Dean Jacqui: Building Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Dean Jacqui: Building Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:641;Page:10843] 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Otago) 
: 
 This is such a mess. This Building Amendment Bill is a huge expensive costly embarrassing mess for the Government. I met recently with a building inspector—well we used to call them building inspectors when that was all they did—in my own electorate because I was interested in the implications of these new amendments to the Building Act. This guy brought in a folder of work associated with these new amendments to the Building Act. We sat for about half an hour and he described to me what the engineering department of his small local authority was having to go through to comply with the requirements under the new provisions of the Building Act. 
Of course we know what those are and we know the effect of them. We know that the number of building inspections the requirements the form filling and the bureaucracy from all parts of this process have escalated. We know from talking to the building inspectors and also from talking to builders the huge increase in time and cost that these new provisions of the Building Act are imposing on the building industry. This of course adds to the cost of housing—well why would it not? We have to lay the blame for this squarely at the feet of the Government. It worries does it not about housing affordability yet all the provisions within this Building Amendment Bill work directly contrary to that and for that it should be ashamed. 
I would like to note that the Government says that these new requirements to the Building Act will overcome the many leaky homes we have in New Zealand but when I asked my building inspector in Waitaki how many incidents of leaky homes we have had in our small local authority do members know what the answer was? 
Mark Blumsky 
: None I don’t think. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: My colleague says he thought the answer was none. The answer is in fact none. There was no problem in the lower South Island in Waitaki. 
Bob Clarkson 
: That’s because there was snow on the roof! 
JACQUI DEAN 
: Yes there is snow on the roof—I thank “Bob the Builder”—and yes the homes built down in the lower half of the South Island can cope with snow rain events and strong winds. There was no problem in the lower South Island that needed to be fixed. 
So I have been extremely concerned at the impost in terms of cost timeliness and delays for councils private builders and developers. It is funny is it not; to me developers are people who are investing in our communities yet to some of my Labour counterparts across the House they seem to be some kind of dirty word. Well I can tell members that we do not subscribe to that view over this side of the House. 
But the main problem I have seen for small local authorities is the requirement to comply by November. I tell members that a number of small authorities have been under considerable stress in trying to comply with the requirements of this legislation to be accredited by November 2007. Of course they would not be able to. It might surprise some members over the other side of the House who have not actually worked in the outside world that local authorities have to do a little more than comply with the regulations under this and many other pieces of legislation. They have to continue with the normal work of local government in the engineering and planning departments which sometimes in some authorities are all together in one room and that might surprise some members on the opposite side of the House. They have other things to do quite apart from scrambling to comply with the requirements under this building legislation. I know this because people have come to me and complained about the added costs and the added bureaucratic requirements put on them by a Government that does not understand the effect of its legislation on small authorities. I am talking only about small authorities because that is what I know. 
Members can imagine my surprise—and I guess they will imagine it—when I received in my in-box a press release from the New Zealand Government. It looks to me from my reading that Minister Cosgrove has done a huge flip-flop in terms of this building legislation— 
Mark Blumsky 
: A big one—it’s a major one. 
JACQUI DEAN 
:—a biggie! Minister Clayton Cosgrove stood in front of the Local Government and Environment Committee and said that local authorities would comply. He was confident that local authorities would have no problem in complying with the requirements of the building legislation. In fact so confident was he that he was prepared to put a date—November 2007. Of course Minister Cosgrove cared little for the effect that that kind of confidence would have on local authorities because unfortunately for Mr Cosgrove just because he says that it will be so does not mean that it will be so. That is not because local authorities do not want to be compliant but because they simply cannot be. 
So we have here today—and I am quite excited by this—a press release from the New Zealand Government that represents a major major flip-flop and a reality check for the Minister. Local government cannot despite its best efforts and despite $3 million worth of assistance—and I will say a few things about that in a minute—comply with the Minister’s wishes. That is not because local government does not want to comply because it has tried to; it simply cannot. Minister Clayton Cosgrove needs to get off his cloud and get real. 
So here we are with the Minister for Building and Construction Minister Clayton Cosgrove. I am going to give members a treat because I know they cannot read the press release I have here. I am going to give them a treat and read it out and then I am going to tell members what it really means. I am going to work past the spin. I know that the Labour Government is very good at spin but I can see through it and I will share my findings with the House: “Building and Construction Minister Clayton Cosgrove plans to give local authorities more time in which to become accredited and registered as building consent authorities …”. Well hello Minister—he has finally seen the light. “Mr Cosgrove today introduced into Parliament a simple amendment to the Building Act …”—another amendment yet another amendment. 
Now here we come to the interesting part: “Mr Cosgrove said councils are making good progress …” Really? That is not what they tell us. “… and have shown a lot of commitment”—well we would expect that of them—“with 71 of the country’s 73 territorial authorities having applied for accreditation …” Well that means only that they have applied. The reality reading between the lines is that only one council—one council—has achieved accreditation. The rest of the councils are absolutely scrambling. 
Now here we get to the $3 million Government assistance package. I challenge the Minister to front up to us—to front up to the House. He has thrown $3 million at this accreditation package yet local government still cannot apply. So the Minister needs to answer some questions on this and I do hope he does. How was that $3 million allocated to local authorities? Does that show that merely throwing money at a problem will not necessarily fix the problem? I think that the Minister needs to front up and say why he felt he should throw $3 million at local authorities—if in fact that is what has happened. 
We have seen before in the term of this Government that assistance packages have been announced but then when those packages have been looked into we have found that they have not actually been delivered; or else the Government has announced assistance packages but when we have looked into them we have found that nobody can actually fulfil the criteria to get the money. I can cite several examples of that to do with drinking water standards and small sewerage schemes. So I would like the Minister to front up as to how he allocated that $3 million. Clearly the scheme has not worked. Clearly this press release from the New Zealand Government today shows a huge back-down and exposes the terrible expensive mess that is the Building Act.