Walker Holly: Building Amendment Bill (No 4) — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWalker Holly: Building Amendment Bill (No 4) — Second Reading[Sitting date: 16 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9421. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]HOLLY WALKER (Green): Like the Labour Party the Green Party supported this Building Amendment Bill (No 4) at the first reading but we find ourselves unfortunately unable to continue to support it at the second reading and beyond. And like our colleagues in the Labour Party after listening to submitters and reflecting on the bill and bearing in mind the disjointed way in which the Government has gone about implementing the Building Act review we are concerned that the important consumer protections required in the building industry are not adequately provided by this bill.It is vital that we get these consumer protections right because this bill along with other recent and forthcoming amendments to the Building Act and the Construction Contracts Act puts in place the regulatory context for the building industry in the coming years. And never has the building and construction industry been more important to the country. We are facing as we all know a housing crisis in this country—a crisis of affordability a crisis of supply a crisis of housing quality. We have got a huge undersupply of affordable housing. We have got a market failure in the housing industry which the Minister of Finance has acknowledged. In Auckland alone it is estimated that we need approximately 13000 new homes to be constructed each year to meet the current demand for housing and yet only around 3000 each year are being built at the moment.So to solve the housing crisis in Auckland and around the country will require a drastic increase in building activity. We must have building regulations that get it right for consumers if that is going to be done responsibly. Similarly in Christchurch where the earthquake rebuild is under way we need decent building regulations to guide the rebuild. We know that Canterbury homeowners are already vulnerable and stressed and we saw a survey recently of Canterbury residents that really highlighted that. Those who are building new homes or reconstructing damaged homes need adequate consumer protections to ensure that their rights are protected and not further violated after 2 years of a brutal and frustrating process in Christchurch.It was because this Building Amendment Bill (No 4) sought to put in place greater consumer protections that the Green Party supported it at the first reading. I will also note at this point that it does of course make changes to the regulatory regime for the construction of dams in New Zealand. Although these are interesting and important especially for engineers we feel that they are uncontroversial in relation to this bill.From our perspective the most important changes in the bill are those that introduce mandatory disclosure of certain information by building contractors those that create new offences for breaches of these requirements and those that add new powers for territorial authorities to deal with buildings at risk because they are near or adjacent to dangerous buildings. Similar provisions also increase the maximum penalty for doing building work without a building consent and clarify the powers of the Chief Executive of the Department of Building and Housing now of course absorbed into the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment to review the performance of territorial authorities regional authorities and building consent authorities.However what became apparent in the submissions on the bill and especially those from the likes of the Home Owners and Buyers Association of New Zealand the Auckland Council the Wellington City Council the Christchurch City Council Local Government New Zealand and even Hawkins Construction was that although the bill pays lip-service to greater consumer protections it is in fact quite weak in this area and it should not be supported.The bill still lacks a significant consumer protection element. It relies far too heavily on industry bodies like the Registered Master Builders Federation of New Zealand to design their own protection mechanisms which in reality are not and will not be enforced. If the Government was serious about genuine consumer protections in the building industry it would introduce a mandatory warranty scheme administered by an independent authority. That would give true confidence for consumers that their warranties and protection mechanisms were fair and being enforced. Apparently it was considered by the Department of Building and Housing as it was at the time when the policy advice was developed on this bill but it was rejected after pressure from the Registered Master Builders Federation of New Zealand and others. I think that is a real shame. Let us not forget why consumer protections are so important in the buildingindustry and remember that we need think only of the deregulation of the industry by subsequent Labour and National Governments in the 1980s and 1990s.It was in this vacuum in this period of deregulation that the leaky homes crisis was allowed to occur. We have seen the terrible consequences for homeowners when poor regulation and poor building and construction standards conspired and allowed that to take place. After years of toing and froing we have now a process for dealing with the leaky homes disaster but it is a limited process it is time constrained and there are many homes out there that are yet to even begin to demonstrate the signs of damage. So it is barely the tip of the iceberg. In that context and with those lessons in mind it is vitally important that we get it right for the future. We in the Green Party believe that this bill is a missed opportunity to do so.Finally I wish to emphasise that better warranties and better consumer protections although they are important are only the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff when things go bad for homeowners and builders. When a homeowner finds that something about their property is dangerous or that it is no longer habitable they need mandatory warranties administered by an independent authority to back up their rights and this bill fails to provide that. But we urgently need to think about how to regulate to ensure that buildings are constructed to a higher standard before things go wrong and before we need that ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.I think it is clear that building to the code alone is not enough. There are many who would argue that the code in fact needs to be stronger more ambitious and promote higher standards of energy efficiency sustainability accessibility and intelligent design. We do ourselves a disservice with our existing building code.There has been a review of the Building Act. As we know that has resulted in this piece of legislation and others but I think it was a missed opportunity to really address our building code and whether it is in fact producing the kinds of buildings that we need for the 21st century in New Zealand. A decent review of the Building Act I think would take those issues into account.We have not been convinced by the Government’s approach to the Building Act review. We are not convinced that this series of building amendment bills will result in any substantial improvement in the quality of New Zealand’s housing stock will facilitate the construction of more affordable housing to meet the demand especially in Auckland and Christchurch or will adequately improve consumer protections. For these reasons we can no longer support this bill.