders with this indemnity. They are the one group that is not covered by it fully. The Crown does not carry that risk. If a homeowner wants to prosecute a builder for the work they did that resulted in a leaky building the builder may say that it was not their fault it was the council. But they are not allowed to do that under this legislation—they are not allowed to engage a third party in those proceedings. That means that the only person left sitting out there like a lightning rod for complaints and for being sued is the builder the architect or the developer. Even though it may not have been the builder’s fault everyone else has been protected while they have not. As we know there will probably be people out there who will go after every avenue they can to get back some of the value of their property. Having one person sitting out there all on their own is a problem. We think we should indemnify all or none and we may want to look at that at select committee. 
I will finish off by talking about the Housing New Zealand Corporation its role in some of this and whether it is considered to be the Crown under this legislation. I am thinking of a particular property up in Auckland called Pepperwood Mews where the Housing New Zealand Corporation and a developer came together and marketed properties to consumers. They said that if they purchased this property the Housing New Zealand Corporation would tenant it and become the tenancy manager. This was a very good deal for people so they invested in these properties. Then it turned out that the properties were leaky buildings. Housing New Zealand Corporation pulled its support and said it had nothing to do with it and was only going to be the tenancy manager. 
As time has gone on and documents have been revealed we have found out that the Housing New Zealand Corporation played a much bigger role than it had originally admitted. It originally purchased these properties and then shifted to a leasing arrangement which means that it went through a process where it looked at these properties and said they were structurally sound otherwise it would not have purchased them. That gave the tenants some hope that it must have been a really good option. Also there were problems with those buildings before the unit titles were signed off that the tenants were never told about. 
There is some ongoing action around this issue but I want to know whether indemnifying the Crown under this legislation means that those people are no longer able to pursue the Housing New Zealand Corporation for any culpability it may have had in the leaky building saga. If that is the case then I think it needs to be made clear. There needs to be a definitive decision for the corporation to be either included or taken out. 
In the case of Pepperwood Mews those residents certainly believe that there is a case to be made that the Housing New Zealand Corporation has some culpability. Housing New Zealand Corporation was involved in assisting the developer during the resource consent process and the building consent process at council. The corporation put the process out under its name. It originally bought the properties thereby leading people to believe that the properties were safe. Does indemnifying the Crown mean that the Housing New Zealand Corporation is also exempt from any kind of action being taken against it?