Tremain Chris: Third Readings 
Tremain Chris: Third Readings 
[Volume:635;Page:6815] 
CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Bill which forms a part of the combined set of bills before the House this evening. This bill has a special place in my evolution in Parliament in that it was the first bill that I dealt with on a select committee. It is also special to me in that members of my family have been involved in the plumbing profession for many years and own their own plumbing businesses. So I have taken a keen interest in this bill from the start right through to the finish. 
It seems somewhat ironic that we stand here today debating this bill given the events that have happened this afternoon. I take this opportunity to thank my leader Don Brash for the work that he put in to help me into Parliament and for his awesome effort within the National Party in taking us from 20 percent of the party vote to the point of nearly winning the last election. I will always remember his personal support his help to me and his utmost honesty. I recognise that in this debate this evening. I have a lot of respect and always will for my leader Don Brash and I say thank you to him. 
It does seem somewhat ironic with regard to the events that have gone before to be talking about the bill tonight. I echo the thoughts of Maryan Street and thank the select committee acknowledging the work of Maryan and of Katherine Rich who did a fantastic job of chairing the committee through a series of key issues about the bill that came right from the start. We got right through to the end on those issues. 
 Some of the key issues were the negotiation of our way through the separation of the bill; registration and licensing which is a key issue and which I will spend most of my time tonight discussing; and changes to the board which came about from the Hazel Armstrong report. 
I would like to think that members of the select committee particularly Chris Auchinvole and myself played a key part in the provision for the composition of the board. We were interested in the structure of that board and in making sure it had representation from the profession. The Minister I think will agree with me that it is all very well having Government-appointed people on these boards but if they have not had an involvement in the profession right from day one and if they are not currently registered and carrying a current licence it is very difficult for them to have a real empathy with the industry. So it is great to have that representation on the board particularly with the impact that licensing and ongoing professional development will have on plumbers drainlayers and gasfitters. From that point alone having the experience of people who have to be licensed on a yearly basis themselves will be an excellent step forward and will ensure that the continuing professional development requirements are not too onerous and that we do not lose too many plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers in the twilight years of their careers because of that. 
The Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Bill began its life as part of the Energy Safety Review Bill which has been canvassed tonight. The original aim was to repeal and replace the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Act 1976. As we know the Act covers the registration licensing and disciplining of some of our key professions. The fact that they are some of our key professions should not be overlooked. The plumbing profession for instance has played one of the key roles in New Zealand in terms of health outcomes. If members look back over the last century they will see that plumbing has played a bigger role than even the medical profession in improving health outcomes for New Zealanders. We often forget the importance of clean water in our homes our businesses and indeed in this Parliament as well as the expulsion of that waste water once it goes down the drain and the need to get it away cleanly. Ensuring the health of our communities is of the utmost importance. 
So the plumbing profession is a key part of our industry and of our nation. Therefore it is important that the people who are tasked with doing plumbing work are qualified and have the necessary licences to make sure that they are performing their jobs to the level that is needed. We need to be sure that the men and women tasked with repairing drains and sanitary appliances are up to the job. 
To move back a step I remind members that the bill began as the Energy Safety Review Bill but morphed into the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Bill. This was for two reasons. Firstly the feedback from plumbers drainlayers and gasfitters when the bill was first introduced into the House was not good. They felt that they had not been consulted clearly by the board and they were confused about the requirements of professional development particularly the non-technical requirements. All of a sudden they had thrust into their faces the fact that they might have to do Microsoft Word or PowerPoint courses. Many of those plumbers who had been in the profession for many years just could not see how those courses related to their profession and why they would have to spend time out of their businesses—and away from doing the job that they knew best and had done for 30 years—in front of a computer learning skills that they did not feel would be of any use to them. 
The second reason the bill was separated was because of the significant issues that arose between the Plumbing Gasfitting and Drainlaying Industry Training Organisation and the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board. That second issue came down to a breakdown in the relationship between the board and the industry training organisation. It was highlighted by the real urgency over the number of plumbers who were not being passed through the system. In 2005 the board passed and gave registrations in plumbing to only 11 percent of the national certificate qualifiers; in 2003 there had been a 39 percent pass rate. There was major concern not only in the industry but in the wider community that the number of plumbers going forward would be significantly down on that. 
It is interesting that once Hazel Armstrong was employed to do a review it became abundantly clear that there was not just a breakdown in the relationship between the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board and the industry training organisation but also a breakdown in the way that plumbers were being financed through the Tertiary Education Commission to go through their qualifications. It had started out as the standard training measure programme where plumbers were funded at the rate of $3000 to do their qualifications. The likes of Unitec were able to get on to a system where they could use the equivalent full-time student model and for the same plumbing outcome put plumbers through the course for $8500 which is significantly higher than $3000. We were seeing fewer plumbers coming through—there was only an 11 percent pass rate in 2005—yet at a higher cost to the country. So that certainly created a major problem. 
So it seemed sensible that the bill was carved in two. It allowed the Energy Safety Review Bill to go ahead unimpeded and allowed us to do a complete review of the submissions from the plumbers to try to iron out some of the issues they had and for Hazel Armstrong’s report to come through so we could take the recommendations from that report and feed them into the bill to make sure we got the right board structure and the right accountabilities back to the Minister and in turn to the general public. 
I would now like to turn to registration an issue that came through the submissions loud and clear. The initial bill recommended that registration be moved on and that we look at a licensing-type system only. However it came through loud and clear in the submissions from just about every plumber in the country that registration was the pinnacle of a plumber’s qualification and was something that needed to be retained. In fact I got an earful from my own brother Mark who has his own business. He had worked—in his case—for more than 3 or 4 years to get to registration level and there was no way that he wanted to see that go. The committee accepted that retaining the registration recognised the investment that plumbers had made in obtaining their qualification. So in the end we proposed the dual registration and licensing system. That detail is spelt out in Part 6. 
The licensing system was somewhat confusing and this is what concerned many plumbers. There were two parts to licensing a technical part and a non-technical part. Going forward plumbers will have to do professional development and obtain 16 credits. Eight of those credits will be technical credits with skills such as modern pipe-fitting—a whole range of skills that relate to the plumbing job. The non-technical credits going forward will relate to the types of things that I talked about before: PowerPoint presentations first aid and a range of other peripheral-type activities that may add to the profession but that are not part of the core competency of the profession. What we learnt however was that the non-technical element was non-compulsory and that the plumber could do his or her continuing professional development by doing only the technical parts. Once that message is communicated through to the plumbing fraternity there will be a lot of relief. We will not see plumbers up in arms and I think that that is certainly a good step forward. 
I will close tonight with reference to some plumbers in my own area who have now been through this. They are comfortable that the retention of registration and of licensing will be excellent. Before I sit down I will just quote Carl Symmons a 30-year-old gasfitter who believes that there should be ongoing competency. He believes that it is a good thing for the profession that it will maintain the standards of his profession and that overall the bill will be a good step forward. 
I will close by thanking the Commerce Committee for its work and thanking Katherine and the Labour members on the committee. Again I acknowledge the work of my leader Don Brash and I thank him for everything he has done for me.