Copeland Gordon: Third Readings 
Copeland Gordon: Third Readings 
[Volume:635;Page:6819] 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 The Energy Safety Review Bill had its first reading in Parliament on 21 June 2005 and today is 21 November 2006. The gestation of a baby takes about 9 months so I guess it is appropriate that today we are bringing to an end two gestation periods and we have two bills as a result. However today due to the split of the bill Minister Duynhoven will end up with quins. So it is a day of good things to see these two bills at last progress through to this third reading. 
I will concentrate my remarks mainly on the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Bill and I say first of all what a tremendous surprise it was for me as a member of the Commerce Committee to see plumbers and drainlayers from one end of the country to the other—some of them well into their 50s and even their 60s—come all the way from places remote from Wellington and for the very first time in their lives come face to face with a select committee. 
We were confronted with quite a wave of anger from those men for two reasons. Firstly they said they had not been consulted in relation to this legislation. Secondly they said that they had completely lost confidence in the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board. They were for example very upset that they would be given competency tests when some of them had been registered as plumbers for 30 years or more in areas such as how to use various Microsoft computer programmes. I can tell members that many of the old-timers said to us that it was all too hard. By gosh they got our attention—and Mahara Okeroa will vouch for this—when they then said to us: “As a matter of fact it’s all become so tough that we think we’d better just give the game away.” That is not good news when the country is already very very short of well-qualified plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers and these are the most experienced people in the profession. 
Our next big surprise was to learn from the aforesaid Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Bill that only 11 percent of those who had sat National Certificate of Educational Achievement exams were able to pass the registration exams set by that board. The result was that some young trainee plumbers have now sat that exam for 2 3 or more years and have still not passed it. Therefore we have a number of young plumbers who have now been in training for more than 7 years and still do not have registration. I have talked to some of them. People say to me that they are perfectly capable young plumbers they are doing plumbing every day but they have not been able to get through their examinations. The employers of some of those young men also said that the situation was not good enough and that they had lost faith in the board. 
It quickly became clear to the committee that there was a completely dysfunctional relationship between the board on the one hand and the industry training organisation for plumbers drainlayers and gasfitters on the other. There was a complete mismatch. The board had picked Australian examinations and expected New Zealand - trained apprentice plumbers to be able to sit and pass examinations for which they had not been prepared. An example that one of them gave to me was in respect of last year’s exams where there was a big section on ducting which is quite common in Australia but less common on this side of the Tasman. Therefore they basically did not know what the answers were because they really had not been trained in that particular part of plumbing. 
I will pay my compliments at this stage to Dr Michael Cullen who having been apprised of this complete breakdown in the whole system very quickly had the good sense to bring in Hazel Armstrong to investigate the situation. Hazel Armstrong reported back to Dr Michael Cullen and the result of that report was the sacking of the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board and the total replacement of its membership. That was a very important development not only for our committee but also—more important—for the trade itself to think that we now have some people who are really listening and will change the habits of that board in the future. 
These realities have been taken into account in the redrafting of the legislation which is now here for its third reading. This legislation puts in place a framework that will ensure that the dysfunctionality of the past cannot be repeated in the future. We have curbed and altered the powers of the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board—which by the way I wish well for the future because it really has some ground to make up. We hope that it will be able to do that because it is vitally important for the future of the plumbing drainlaying and gasfitting trades that we turn over a new page. We need to have good cooperation in the whole training system so that apprentices are properly trained and are able to be prepared for examinations. They will then be able to become registered and beyond that become licensed and go on to become effective tradespeople. 
I will go back just to one point with regard to the examinations. In its report back to the House the select committee has recommended that the board and the industry training organisation—together—arrange refresher courses and for the next 2 years or so allow failed trainees to resit their examinations at about 6-monthly intervals. The current situation is made worse because trainees have only one chance every 12 months to sit the exam so if they do not pass they have to wait another whole 12 months. We had representations also from the mothers of apprentices who said that this was a real injustice. Their sons had been working for ages had sat their exams and no one was passing them. Their lives were just ticking away. Some of them were moving into marriage and some of them were becoming dads—and they still had not become registered tradespeople. We heard that claim from submitters and we were asked to do something about that situation in order to give these people some opportunities to resit their exams and get through the registration process so that they can get on with their lives. These people are the innocent victims of that complete breakdown and dysfunctionality that came into being between the board on the one hand and the industry training organisation on the other. 
When we look at it objectively the select committee had two separate problems. On the one hand we had the old guys who were all saying: “Hey we’re out of here; this has all become too hard.” and on the other hand we had the new apprentices coming through not being able to pass their exams to become registered. And this was against a backdrop where as Dr Pita Sharples has pointed out we were already short of plumbers and drainlayers. So the situation was serious and it was urgent. I agree with those who say that there was fantastic cooperation on the select committee with regard to this matter and I might say that the cooperation level went up considerably when I made it very clear to the Labour members and to the Minister that I—as the member of the committee holding the balance of power—would not be supporting this bill unless we went away and did a complete rewrite. That effectively is what has happened in the months since then and that is one of the reasons why this legislation has taken so long. We had to take the time to get it right. By the way I should also say that the Minister was very very supportive once the reality of the way the legislation would go became clear to all of us. 
I will conclude with a few observations. I have a friend who is a radiologist. In his holidays he goes to India where he works in the slums practising medicine and radiology. He told me a story from when he was at university. One day when his professor thought that the class was becoming too arrogant and proud his professor said to the students that plumbers have done more for human health on this planet than all the doctors and surgeons put together. My friend said that all the students laughed and thought it was a great joke but having come back from the slums of India where people do not have good plumbing and good drainlaying—good systems—he decided that what his professor had said was just the simple truth. I also think that it is the truth and we do need to recognise the sometimes unheralded contribution that this profession makes to our society. 
I will conclude by saying that we are very happy therefore to support this very good legislation. I add my thanks too to those who have cooperated with us—the various officials whom Katherine Rich named and the other members of the committee from both National and Labour. I also thank Dr Michael Cullen for his contribution Hazel Armstrong for her very good report and the Minister for his cooperation in the whole process. It has actually been a very enjoyable experience and it is a good day to celebrate that we have reached this point. Thank you.