Jones Dail: Legislation (Incorporation by Reference) Bill — Instruction to Committee Second Reading Instruction to Committee Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Jones Dail: Legislation (Incorporation by Reference) Bill — Instruction to Committee Second Reading Instruction to Committee Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:625;Page:19808] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 The previous National Party speaker has said most of the things I would like to say. Essentially New Zealand First is of the view that this is very important legislation. It requires proper scrutiny and it should be considered by a select committee. Engineers should have a look at it builders should have a look at it and architects should have a look at it. Local authorities should have a look at it as well so that we know— 
Dianne Yates 
: They have. 
DAIL JONES 
: I tell Dianne Yates that they have not looked at the Supplementary Order Paper. We have not had one single submission on it so the member should please get her facts right. The other aspect of it is that the drafting is still wrong. For example if we look at clause 5A we will see that it repeals the earlier subsections (2) and (3) of section 438 of the principal Act and adds subsections (2) (3) (4) and (6). So what has happened to subsection (5)? 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: They can’t count. 
DAIL JONES 
: They cannot count? I ask the Minister whether there is a subsection (5). Is there meant to be a subsection (5) and has it fallen by the wayside? There is a case of bad drafting straight away. There is another example of course of bad drafting in clause 3P with regard to section 241. In the way that that provision is drafted we would think that there was already a numbered subsection (1). In fact there is not. It is just blank. It is just a section. There is no subsection (1) in brackets etc. and then subsection (2). So again there is a drafting error in this legislation. Here we are being made to rush legislation through that rests on that simple construction. I have those subsections here if people want to have a look at them: in section 241 there is no subsection (1). So this thing is a shambles. Already at this very early stage of drafting it does not make proper drafting sense. 
That is what I have picked up in a very short space of time purely on technicalities yet here we are with the Government asking us to rush this legislation through the House right now and it is a case of “She’ll be right.” It was a case of “She’ll be right.” last time and she was not right. 
Hon David Carter 
: She was wrong. 
DAIL JONES 
: Helen Clark was wrong and she should have moved out of the Beehive as should all the other members. But no they insist on breaking the law in that building and now they hope to change the legislation by this piece of drafting. 
Dr Smith has gone through the legislation rather quickly because he had no other alternative. It is so long that he just gave a very quick summary of the general points in the legislation. But I was looking at it and if we have a look at the proposed amendment to section 7 we see that that looks at things such as the integrity of the building and the health and safety of its occupants. I expect that we want legislation that deals with the health and safety of individual occupants to be right. A subsection has been added to that section which relates to design work because it was wrongly left out the first time. Now it has been inserted. 
Clause 3A(3) now adds coastal marine areas to section 7 which were not included in the original Act. We now have legislation that refers to the Resource Management Act and to coastal marine areas and we are supposed to pass it without anyone who is involved with the Resource Management Act having a look at it. I am not the greatest expert on the Resource Management Act and I would expect that local authorities should have a look at it to see whether this is a proper way of drafting that legislation. But no. This Government is rushing it through and could not care less. 
Clause 3B “Building: what it means and includes” states that it “includes the non-moving parts of a cable car attached to or servicing a building”. I would really like to have an engineer look at this to tell me what cable cars that are attached to or servicing a building are likely to do and whether this clause is properly worded. I do not know a thing about cable cars. That is another problem. I remember when Brent Catchpole raised the original Act in caucus and we were discussing it that dams were mentioned. The Government even got dams wrong last time. The new clause 3C substitutes a new section 14 “Roles of building consent authorities territorial authorities and regional authorities in relation to dams”. 
This bill just gets bigger and bigger and of more moment as one goes along. Here we are in Parliament being asked by the Government and by United Future to accept their word that the legislation is OK. But just on my first reading I have pointed out a couple of drafting errors in it. Those are just simple drafting errors. 
An important aspect of this bill for anyone who is concerned about people with disabilities is that clause 3F replaces section 67(3) with a new subsection (3) stating that “The territorial authority cannot grant an application for a building consent subject to a waiver or modification of the building code relating to access and facilities for people with disabilities.” That was left out the first time around; it is in the bill this time. But I would like the people who are involved with disabilities—such as disabilities councils and all those sorts of organisations—to make sure we have it right. Is “people with disabilities” enough? Should there be wider wording than that? We really do not know because we have not had the opportunity to have this put to a select committee. 
Clause 3G addresses more errors that have been made. Clause 3G(1) repeals the earlier legislation and addresses the situation where a person who is not a licensed building practitioner commits offences. New section 116B in clause 3L goes on to address the situation of people who commit offences and who can be fined a maximum of $100000. The new section states that it is an offence to use a building for a use for which it is not safe or not sanitary or if it has inadequate means of escape from fire. This is a totally new section being inserted that gives a penalty of a $100000 fine without the measure going to any parliamentary select committee for consideration. What is more if it is a continuing offence there is a further fine of $10000 for every day or part of a day during which the offence has continued. So if the offence had gone on for a 30-day month that would cost the offender $300000. 
We are rushing through legislation that creates serious offences and we are not looking at any of the basic constitutional requirements. When we were going to fine people at least until today we had the opportunity to go to a select committee to see whether the fine was the correct amount to discuss whether the correct people were being charged and how they were being dealt with. But here we have a $100000 fine imposed with a further $10000 a day. The Labour Party supported by United Future has done this. Murray Smith is a lawyer. I would have thought that a lawyer would be the first person to say that anything to do with an offence of this kind must be given close scrutiny. 
The Law Society for example should have been invited to make submissions. It is basic work in this Parliament that the Law Society should be brought in to give us its view on the constitutional appropriateness of imposing a fine of that amount. But no. It is being rushed through Parliament. A fine of $300000 or more will be imposed on some poor unsuspecting person who has not the faintest idea that whereas yesterday he might have been doing his work appropriately when this bill is passed—and I am not sure when the enactment date is it could be tomorrow or next week for all I know—his work now carries a $10000-a-day fine. A builder may be chipping away on a building site somewhere. He does not listen to Parliament as he listens to a more interesting programme than that. He might be listening to some golden oldies type programme of 1960s and 1970s rock— 
Hon David Carter 
: Winston would be. 
DAIL JONES 
: Yes some intelligent people would be doing just that. Then all of a sudden a building inspector comes around when the builder is 3 months into the job and tells him that what he is doing is wrong. The builder will say: “But you gave me the building consent to do it. Four months ago I got this building consent from you to do this and now you are telling me that 3 months ago I started committing an offence.” How can any political party support legislation of this kind being rushed through under urgency? New Zealand First cannot support this legislation. 
We supported the earlier legislation because it was fine. Even though we were on the edge of things we had a discussion and we supported it. But this really is suicidal. This will put builders into all sorts of problems. This is asking for trouble and for people to be prosecuted. We know that the local bodies are the worst for prosecuting on the most trivial things. They will prosecute for almost anything under the sun. The clause states that a fine of $10000 can be imposed for every day. 
How can we support legislation like this? New Zealand First will be opposing this legislation. We would like it to go to select committee to get full consideration so that we can see what is needed to be done and so that all the people involved can have a look at it. If everyone had agreed to it that would have been fine. But rushing it through when we know that the previous legislation was rushed through supported by United Future and has proved to be an absolute disaster shows that we have not learnt from our mistakes. The Government wants us to go through it all over again. I have already pointed out that I have spotted a couple of drafting mistakes in this legislation. New Zealand First cannot support this Supplementary Order Paper and we will be opposing the motion.