Woods Megan: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is subject to correctionWoods Megan: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 10 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:8905. Text is subject to correction.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Thank you to the Minister in the chair Nick Smith for answering some of the questions that have been put to him. It was useful to get some clarification on those points Minister so thank you.I think that colleagues on both sides of the Chamber who have spoken on this legislation have traversed very well why we are here and how we got here. I want to address some of the issues in Part 2 of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill that the Minister just raised and pick up really where he finished off about what it is that we can learn from this legislation going forward in terms of what it means for the future. The Minister talked about two of the issues around eligibility—who is eligible—being covered off in this Part 2 and the need to validate the Gazette notice. The other point that he raised which I think is worth discussing and is of interest is the time frame around liability which Part 2 deals with and we have had to deal with in this legislation because as a Canterbury member of Parliament sitting through the hearings on this weathertight homes legislation it did from time to time send a chill down my spine around a number of issues.First of all there is the time period for liability which is covered in this and the precedent that this legislation puts in place which is around dealing with when it is that the certificate of compliance is issued in terms of when we start calculating liability—because of course in terms of Earthquake Commission claims we are dealing with a 6-year window in terms of liability in which people have a right to take the Earthquake Commission to court. But one of the issues that we have in Canterbury with the Home Repair Programme—and the Minister talked about the need to build it once and build it right—is that many of the repairs have not had a code of compliance because there has been the ability for the building industry to self-certify. We have laid aside in the name of speed the need for people to get building consents for quite significant repairs to homes. So in terms of the precedent that this legislation sets in terms of when we start calculating liability in the absence of certification as we would normally recognise it within the building industry in New Zealand I have great fears.My great fear is that we are going to be back here in a decade’s time having to put into place legislation that is going to clean up a mess that we could have foreseen—foreseen—around how it is that people have redress around their homes. The very ideas that we are talking about in this Committee tonight—the fact that for most New Zealanders their house is going to be the largest asset that they will ever own and the need to have security in that and to have some certainty around what is happening—are paramount. For so many Cantabrians the lessons of what we have learnt in terms of the leaky homes saga are not something that have been picked up. So I would encourage the sentiments that the Minister in the chair is expressing tonight around the need to get the regulation right to build once and to build it right or to repair once and repair it right.I would encourage that Minister to go and talk to some of his Cabinet colleagues and to warn them about the consequences that we could be facing because many of the themes that we have going through in this legislation about determining eligibility and setting up funds also apply when we are—and rightly so—spending so much time fixing Cantabrians’ homes. Not once in some instances but twice the Earthquake Commission is having to go in to do a patch-up on repairs that have been botched in the first place. In a decade’s time are we going to be in this House talking about setting up a fund so that that work can be rectified yet again? That is something that is truly disturbing to me that we have the potential to deal with now.None of us as legislators like being in this House doing fix-up legislation. It is not something we enjoy. It certainly is not something that we enjoy on this side of the House. We have got ideas for the future. We want to be talking about how it is that we can make New Zealand a better place and not fixing the mistakes of decades past—and we run the risk of doing that. We have ideas on this side of the House on how we can not only get people into houses but also get people into the Kiwi Dream so that we can set them up for a future and so that we will not spend our legislative timetable fixing mistakes that could have been foreseen in the past.So I think there are some lessons that we need to learn from this piece of legislation which Labour is supporting. We are supporting it for the reasons that the Minister outlined: it is sensible and it needs to be done for the people who have found themselves in this horrific situation of having their home their piece of security become something that is not as secure as they thought it was going to be. We are in that situation but for goodness’ sake let us learn the lessons of this unfortunate phase in our history and think about what we are doing in this very House at the moment in regard to the potential leaky homes issue that is going to face this country in a decade’s time. We know that it is coming we know what the risks are and we are talking about them tonight. I urge you Minister to talk to some of your Cabinet colleagues. Thank you.