Dean Jacqui: Building Amendment Bill (No 4) — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dean Jacqui: Building Amendment Bill (No 4) — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 01 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:1826. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) 
: 
 The Building Amendment Bill (No 4) represents a fundamental shift in the building industry in New Zealand. It makes you reflect that building a home—or any kind of building but particularly a home—for anyone is a big undertaking. It might be a person’s most significant asset that they ever have in their life. It is the place where you have your family where maybe your kids grow up or where you retire to—whatever. It is a big deal. It would be good to know that that building has been constructed right the first time and that if there are going to be any issues with the construction of that building then the consumer has recourse back to the builder who constructed that home.  
It is interesting is it not watching the television advertisements—and there are a number of ads on at the moment—for home builders. What they are doing in their advertisements is they are signalling that they understand the content of this bill in that they are now beginning to offer guarantees. They are saying: “We will build on time at the price we quoted.” The language has subtly shifted and I think what that shows is that the building industry is picking up what is coming through Parliament here—and I dare say welcoming it.  
What this bill does is that it will have the happy consequence for the homeowner and the home builder of reducing compliance costs. It will also reduce complexity for the homeowner and the home builder and also delays in the process by reducing reliance on the building consent authorities from the local authority and putting the responsibility on to the builder and on to the building firm. So what will happen is that the person building your home will become much more accountable to the homeowner because they will have to disclose certain things to you when you are contemplating building a house. There will be information that they have to tell you about their company who it is who is working for them who is gong to be working on the construction site and a bit about their track record. Consumers are also going to get a written contract from their building company that says—and which I have just outlined is being picked up by the building industry already—that there will be a written contract for most residential building work.  
There will be specific methods for enforcing warranties and so consumers will know that if something does go wrong they will have recourse. In fact building contractors will be expected to fix any defects in their work that are reported within 12 months of the completion of the construction. So you have lived in your home for a year you have gone through the seasons and if something is defective and you make a notification of it within 12 months then you can expect to get a remedy out of that.  
Of course there will be penalties for failing to comply with building consent requirements and those penalties are doubling. They are going from $100000 to $200000. We have got a busy time ahead of us in places like Auckland but also in Christchurch in the construction industry and within the next few years particularly in Christchurch there is going to be a huge number of new builds going on. So rather than loading up the local authority with all those compliance requirements this bill is enabling the building industry itself to take charge if you like of the situation and provide a good service to the people whom they are building new homes for.  
You know it is like I said at the beginning of my contribution: building a home is a big deal. It can be the biggest asset that many people have in their life and they want it done right. And if it is not done right then you want to have recourse to have it put right. So this bill carries out those functions.  
Of course this bill and also the Building Amendment Act of 2012 are the result of quite a comprehensive review of the Building Act 2004 which was carried out in the first term of this Government in 2009 and 2010. What that review found was that there was too much of a reliance on your local authority so responsibility was not so much on the builder but on the local council. That was identified as a result of that review. These changes will enforce in law once the bill has been through the Local Government and Environment Committee and we have heard submissions on it what is already best practice in the industry. This is a good bill I look forward to its consideration in the select committee and I commend the bill to the House.