Kedgley Sue: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Kedgley Sue: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:672;Page:18664] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 The leaky homes saga is one of the worst man-made—I use the word “man” advisedly—disasters in the history of New Zealand. It affects some are estimating as many as 80000 households and could cost anywhere between $11 billion and $23 billion to fix. It is such a fiasco that I thought I would go back to the  
Hansard 
 record and discover how the fiasco came about. 
I have to say that Maurice Williamson is correct. It was the Labour Government that developed the Building Act which created this fiasco—and it was the National Government under Mr Bolger that took it over at the third reading. It was passed unanimously with members of this House glowing with huge satisfaction about what wonderful legislation the 1991 Building Act was and what it was going to usher in. 
Members all said they were going to deregulate the industry and wipe out all the previous regulations and controls in the industry and they were going to do this because they were going to save money reduce costs and boost the building industry. So they loosened the councils’ inspection procedures to save money and to please the building industry. They tried to increase competition in the sector by allowing private sector building certifiers to compete with local council inspectors for work. 
They lowered the standards allowed the use of untreated timber and monolithic cladding and then they allowed builders and developers to enter and exit the building industry with no liability no skills and no costs. Developers and builders could build a house walk away without any liability hide under the protection of a limited liability simply disappear or head off to Australia—as many thousands have done. They removed basic levels of skill and training—what did it matter anyone could build a home and all one needed to do was to ensure that the building complied with minimal standards in the building code. So it is interesting to look back and reflect on the debate only 20 years ago in this House. 
It might be worthwhile during the Committee stage to read some of the speeches by Labour and National members about what a great idea it was to make all those changes. They crowed that by leaving it to the invisible hand of the market and deregulating the industry they would reduce building costs and usher in a wonderful new era. And here we are 20 years later and instead of saving money and reducing costs we have an $11 billion—it could be $23 billion—bill. 
We have as the 2002 Hunn report stated: “a systematic breakdown across the entire building industry”. We have affected the lives of thousands arguably hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders and we have ended up with somewhere between 24000 and possibly even 80000 newly built homes that are leaky defective and unliveable. 
Families all over New Zealand are living in damp mouldy and unhealthy homes with  
Stachybotrys 
—more on that later. People are devastated and financially ruined all because National supported by Labour deregulated the building industry and left it to the market. So let us hope that the Government will learn from that fiasco. But no it is running around trying to deregulate in a whole lot of other sectors and no doubt setting up similar fiascos. 
Experts believe that as many as 89000 homes built between 1992 and 2005 will leak. Some are saying that 80 percent or even 100 percent of houses apartments and multi-dwelling homes with monolithic cladding and untreated timber will fail irrespective of their design. John Gray Home Owners and Buyers Association president fears that every single house built from untreated timber will leak at some time in its life. He says that contrary to official assurances there are still houses that were built after the reforms of the building code in 2005 that leak like a sieve despite the fact that builders are now using treated timber and are having to leave gaps between the walls and the timber frames. 
Mr Gray said that there are still builders out there who are not builders developers who do not give a damn and owners who are trying to cut costs and build as cheaply as they can. So actually it is a saga of greed as well as of deregulation. The association warns that we have not even begun to estimate the true scope of the problem. Many people still do not realise they have a leaky home or are in denial about it or cannot afford to fix it or their home has been fixed badly and will have to be repaired again. As many others have said there are so many people who will not be able to pay 50 percent of the cost of repairing their home. 
It was also pointed out that we are talking here in the legislation only about houses and multi-dwelling units. The weathertightness report pointed out that there are probably an equal number of motels schools retirement homes and hospitals that are leaking like sieves. The fiasco that was created 20 years ago with the unanimous support of Labour and National in this House continues to ricochet through our nation. 
Many people are concerned that they will not be eligible for financial assistance. They will miss out on this package because their houses were built in the 1990s outside the time frames. The Government is saying that it is sorry about the 10-year limit that it acknowledges people will be upset but that the magnitude of the money required is so huge. But we believe it is quite simply unjust that a financial assistance package will not be available to people because of an arbitrary time frame. We believe the package should be open to anyone who has a leaky home regardless of when it was built. 
It is also galling of course to find that house owners whose houses were signed off by a private building certifier will not be eligible for the 25 percent council contribution. We had many heartbreaking submissions from people. I remember one submission from Rob Craigie. He said: “We’re in our late sixties. We’ve got a $160000 mortgage on the damp house we own. We cannot sell it. We cannot possibly afford to pay 50 percent of a $300000 bill”—which is what most of them are looking at—“on top of our mortgage so we just have to stay here working and trying to keep paying our mortgage until we die.” 
The problem with multi-unit legal claims has already been referred to and many of these have stalled. Owners cannot afford to pay their fees. They cannot get enough of the body corporate to sign in. Then there is the whole business of the health effects which no one has referred to. The mould and fungi from these damp leaky homes produce tiny spores and when they are inhaled they cause  
Stachybotrys 
. They produce toxins—mycotoxins—that cause adverse effects such as respiratory problems eye and skin irritations and flu-like syndromes and they are particularly bad for people with asthma bronchitis and other breathing disorders. 
From a health perspective we should be doing everything we can to fix these homes because otherwise we will be paying for this situation yet again—through our health bill for people who have incredible health problems as a result of living in these damp leaky unhealthy and unsanitary homes. 
I think our main message is that at least this bill is trying to say that the money should be spent not on legal fees but on fixing the homes. For that reason and that reason alone the Greens will support this bill but we believe that anyone who has a leaky home should be eligible for this package. There should not be arbitrary time frames. We hope that the bill can be amended in that respect. Thank you very much.