Salesa JennyBUILDING AMENDMENT BILLSecond ReadingHon JENNY SALESA (Minister for Building and Construction): I move That the Building Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I'd like to thank the Transport and Infrastructure Committee for all of their work and consideration of this bill. I'd also like to thank all our New Zealanders who took the time to make submissions as well as to provide their insight and feedback on this legislation. Everyone in this House of Parliament knows why we need to be able to act swiftly and effectively to manage buildings in extreme circumstances. The topic of this bill when you drill down to it is about protecting lives and people's livelihoods. We need systems in place that can cope with extreme situations that our country can face such as natural disasters like earthquakes and can also show vulnerabilities in our buildings. The Building Amendment Bill steps in to fill gaps that exist in New Zealand's management of buildings in an emergency and in the processes of investigating significant building failures.This bill amends the Building Act 2004 in two ways. Firstly it introduces new powers to create a clear and balanced system that can manage risks buildings can pose to people and property from responding to recovery following a significant emergency. Secondly the bill provides the central building regulator which is the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) with a clear set of powers to investigate significant building failures. This lets us learn lessons from and to improve our regulatory system. These amendments to the Building Act are informed by our past experiences in particular the lessons that we've learnt from both the Christchurch and the Kaikōura earthquakes. These events showed us the hard way exactly why being better prepared is so vitally important.The Building Amendment Bill recognises the central importance of making sure that our buildings are well looked after of making sure there is a process that comprehensively manages them during an emergency from start to finish and of making sure that the buildings are safe and that we learn from any building failures that may occur. The central importance of this bill was acknowledged by those who submitted during the select committee process. Submissions agreed that the core of what this bill is meant to achieve whilst drawing attention to areas where it could be improved is really why we should improve our Building Act 2004.During the course of consideration by the Transport and Infrastructure Committee the bill underwent changes to address issues raised by both submitters and by the select committee themselves. I will summarise these. The first modification I will take you through—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can I just interrupt the member to remind her that she should not be reading her speech. The second reading is not the time when speeches are read. We had the Hon Stuart Nash the other day put his notes aside and make an excellent speech at the second reading stage.Hon JENNY SALESA: Excellent. So the three main categories that the Building Amendment Bill will address are these: first when there are urgent works on buildings in order to save lives the Building Amendment Bill should absolutely ensure that that is addressed; second when there are works on buildings that have economic businesses we should ensure that as we are making sure that the buildings are made safer we provide the least economic disruption while those works are being done; and third we should ensure that as we are strengthening the buildings we've taken into consideration that we're saving lives—that they are fit for purpose long term meaning that as we make sure that our buildings are strengthened for earthquakes yes we save lives and as we strengthen those buildings we ensure that the quality that is put into those buildings makes it so that they last a very long time. Many of these buildings are Government buildings; so it is in our interest as taxpayers—and many of them also are buildings that are owned by council; so there are also ratepayers that are affected by this. So as we strengthen these buildings it is in all of our interests both as taxpayers and as ratepayers that we ensure that they are strengthened and that they last a long long time.Another new section was added in response to the select committee as well as to the submissions that were made which will clarify the powers and who should exercise those powers because when emergencies like these arise we have councils who have powers; we have the emergency defence force who also have powers; and we have the MBIE which has some powers over buildings. So this Building Amendment Bill is to ensure that when those buildings are being strengthened we know exactly who is responsible for what. So a new section has been added to ensure that we do not remove the possibility of a follow-up investigation.One of the things that we saw in Christchurch was that there was to give you an example a particular building that needed to be strengthened; however there was a building that was in the front and in order to access and strengthen the building at the back we had to actually get the agreement of the owners of the building at the front. What this legislation does is put that aside and it ensures that whoever it is be they owned by a private owner be they owned by council or be they owned by Government that all of those issues of ownership are put to the side and that we focus on ensuring that we strengthen our buildings and that we also ensure—one of these buildings could have fallen on people—that people's lives are indeed saved.In terms of the section on determinations which are legally binding we also wanted to make sure that for MBIE on matters of doubt should there be any dispute that arises there is the clarity of the legislation and that it's reworded so that it provides positive descriptions of the conditions for when a determination can apply. The draft legislation actually described when determinations did not apply. So the changes were made so that it was positive and clearer.The bill also proposes to fix unworkable time lines in terms of compliance for dam owners. Presently dam owners have a responsibility to provide classification and certification of their dams to the regional authority. The time lines for compliance in this section however are not workable in many situations. So a new clause has been inserted to resolve this clarifying the wording in the bill. Finally the wording was fixed so that the terms are more consistent such as replacing the term an individual" with "an owner or an occupier".By way of conclusion these recommendations build on all the work that has been done so far by the select committee as well as by those who presented to the select committee. The recommendations stay true to the original intent of the bill. We've refined the language; we've addressed concerns and clarified the purpose. The select committee process has been invaluable and I thank all of the members for their hard work. I commend this bill to the House."