Twyford PhilHon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. It's great to be able to take a call in this second reading debate on the Building Amendment Bill one of a long line of amendments to the 2004 Building Act which if I'm not wrong for the most part attract cross-party support. It's an ongoing evolution of the Building Act with a great number of bills over the last decade or so that have been designed to fine-tune our building regulatory system to make it more responsive to the consumer and to encourage a construction industry and development industry that is more responsive to demand. This particular bill seeks to distil some of the lessons from the Kaikōura and Wellington earthquakes and the Canterbury earthquakes in relation to buildings after an emergency and investigations after an emergency in order to learn the lessons. So those are the two main kinds of provisions in the bill: management of buildings after an emergency and investigating building failures. Some important work has been done by the Transport and Infrastructure Committee I think in trying to provide some clarity really about the powers that are exercised by a responsible person which as Andrew Bayly remarked we'd often think of being a local government official or sometimes a police officer who would go into a building after an emergency. The select committee recommended with I think the helpful submissions from a number of people that it would be good to insert a new section—new section 133BNA—to give a responsible person or to give a police constable the clear power to enter a building or land for specified purposes and it sets out a number of subsections there. The responsible person may enter a building or land for a number of purposes for the purpose if exercising a power under various provisions—for example to keep people at a safe distance or to protect the building or for the purposes of urgent work to remove or reduce risks or works for the long-term use or occupation of the building. Clarifications and examples were also inserted by the select committee to better illustrate three different categories of when different powers to direct works to be carried out would apply: urgent works to remove or reduce risks works to remove or reduce risks to economic disruption and works for longer-term use or occupation of the building. I thought there was also in the reading interesting material about the select committee's deliberations on what for example could have been different in recent emergencies if these powers were in place and we do have the recent example of the Kaikōura earthquake in 2016. These powers in the bill could have been used to manage buildings both in Kaikōura where there was a state of emergency declared but also in Wellington where there wasn't and where a local—what they call—transition period was put in place. In Wellington the transition period may not have been needed as it was only required to manage buildings but the powers in this bill—the new powers that are proposed—would have provided a much better way to manage the situation. Transition periods under the law provide extraordinary powers that can interfere with personal and property rights and again Andrew Bayly made the point that in a situation like this when you've got a building and there's been an emergency it may not be safe to go into the building. Officials want to go in and ascertain the extent of the damage and make a judgment about whether or not the building should be red-stickered for example or whether other restrictions should be put in place. That could have a major impact on people running businesses from that building or indeed living in those buildings. The select committee I think gave quite a lot of thought to how in this bill property rights in that kind of example could be protected. So it provides a framework for recognising those rights and it contains checks and balances—as you'd expect—to ensure that the proposed powers are used appropriately. It puts in place a set of overarching considerations that need to be satisfied before these powers can be exercised. Of course protecting human life and safety has to be paramount but nevertheless if you believe that these powers need to be there—which I think everybody in the House does and everybody in the select committee did—then it's appropriate that there are some criteria and some restrictions around the exercise of those powers. There were some other interesting reflections that came out of the select committee. I understand that submitters from the defence agencies raised concerns that the powers in this bill might allow unauthorised persons access to restricted buildings and that was a real concern for the defence agencies who came along to the committee. A related concern was that the requirement for building owners to provide information about the building could potentially reveal any security vulnerabilities in that building. So as a result of that the committee have proposed the addition of a provision where a person exercising these powers in relation to a special category of building—for example one that is home to a security agency—must exercise the powers in accordance with instructions given by the officer in charge of that building. So basically it's a carve-out of a kind for the security agencies. Diplomatic buildings also were raised at the select committee and whether or not access to embassies and consulates would have some unintended consequence. So a provision is proposed so that there will be operational guidance that will be developed with the help of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. There are also of course other kinds of buildings that hold sensitive information such as the courts the Ministry of Justice the Department of Corrections and the New Zealand Police. Again operational guidance for the exercise of these powers will be developed with the assistance of those agencies. So it's great to see cross-party support across the House for this bill. Finally I want to acknowledge the work of the Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa not only for this bill but for the great leadership she's provided recently with the announcement of the accord that the Government has announced with the construction industry to tackle many difficult and deep-seated productivity issues in the construction industry and for her whole legislative reform package that's tackling some of the most challenging but most important issues in relation to risk and liability workforce development and product certification—really important work. Thank you.