Sage Eugenie: Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSage Eugenie: Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 10 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10924. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]EUGENIE SAGE (Green): I am very pleased to take a call on the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill. The Green Party is very pleased to now be able to support the bill. When it was first introduced we opposed it because there were far too generous exemptions for building owners from meeting fire and disability access requirements when they were undertaking earthquake strengthening and I pay tribute to submitters and my colleague Mojo Mathers who highlighted this and helped get these changes. When the bill was introduced with those exemptions again it was saying that cost was too great a factor in making the changes to enable all people to have easy access to buildings and it just reinforced the perceptions that the needs of older people and people with a disability did not count for as much as the needs of others. As is often the case the costs were overstated and the benefits of ensuring that buildings are accessible were understated. Accessible buildings have major benefits not just for people in wheelchairs but of course for older people and parents and families with pushchairs. So it is with great pleasure that because those changes have now been made we can support this bill.Earthquakes are of course a major natural hazard in New Zealand. There have been seven fatal earthquakes since 1840 with 473 people losing their lives and of course 185 of those in Christchurch. So this bill is very important in improving public safety and reducing the risk of serious injury and death from earthquakes. We are seeing that not just in Christchurch obviously but in Nepal where more than 7000 people were killed in the recent earthquakes there. Even though the Minister for Building and Housing has noted that people are “100 times more likely to die in a car accident” and “50 times more likely to drown” the challenge is to improve the safety of our buildings to reduce the risks to life and to reduce the risks of serious injury. I think it is very important that there is support across the House because the costs of strengthening buildings will be considerable. There are thousands of building owners who are affected by this legislation so the fact that there is cross-party support means that there will be certainty and an enduring regime rather than one that changes as Governments are changed.We are very pleased to have been a part of the consideration of the major changes to this bill which have ensured that it does get cross-party support and very pleased with the process that both the current Minister Dr Nick Smith and the former Minister Maurice Williamson and the Local Government and Environment Committee undertook to respond to public submissions and to make the major changes in this bill that have resulted in the change from the one-size-fits-all approach that was in the bill as introduced to one that recognises that seismic risk differs across the country. Like others I commend the enormous work and the very constructive submissions from earthquake engineers councils property owners seismic experts scientists local councils and Dr Ann Brower the survivor of the building collapse on the Sumner bus in Christchurch. I think as Dr Brower has said that this bill has been democracy in action with the select committee and the Government recognising that these non-structural features in unreinforced masonry buildings like verandahs like parapets and like the facades can be strengthened much more easily and cheaply than whole buildings that they are the low-hanging fruit that exist on about 2000 buildings across New Zealand and that if we strengthen those if we get rid of some of those parapets then we significantly reduce the risk of injury and the risk to life.The bill provides a process where councils will consult their communities on which unreinforced masonry buildings on major thoroughfares major roads and the like should be classified as priority buildings and as a priority for strengthening. That has been quite a significant change which I do not think would have occurred if it had not been for Dr Brower’s submissions and the submissions and advocacy also of the Mayor of Christchurch the Hon Lianne Dalziel. This whole process with this bill and the release by the Local Government and Environment Committee of an interim report and the call for a second round of submissions on the departmental report and the changes that the committee was proposing to make is an example of very good lawmaking by this Parliament and a good process. We would encourage the Minister to adopt a similar process with other controversial legislation like the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill because it counts when people hear that their submissions and their suggestions of law changes are actually being picked up by Parliament. This then becomes the people’s House in reality and we are making the people’s law and responding to the concerns that are raised through that submission process.I think the change in the bill with the three seismic risk zones high medium and low depending on the frequency of earthquakes that are likely to cause fatalities—the much more targeted approach that this embodies is a good one. The change too to having priority buildings like emergency response buildings education facilities where there are more than 20 people and hospitals—requiring those to be identified and strengthened in half the standard time is also good.A couple of the current gaps though are in regulations. There was of course very limited information in the bill—and it is not appropriate that it be in primary legislation—about the methodology that is to be used to identify assess and remediate earthquake-prone buildings. That level of technical information is more appropriately put in regulations but because some councils like Wellington City Council are getting on and identifying earthquake-prone buildings and are working out how they are going to assess those the regulations need to be developed sooner rather than later. The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment has said that it is going to consult with stakeholders and we would like to see that work given priority so that there is consistency across New Zealand in the methods that councils and building owners use to assess buildings and identify them.The other area is in regard to taxation. There is a problem in our tax law in relation to building strengthening that needs to be fixed. The Minister has said that he thought it was premature to address tax reforms while the bill was at select committee. He said that he is acutely aware of the potential fiscal impacts on building owners but this needs to be fixed because under the current law as I understand it building owners cannot claim tax deductibility or depreciation for assessments of earthquake proneness or for the remedial work that they undertake to ensure that a building complies with the law. Yet they can claim tax deductibility if a building collapses and if it kills or injures people potentially. That does not make sense when they can claim deductibility for the worst of those issues and not for the strengthening. The Green Party believes that we need this issue to be looked at by a taxation working party and that there should be some incentives for building owners such as tax deductibility for the cost of strengthening.We also need a look at the issue around depreciation for work on heritage buildings because in Wellington for example there are over 700 earthquake-prone buildings and 183 of these are listed heritage buildings. Although the council can offer rates relief there is no tax relief available to building owners for their upgrading work. If we make some changes to tax law here it would better recognise the quite substantial contribution that these heritage buildings make to our sense of place in towns and cities around New Zealand and to the character that they provide. It would recognise the community benefit from retaining these buildings. The Minister said he would look at these tax law changes once the legislation is passed. We hope that that is sooner rather than later but we do commend this bill and the changes it makes. The Green Party is pleased to support it.