Kedgley Sue: Building Bill — In Committee 
Kedgley Sue: Building Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:619;Page:14769] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 This very substantial bill offers consumer protection and it was extraordinary to hear the member from the National Party sort of dismiss it and say that it might add $10000 or something to the building of a new home—never mind that we had submitters come to the Government Administration Committee who had lost $100000. It has gone right down the tubes because they had bought shoddy houses the result of which is that people have a home that is worth absolutely nothing. So we do need consumer protection and the overwhelming majority of submitters wanted that and strongly supported it. I think that National is right out on a limb in that regard. 
We are very pleased with many aspects of this bill; particularly we are pleased that sustainable development and health have been added to the purpose clause. When we look at the principles we see a whole raft of them many of them as a result of Green Party amendments and we are absolutely delighted that they are. I would like to talk about one where we say we need to ensure that any harmful effect on human health resulting from the use of particular building methods or products of a particular building design or building work is prevented or minimised. 
 Until this moment in time there have been no regulations looking at the health effects of building materials in our homes. Basically we know that we use many many toxic materials in building our homes but nobody has actually assessed whether the building materials that we are using in our homes might have adverse effects—indeed might even in some cases be slowly poisoning us. We know that there are literally thousands—we are assured thousands—of building materials used and many of them resins glues and flame retardants give off a gas formaldehyde which was recently classified as a carcinogen and so forth but none of these have ever been assessed. When I asked the question: “How many of these building products are registered and how many of these are assessed for their health effects?” the answer to my astonishment came back: “Absolutely none.” 
So this is really a major step forward that we are finally requiring that the new building department will have to take account of the health effects of building materials. We spend 80 percent of our time inside buildings and so it is quite extraordinary that we have ignored this quite major contributor I am certain to ill health. 
The other thing the bill deals with and many of these issues were Green amendments are heritage energy conservation energy efficiency the use of renewal energy and so forth. These things are absolutely fundamental and it is extraordinary that we did not have something as fundamental in the building code as energy efficiency. It is quite extraordinary that half of our houses in New Zealand are not even properly insulated. Here we are trying to build new dams and damming the remaining rivers in New Zealand but what about something as basic as insulating our homes so that we reduce the energy usage? 
Any energy efficiency that we make in building our homes will be cost-effective because we will over time be reducing our energy bill at a time when we know that energy shortages are becoming a way of life. It is extraordinary that we are ignoring such fundamental things as the energy usage in our homes. We would like the bill to go further. We are happy with it as far as it goes but we think we need a system of energy ratings for all new homes so that anyone buying a home knows how energy efficient or inefficient it is and other issues such as that. We also believe that any significant alterations to existing homes should be required to match the energy efficiency standards in the building code just as they match the fire safety disability and access standards. We will be moving amendments to that effect. The other area where we will be moving an amendment is to enable territorial authorities if they wish to set standards.