Williams Poto: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Poto: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 10 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2071. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): Good evening everybody. It is great to be able to have the opportunity to speak on the first reading of this bill. I want to start off by saying that everybody deserves a home that is well built warm and dry. You will get no argument from this side of the House when we make those statements: that shelter is a basic human right; that our homes need to be of a condition that is warm and dry and that not having decent housing impacts on us socially it impacts on our health and well-being and for people who are struggling through this scenario to actually get their issues addressed it impacts on their mental well-being as well. We know full well from Christchurch that when your house is destroyed or when you are battling to have your home repaired your mental well-being and your well-being in general suffers. Your home is your major asset unless of course you happen to be one of the almost 50 percent of New Zealanders who cannot afford to purchase their own home. If you are lucky enough to own your own home it is your major asset. We know in Christchurch after our major disaster that your insurance does not always protect you and your assets in the manner that you expect. So we are talking about significant financial stress upon people who are impacted by leaky homes.This particular tidy-up I guess of the legislation has come in part as a result of a Supreme Court judgment the Osborne judgment where we look to the determination of the eligibility for compensation under the financial assistance package. What does it take and how long does it take to actually have these issues resolved? As many of the other speakers have already stated tonight it has taken some 20 years and we are still working our way through the issue of weathertightness in legislation that came out of this House 25 years ago. What does it take to actually get these issues resolved?The bill itself deals with three kinds of components: firstly the eligibility for compensation and the criteria that provide eligibility for that; the built date and we have quite a bit of discussion on that; and what it means to be a qualifying claimant. These are very important issues. I have to admit that it did take me some time to work my way around the eligibility for compensation and the criteria in that but I see that what this bill attempts to do is actually move what is currently gazetted into the Act itself so that clauses 1B and 1C which define the criteria actually become part of the Act which is as it should be. The built date that is defined within this bill really tidies up the definition of the term “built”. Currently the claimants have based their claims on the date of final inspection which means that it is a prior date to the certificate of code compliance.I want to refer to the regulatory impact statement because I think it is really important to ask the question why there has been such a low volume of repairs up to this date. There have been several barriers quoted within that—the high cost of repairs access and affordability of bank finance and the lack of awareness. Often homeowners do not know that they have an issue until they come to sell their home. So my final statement is about the final date for claims. I am really concerned about those people who are completely unaware that their home is a leaky home and I hope that these issues are resolved in the submissions to the select committee. Thank you.