SpeechHon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Thank you Mr Speaker. Look I rise to take a short call to express New Zealand First's intention of course to support this bill and to also congratulate the Hon Jenny Salesa for bring this sterling piece of work to the House. I need to rebut a couple of the comments that have been made in that last contribution and that's coming from Scott Simpson who did chair the Environment Committee last term which I served on. He did a very good job of it. But I do find it a little churlish some of the comments—you know taking 2½ to three years for Minister Salesa to bring this legislation to the House—and then in the next breath bemoaning the fact that the legislation hasn't been amended since it was introduced in 2004. Well there were nine years in which Mr Simpson's Government and the National Party had to pass this legislation. Matt King: Ron Mark you opposed it.Hon RON MARK: We're talking about Mr King the Building (Building Products and Methods Modular Components and Other Matters) Amendment Bill actually; we're not talking about the Resource Management Act. We'll get to that in good time. But it is a little silly actually to be criticising the Minister who's taken time to consult with over 400 people time to consult with the industry. New Zealand First has had solid input into this legislation.I have to say that I look at aspects of this bill and the work that's been done and the legislation that Minister Salesa's brought to the House and it does take me back to the days in local government as the Mayor of Carterton when we were watching bemused as—Chris Bishop: Oh the glory days!Hon RON MARK: Glory days in Carterton—always glory days in Carterton Mr Bishop. But there was often a lot of criticism of councils for taking so long to get consents through and there was the debacle in Christchurch where they actually had their certification powers removed and other people put in. Carterton under the stewardship of Milan Hautler and Suzanne Zabell Bruce and Robbie would turn around consents in four days—four days. And we would turn up to local government conferences and listen to the problems and wonder why it was that in metropolitan New Zealand the problem was so bad.Now this bill highlights some of those areas where there have been challenges for certain councils. One of the areas that stands out and I'm so pleased that Minister Salesa is addressing this is the issues around building materials and the hoopla and the rigmarole that people go through when requests for information about building products and methodologies are put upon them not realising of course if the council staff the certifying staff continue to request this extra information that poses huge delays at times. And if that consent goes to the bottom of the pile it might then take weeks to resurface again before it's actually even addressed. Looking at the notes from Minister Salesa's work you know some of those delays have been an average of 21 working days. I know of a case where a builder was stalled on his building through the intervention of a lobby group who decided to advocate that the building was actually a heritage building when it wasn't. But their actions caused that project to be stalled. It cost that builder $31000 before he could actually get construction going again.Anything that reduces red tape anything that enables us to build houses faster anything that assures the people of New Zealand that building standards will not be lowered that in actual fact we're going to be tighter on building materials and tighter on certification of products—we've had countless examples in New Zealand over the last 15 20 years of shonky products coming into this country and being installed in buildings only to have to be ripped out later on. We're talking about water reticulation pipes. I know there was that issue about panels that were meant to be fireproof that actually turned out not to be. There's no shortage of examples of where people have gotten away. And thank you the Hon Scott Simpson for pointing out that the penalties for breaches are going to be stiffened up here in this legislation. The stiffening up on the back of the loosening up around some of the regulation and some of the consenting requirements to me is very sensible. This is the carrot and stick. This is the Government saying we're going to make things easier for you. We're going to reduce red tape. We're going to make sure that people can progress the construction of their buildings in a safe manner. We're going to remove duplication. There's a company down in the Waimakariri—Matt Doocey will know it—Fraemohs Homes who build prefabricated homes and have shipped them all over the world actually. When I lived down in Rangiora I used to visit there quite frequently and look at the work they did. Sterling work great work fantastic homes fantastic houses. But the certification the consenting process required these buildings to be consented in the factory and then again when they were erected to have another consent when they were erected on the section by the owner of the property who'd bought the building. Minister Salesa very sensibly has identified that as an area that's just duplication and unnecessary so that's changing.I'm not going to rotary hoe the same paddock over and over other than to say that if the Opposition feels that it's taken too long to get this bill to the House; that it's generally good and it's smart and it's good for business and it removes red tape and it's good for the public of New Zealand who are wanting to build their homes; if it's going to accelerate the building and construction of homes when we know there's a shortage and that needs to be addressed—if they think that then I guess they'll move it through select committee pretty quickly and we'll have it back in the House so we can pass it before the election—don't you think?