Collins Judith: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Collins Judith: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:640;Page:10143] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to be able to speak on the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill although it is never a pleasure to follow Mr Cosgrove. What Mr Cosgrove could have mentioned is that if only he had listened to the National Party last year this bill would not have been necessary. I say to him: “Frankly we told you so.” We told him back then that the legislation needed to be fixed but he did not bother to do anything about it. Instead what we had to do was to deal with the situation as it was pointed out by Justice Lynton Stevens whom as I noted the other day Mr Cosgrove knew so well that he referred to him in the feminine sense whereas Mr Stevens is actually a male judge. Mr Cosgrove might like to get these things right. 
One of the issues with the bill is that it is trying to remedy an error in the law and the National Party was very pleased to assist in doing that. What we were not pleased to do was to just rush the bill through without there being any consultation with anybody at all outside of Parliament and the Minister’s own department. So on the Social Services Committee we made it very plain that we wanted to get the New Zealand Law Society in to submit on this. I was very pleased that the committee agreed with that. 
It is a good thing that we insisted on that because at the end of the day the Law Society which obviously has a lot of people who are very very experienced in this area came along with some sensible suggestions. The Law Society said that despite the very good drafting by the Parliamentary Counsel Office the fact that it was without practical experience in this area meant that it had perhaps missed the point that in trying to make the bill more user-friendly for the public it was unfortunately creating more opportunities for there to be disagreements in court over what the meaning was. So that is one of the issues that the New Zealand Law Society was able to point out. Those on the select committee were particularly grateful for that. Again if we had not insisted on it it would not have happened. 
The Social Services Committee met at various times outside normal hours to assist the Government but did we get a word of thanks? No there was not a word of thanks. But we would not be thanked by the Government because we did not do this for the Government; we did it for the people of New Zealand. We did it because we cared more about them than we cared about making politics out of this issue and that is what the Government did not do. 
When I look at the Minister Clayton Cosgrove who consistently indulges in personal abuse except when he wants us to do something for him—then suddenly— 
Hon Member 
: That is rich. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Well of course my abuse was all correct. When the Minister does not want us to do something for him he suddenly does not want to have a bar of it and simply refers to the work of the select committee as though it was a Labour select committee. But what about the members on it? What about all the parties? Let us look at them. The Greens the ACT party the National Party and the Labour Party all agreed to meet outside the normal hours. Also United Future should not be forgotten. It would be nice for the Minister to say to those other parties particularly to United Future and to the Greens that the Government actually appreciated the effort that they put into the bill.