Mooney JosephJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Oh thank you very much Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on behalf of the National Party and as the member of Parliament for Southland on the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill at its third reading. The National Party supports this bill. The purpose of this bill is to amend the retention money regime in the Construction Contracts Act 2002 to further strengthen and clarify that regime. The bill doesn't make any significant changes overall but it does amend the retention money regime and adds further protection to subcontractors from the 2015 amendments that the then National Government made.It is a challenging time for construction companies around New Zealand there's no two ways about it. Over 100 firms unfortunately have gone bust since the beginning of this year alone. It is a tough time in the construction time. It is a great industry. It's one that I worked in myself in my younger years on the tools—I worked in roofing companies I've painted for a painting contractor I've worked for builders on various sites in my younger years. And I know it can be tough work but it's great work. It's building houses for Kiwi families and that's a really great thing that they do. But there have been real challenges and they're developing at pace. With the supply chain challenges around the world there's a real problem getting building products and getting them on time for building sites. There's a huge workforce shortage in the building industry which is having a really significant impact on the ability for companies to complete the contracts that they have agreed to do—to build the houses that they need to do. And there's a real shortage of availability in terms of experienced trade staff.This is having an impact on the ability for many companies to deliver projects on time and to get what are called progress payments. These are partial payments made to a business or contractor after completion of a prescribed stage of work—for example the addition of a roof etc.—but that needs to be completed in order for the progress payment to be made. I certainly heard from companies in my region who haven't been able to get what would normally have been some fairly simple things like maybe a particular doorknob or a showerhead for example that's needed to complete a particular bit of work. They can't complete a house. In fact I've talked to companies who can't complete multiple houses because they just can't get these little pieces that they need and that's having a flow-on effect in terms of staffing as well. By that I mean staff being able to actually do the jobs—they're having to redistribute the workers they do and try and find work for them elsewhere.On top of that there's a massive workforce shortage which is in fact affecting every industry that I talk to but certainly affecting these companies. So there's a huge amount of pressure on building and construction companies at the moment in this country. Unfortunately a few of them have gone to the wall—in fact over a hundred this year. We want to acknowledge that challenge that they're facing.This bill here is an amendment for those companies that do go into liquidation to ensure that the subcontractors don't lose out on contracted payments of the retention payment scheme. This is a problem because the subcontractors lose out on that income. That can have a big flow-on impact in terms of their ability to service their debt pay for their bills and keep food on the table fundamentally.So the amendments to this Construction Contracts Act intended to address this risk by better protecting retention money automatically by providing that it's held on trust from the earliest practical point in time. A key concern about personal property of the subcontractors and accessibility of that property when companies become insolvent is that there are stories such as subcontractors leaving their tools and equipment on construction sites and being locked out being unable to access their tools when the company goes into liquidation. This has also halted other work the subcontractors carry on to do because they can't access their tools. The High Court decision in Bennett and others v Ebert Construction Ltd noted that the Construction Contracts Act had policy gaps and the trust requirements were imprecise.So this bill will strengthen the laws around this and will require retention money to be held in trust by a separate accountant in a registered bank in New Zealand or in the form of complying instruments such as insurance policy or guarantee. It also clarifies that retention money held in trust must be kept separate from other money or assets and cannot be used for any other purpose. If party A for example becomes insolvent the receiver or liquidator becomes trustee of the transfer money for the purpose of collecting and distributing it. So I recommend this bill to the House.