Carter David: Building Bill — In Committee 
Carter David: Building Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:619;Page:14787] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 I too have to take a call following the contribution made by the Labour member Clayton Cosgrove. I note his whips have been trying to silence him since to make sure that he does not take another call. 
Let me raise a couple of points against Clayton Cosgrove’s argument. The first thing he said was that National did not do anything about it and had 9 long years to do it. I take the opportunity of reminding the member that this problem actually came to light in 2000. In the year 2000 the leaky home saga hit the headlines. That was a time when the Labour member was part of the Labour Government so it is the Labour Government’s problem. The second point I make is that if that member is so keen to help solve the problem why is it 9 years before parts of this bill are enacted? Some of the commencement dates are in 2009. 
The other point he raised was that this legislation was designed to help the battler obtain his or her first home. I had a call an hour or so ago from a man called Stan Scorringe. He is the Mayor of the Mackenzie District Council. That council has met over the last 2 days and tried to analyse the cost it thinks this legislation will impose on the average dwelling. He confirmed to me today—independent of the work done by the members on the select committee—that the council estimates that on average a house price will increase by $7000 because of this restrictive legislation. I ask Clayton Cosgrove how that will help the Kiwi battlers whom he says he is here to represent obtain their first home. 
I want to address a question to the Minister in the chair the Hon John Tamihere who at this stage obviously does not have Helen Clark’s permission to answer a question but I will try. I refer in particular to clause 175 “Licensed building practitioner to certify restricted building work”. When I go back to the definitions and look at how “restricted building work” is defined I see that it is defined as any building work that requires a building consent. That suggests to me that effectively all the do-it-yourself work—which the member Clayton Cosgrove said this legislation supports—under that definition becomes restricted building work and therefore it can no longer be done by the do-it-yourself person or in fact by his mate who might have been a builder for 10 or 20 years but may never have gone through a formal qualification. 
Murray Smith 
: Read on! 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: I have read on and I raised the point earlier and the Minister has not answered. I carried out a significant renovation a few years ago—and I do not want to make the member Clayton Cosgrove any more jealous and spiteful than he was—and when we undertook that renovation we used a builder who has never done an apprenticeship but had had about 10 years’ experience and the building does not leak by the way. He will not now be able to carry on doing that work because he is no longer a licensed building practitioner. I say to that member— 
Lianne Dalziel 
: Did you pay him under the table? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: No I certainly did not pay him under the table nor would I have done so. Those sorts of filthy tricks are the things one would expect from the Lianne Dalziels of this world. I would not operate that way. The point I want to make is that while there seem to be very imperfect definitions of restricted building work I note that a discussion document came across my desk this morning in the name of the Hon John Tamihere. He now proposes to go out to the industry and say: “Help us to define what restricted building work is.” Here we are passing the legislation now and the Minister by his own admission does not have a definition for “restricted building work”. So we are going to ask the industry: “Should a hayshed be a restricted building work?”. Does that mean to say that a farmer can build it with his mate and pay correctly or does he have to have a licensed building practitioner? What about a carport? That was mentioned in the Minister’s own discussion document. He himself does not have a clue whether a carport is a restricted building work. This is a mess.