King Annette: Building Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
King Annette: Building Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
[Volume:678;Page:818] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 It is always a pleasure to follow the ex - member of Parliament for West Coast - Tasman. He talked today about this bill the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) being a building block and I have to say to the member that you cannot build a strong house when you have got a few blocks missing. In fact you are likely to have a weakened house. You are likely to have a house that is a bit suspect and you are likely to have one that will collapse at some stage in the future when the pressure comes on. That is one of the reasons why Labour will not support this bill from this point on. 
We did support its referral to the Local Government and Environment Committee. We of course were in broad agreement with the direction of the Building Act review because after all the Building Act review took place under a previous Labour Government. We put out a discussion document entitled  
Proposal for an 
owner builder exemption to the restricted building work regime 
. It was released in June 2008. We had submissions and it was closed in August 2008. I think a lot of this work was actually done by Clayton Cosgrove and Shane Jones in their time; they know a lot about it. 
But what we are worried about is that this bill as it comes back is not a comprehensive bill. It is a piecemeal higgledy-piggledy bill. It has certainly got some elements in it that we would support but it is not what was expected when the review took place. I often think of something that my mother used to say to me: “If you’re going to do something do it right first time.” Minister I know how much you do care about getting things right in the building industry. I have dealt with you over leaky buildings. I have dealt with the Minister for Building and Construction over leaky buildings and I know from conversations we had about my own constituents that the Minister was really keen to get it right in terms of trying to fix a problem that arose from the 1990s when we did not get it right in terms of the building code. I commend the Minister for that—for making a genuine effort to get it right. Having learnt our lessons from that time why not have a comprehensive bill that covers the issues that came out of that review rather than take parts of it? Of course it was from the submissions that my colleagues became very concerned that we were not taking the right approach. I follow on from Phil Twyford who said that what we really do want is to ensure that we have safe and healthy houses and we do not unnecessarily put consumers at risk again. 
We also think it is unwise Minister and risky at this time to have a piecemeal piece of legislation and measures when the industry is facing a surge in demand from the rebuilding of Christchurch the repair of leaky buildings the huge skills deficit we have and the uncertainty as to whether there will be sufficient builders even entering the new building scheme. I am sure Minister that like me you read the briefing to the incoming Government from the Construction Development Alliance. There was something that stood out to me in that briefing to the Government. It said: “Since the peak of the property boom there is as many as 25000 jobs have been lost in construction with over 750 of the sector’s workers leaving New Zealand for Australia and other countries in March 2011 year alone and there is strong fears that the sector is going to struggle to meet the construction of Canterbury alone.” So we believe it is risky at this stage and unwise to legislate in this piecemeal way. 
Minister we are saying you should relook at it. Send it back as the submitters said. Withdraw the bill. Bring it back to the House with a comprehensive package of reforms. I know that the Minister will be reluctant to do that but he does want to make progress. Of course many members in this House would want to make progress on this very important area but Minister get it right: do it once do it well and ensure that we get the best piece of legislation possible. By doing that we will not go through the errors that we made in the past with such legislation. We will not leave big loopholes and problems for the future. I think it is fair to say that no members of the House want to put consumers at risk. We do want the best possible legislation. As I said do it once do it right. If it is worth doing get it right.