Cosgrove Clayton: Building Amendment Bill (No 4) — Instruction to Committee In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCosgrove Clayton: Building Amendment Bill (No 4) — Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:14976. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): As Shane Jones said the Minister for Building and Construction heads up a unique alumni of Ministers for Building and Construction both present and past along with Mr Jones and myself and the Minister Mr Williamson. I cannot recall—I am sure Mr Williamson might—when we were in Government how many Ministers for Building and Construction there were. There were a few and I have to say from the outset that the intent I think of all those Ministers from both sides was to try to solve a series of difficult problems and particularly as the Minister says the weathertight homes issue which was visited on us for a variety of reasons.I accept the Minister’s thesis in part that it was for a variety of reasons and a variety of contributing factors. I would though mention one as it sort of latticed together those factors and that was that in the old days—possibly well before some of us were here—we had things called apprenticeships. We had a building regime that generally—and many of our State houses are living testaments to it. You could fire a howitzer at some of them and though they were built pre-insulation and though they are bit draughty they still stand up to most things today. But many of our houses throughout our history were build on a handshake and builders and construction folk came back if there was a problem and fixed it. They were constructed well and those builders were trained in a thing called an apprenticeship.Before I entered this Parliament—and I remember as Minister making a couple of points to the then Hon Dr Lockwood Smith who at the time—I think it was 19—Kris Faafoi: Right honourable.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Right honourable. I was going to say Sir but I presume that is yet to come.Hon Maurice Williamson: No no no—it is Sir Lockwood.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Oh he is Sir. That is right—of course. I apologise. The Rt Hon Sir Dr Lockwood Smith—I hope I have got it and honourable somewhere in there—Hon Maurice Williamson: School C.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Yeah—bistro and bar. But he—I think it was in 1995—as tertiary education Minister abolished a thing called the Apprenticeship Act in the vain hope that the market would sort it out and people would go and get the skills and those sorts of things. I recall when I originally and Shane Jones took and launched the licensed building practitioners regime. The hope I think we had once we transitioned those builders who had appropriate skill levels who may not have had the trade certificate or an apprenticeship but did have a very good track record of building—once they were sort of through it—was that we could almost turn the clock back and say to the 15-year-old at high school: “Son if you want to be a builder you have to get a thing called an apprenticeship.”. That is why we introduced the Modern Apprenticeships scheme. The Minister is right in that you could strap on a tool belt callyourself a builder and do anything. But I think that was a contributing factor. In the old days people were trained through a 3 to 4-year apprenticeship and they knew what they were doing.Though we support the review process in respect of the Building Act we find ourselves on this side of the House unable to support the Building Amendment Bill (No 4). I say to the Minister—he made a couple of comments to Andrew Williams I think it was and said: “Well we had 18 inspections. We had council inspectors running around the place. Take weathertight building homes—they did not get it right and we still have the problem.” I have got to say that I agree with the Minister to a certain extent because I remember going to a number of local authorities as Minister for Building and Construction and actually talking to some of the building inspectors and on one occasion they said: “Oh we stopped the ‘drive-by inspections’ only a couple of years ago.” I said: “What do you mean ‘drive-by’?”. They said: “Well to be honest the pressure was on us so much that we just sort of drove by waved at the building and then signed it off.”To be fair though the answer in my view—contrary to the Minister’s—is that less scrutiny does not reduce the risk. What I think should have happened and what we did do was that we started to accredit councils to make sure that building inspectors actually had the knowledge. There is the old joke that you know the building inspector is the failed builder—not always. But to ensure that building inspectors and local authorities had the skills to actually inspect and check and if it was not up to scratch to then require change—and not drive by the house and go “Yep. It is all done.” and never even look because it might have been their mates or they were under pressure or they did not have the resources—we started the accreditation of councils.I do not agree with the Minister that less inspection less scrutiny means less risk. Appropriate scrutiny by trained people who actually do the damn job can actually mean less risk. It used to be—again going back many years—that the last line of defence for the homeowner was the building inspector from the council who would come in and make sure the bits joined together and tick off those items.I suppose the thing that concerns us is that this bill seems to be a sort of piecemeal approach. I agree with the sentiment of the Minister which says that in theory low risk means we should be able to get on with it without a lot of bureaucracy—if you want to build the outhouse outside well OK maybe. But I still do not really get from the Minister—and I still think the definition of what is low risk is too loose and has not been adequately defined. You could make an argument that fitting your hot-water cylinder is pretty standard pretty low risk. Well if she blows it causes a heck of a lot of damage. So it is very easy and I think very politically popular to say: “Look low risk we’re just going to flick it through with minimal scrutiny. It’s not going to affect the envelope of the house; it doesn’t matter. Just away you go and do it.”I think there needs to be a more holistic approach to this—a far more holistic approach—where all these facets are looked at. I say again that I do not understand the logic that less inspection means less risk. Appropriate levels of inspection by skilled and appropriate inspectors or professionals who can call to account the person who has constructed or done the work—and make them fix it or do it appropriately—generally means a higher degree of confidence for the homeowner.So I say in concluding that although I accept that every Minister for Building and Construction has from time to time—often under duress from the odd chief executive officer or senior official I might add; some no longer with us—had the best intentions to try to get this right I do not think that this bill is the way to go. There should be more scrutiny and there should be an overarching regime not a piecemeal sort of uncoordinated approach.We will not support this bill. We support the sentiment and we look forward to the day when the Government will take this issue a tad more seriously. The truth is that as we all know—and as has certainly been brought home to us by Christchurch and Canterbury but for a natural reason if you will called an earthquake—the biggest asset people have generally or the biggest transaction people will have in their lives is the purchase of a home. If there is anything good to come out of the leaky homes fiasco and even sadly the earthquake in terms of home scrutiny I think it is this. Those of us who purchase property or who look to purchase property understand that we are just like most people when they buy a second-hand car take it to the Automobile Association and say: “Is it a dunger or is it not? Is it OK? Is it worth the money?”. We had this mind block that we would not do that with a house but most people now—and it is germane to today’s ChristchurchPress actually—will have a professional look at the home very closely. They will check the work to ensure that the asset they buy with the hundreds of thousands of dollars that they outlay of their own money is well worth it and that they are not buying a dunger—not buying a dunger.I finish on this. If you look at construction—I just digress for a short point and that is that if we look at the Fletcher Construction project management in Christchurch the legalised monopoly it is astounding that with the accreditation system and other things in place we find that one in three house repairs executed by Fletcher EQR is a dunger—is a dunger. I think that even with all that and even with the monopoly and the regime that the Government set up to have those figures—one in three a dunger—is not acceptable especially to those who have had their lives torn apart by an earthquake.