Twyford Phil: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 09 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9583. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I was just listening to the Minister Jonathan Coleman read his speech earlier and it struck me that the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill is a rather poignant—I was going to say postscript but it is not really a postscript because as we all know the leaky homes catastrophe is not over; it continues on. But it is poignant nevertheless. This bill the problem that it seeks to address and the story of this bill’s development through the House really says a lot about major intractable problems in one of our country’s most important industries and I believe the failure and neglect of this National-led Government to take those problems seriously and do anything about them.The construction industry is one of the most important industries in our country. It is responsible for one in 12 jobs. It generates 8 percent of our national wealth and it comprises 10 percent of all businesses in New Zealand. It is a huge employer; it is a huge generator of wealth. And more important than that it creates the built environment; it creates the very places where we live and work and play. And as anybody who has followed the horrendous saga of the leaky homes disaster knows the poor quality of building in this country has been a blight on the lives of so many people and it is a drag on our country’s prosperity. The construction industry is incredibly important for the reasons I spelt out but it is beset by low productivity and it is wracked by a boom-and-bust cycle which regularly cleans out the skilled workers who are so important in that industry. And those are some of the core factors behind the leaky homes crisis which this bill seeks to address.This Government—and in fact successive Governments—has struggled to get the regulatory framework right in the building and construction industry and find the right balance between protecting consumers and holding accountable the construction companies and all the other construction trades and professions. And worst of all the industry has subjected New Zealanders to a problem that PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated has cost the country in the region of $22 billion and that is the leaky homes catastrophe.We support this bill and we have supported it all the way through. I will talk a little bit more about the three key measures of the bill. But the main point that I want to make is that this bill is symptomatic of so much that this Government does. This Government has made tinkering into an art form. When there are so many pressing problems and challenges that the Government should be addressing—and I will talk about some of those—it seems to focus its attention and the resources of this House on small measures that barely scratch the surface of the problems that the Government should be looking at.What does this bill do? Only a few months out from the expiry of the Act—only a few months out—this bill basically gives some clarity and seeks to refine some of the provisions of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act. And it will have the effect of extending the provisions of the Financial Assistance Package which is a scheme that gives homeowners who are affected by weathertightness problems access to the funding provisions that would see the Government and councils stump up with 25 percent each of the repair bill. So it gives them an alternative to going through expensive litigation. But the effect of this bill is to extend that benefit to approximately according to the Government officials 70 homeowners—70 homeowners. And yet what we know from PricewaterhouseCoopers is that there are about 42000 homes in New Zealand affected by weathertightness problems. Approximately 80000 New Zealanders are affected.This is in stark contrast to Maurice Williamson when he was the Minister for Building and Construction who with great fanfare announced what he said was a billion-dollar funding initiative—a billion-dollar initiative. Well actually what we do know is that up until a year ago which I think are the most recent figures that are publicly available there have been only 1147 claims made under this package and yet there are more than 42000 homes affected by weathertightness problems. So this is tinkering at the margins and it is so typical of this Government.There are three key things that I think we need to mention. The first is that the bill aims to remove doubt regarding the validity of a couple of clauses in the Gazette notice published pursuant to the main Act. These clauses cover claimants who had applied for adjudication under the Act or have applied for or are involved in other civil proceedings. Basically it brings those provisions that were included in the Gazette into the Act for the purposes of removing any uncertainty.The second thing that the bill does is that it responds to the Osborne v Auckland Council case which went to the Supreme Court. It is all about the use of the term “built” and the definition of “built” in regard to the 10-year limitation that is built into this Act: 10 years after as the Act said the house was built and that was interpreted as—well it was unclear as to what it meant. But the courts had until then interpreted it as—what the Osborne case did was it ruled that the definition of “built” was when the code of compliance certificate was issued and that ruling allowed a significant number of other claimants to come under the Act.The third thing is about widening the definition of “qualifying claimant” which again is about claimants who are actively progressing claims but have not yet become eligible to be covered by the funding assistance package. This basically just creates a clearer line and a clearer definition about their coverage.As I said this bill will extend the benefits of this legislation to another 70 claimants. It is tinkering at the margins of this problem and it is so typical of a Government that has neglected and ignored a number of problems in this vital industry that have basically I think caused a drag on the country’s growth and prosperity and have created a situation where ordinary Kiwis are paying the price for this and are being ripped off. The leaky homes problem is the most well-known example but we still see an epidemic of shoddy building: the Auckland Council recently said that it was failing between 25 and 40 percent of building consent applications because of shoddy building.The reason for that is that this Government has failed to invest in skills in the building and construction industry. It has imported large numbers of migrant tradespeople to fill the skills gaps. Those skills gaps are endemic to this industry and they are one of the core factors behind the leaky buildings and weathertightness problems. Yet they continue today and Paula Bennett who was the then Minister of Local Government with her loopy Rules Reduction Taskforce—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): OK I am now going to interrupt the member to remind him that we are doing a third reading debate which is a debate on the bill as it has emerged from the Local Government and Environment Committee. It is relatively tight there are plenty of rulings on it—around pages 136 and 137 of Speakers’ Rulings—and although the member has generally been quite good having been fairly tight on the Minister I am now reminding the senior Opposition member that he should stay within the rules.PHIL TWYFORD: The argument that I was trying to make is that this bill is a small bit of tinkering right at the end of this Act’s lifespan—we are only 3 or 4 months away from the expiry of this Act. A lot of time has been spent debating this bill taking it through the House. It is going to have an effect that will obviously have significant value for the people who will get the direct benefit of being covered by this bill but we are talking about 70 claimants when there are some 42000 homeowners around New Zealand who have been affected by this at a time when this Government has ignored massive other problems with the building and construction industry.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!PHIL TWYFORD: Instead of this kind of superficial tinkering that does not even scratch the surface we need a Government that takes the issues and this vital industry much more seriously.