Barker Rick: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Barker Rick: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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Hon RICK BARKER (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you very much for the recognition Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson and for the opportunity to make a contribution to this debate on the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill. First I reiterate what my colleagues have already said: Labour supports this bill. I congratulate the Minister for Building and Construction on steering this bill through the House. Like a large number of bills that have gone through this House it offers good points but it is not perfect. That is not surprising; I have not seen anything yet crafted that can be considered by all parties to be perfect. But let us look at the world not through a glass half empty; let us look at the world through a glass half full. I pick up on the points made by my colleague Rajen Prasad and I re-echo them: there are many many people in New Zealand who are incredibly distressed at the state of their buildings. They are incredibly distressed that they have been let down by as they see it the authorities the builders and the architects. There has been an enormous amount of blame game played. We heard some of it this afternoon in the House. The Green Party member Sue Kedgley pointed the finger at all and sundry other than the Greens as to who was responsible. Well the Greens can of course do that but some people have to take some responsibility and get things done. This bill gives some certainty as to the way forward but there is still a lot of uncertainty. 
The first point I will raise in the third reading is the size of the problem. As I understand it there is $11 billion worth of houses involved—$11 billion is a large figure. It is an enormous figure. When we put that figure beside the cost of the reconstruction of Christchurch we are effectively doing the job of rebuilding Christchurch twice over. This is a huge amount of money it involves a huge number of homes and it represents in many ways a loss—because if it is a cost it is a loss. We are looking at a loss of $11 billion in Christchurch a loss of $11 billion in leaky homes and a loss of multiple hundreds of millions of dollars in finance companies that have gone broke. New Zealand has suffered a significant hit in a short period of time with leaky homes Christchurch and the financial crisis but we have to dig ourselves out of the hole. This bill represents in part a way forward. 
As my colleagues have said there are some issues around for example who is eligible for the assistance package. There will always be issues at the margin. The member Chris Auchinvole explained why the 10-year limit was there. I have to say to the member that the moment we draw a line some people are in and some people are out. That means that some people will be out and they will feel aggrieved. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: They’ll miss by just that much. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: The Hon Minister Maurice Williamson holds up his fingers a little bit apart. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: I’m just saying that some people can miss by just that much though. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: They can miss by just that much. Yes by just a small amount. So there will be some people who miss. Again looking at the glass half full this package will address the bulk of the problems for the bulk of the people. But this legislation will have people who will be outside of it. 
This legislation also has other issues in how to deal with multiple-ownership properties. There is a threshold of 75 percent that has to be met. What happens if we get 72 or 73 percent? Then the majority are held at the whim of the minority. That is not seen as democratic by most accounts but that is what we will have with this legislation. That does not seem to be a pathway forward to reconcile the differences between the majority say 66 percent which is two-thirds and the other third. It is another issue that we might have to come back to as well. 
The bill will rely in its implementation on the cooperation of local authorities and banks. The Minister has been very good in explaining what the legislation does but we have not heard a lot yet about the attitude of banks. Banks have talked about goodwill constructive engagement and so on but that does not amount to a guarantee or an undertaking. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: They’ve signed up to it Rick. They’ve signed. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: The Minister says that the banks have all signed up. That is a very good thing and I am pleased to hear it. 
The other problem I come back to with this bill is that the legislation is all right in having a way but we have to have the means to carry it out. The means for carrying it out is having a skilled workforce to undertake the work. There is very little point in having the legislation and the technical pathway forward if we do not have the means to implement the work. Another way of looking at it is that we have the plan and we have the strategy but we do not have the tactical resources. One of the National speakers made light of that fact and said that if there was a problem then it had to be the fault of the previous Labour Government. In my opinion that is not a good enough answer. It is not good enough because it is wrong. It is not good enough because pointing the finger and blaming others is not a responsible attitude to this legislation. I re-echo the point made by Chris Auchinvole that this bill is not about apportioning blame and that is a very worthy point. But we have to come back to the question of whether we have the technical resources to do this work. It seems to me that if we are going to struggle to get the resources to rebuild Christchurch we will struggle to get the resources to rebuild Christchurch twice over. That is what this bill represents. We will need a large number of qualified builders carpenters roofers plasterers plumbers and electricians—you name it. These people will have to be available to undertake this work and any scan of the horizon from this vantage point today tells me that there are insufficient skills for this work. 
Although this just leaves the enactment of the legislation the Government now has a responsibility to do something more constructive about upskilling and training young people into the building trades than what it has been doing. The current rate of training and of upskilling of young people is lower than it was 5 years ago. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: Dismal. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: It is lower and it is showing no signs of picking up. The Government can point to the fact that it has increased funding and that is true but when people point to the increase in funding which is true they do not point out that in fact the increase is measured off a base that is lower than it was previously. So the Government’s increase in funding for skills and training in the building industry leaves it short—well short—of what it used to be. If it is well short of what it used to be and we were struggling to cope then how will we cope when we have two major building projects to be undertaken? We have the rebuild of Christchurch and the repair of leaky homes. The work will be done over a similar and concurrent period because once this legislation is passed we will see an increase in activity of getting those leaky homes fixed. 
We must do that work for all the reasons outlined by Sue Kedgley. I feel ill and queasy when she talks about all the diseases in those homes. She makes it seem like I should have a facemask on to protect myself. I shudder at her description of the conditions those people are living in. She is very good at it and she is quite right to say that it is a threat not only to their physical health but also to their mental health. It must be incredibly distressing to them every day to watch their most significant investment rot and cave in around them. 
It is good that this legislation is being passed. It is good that we are getting to the final stage of it. It offers a pathway forward. It is not complete and that is accepted. It is also accepted that in all probability we will have to come back to the House and do some more work on the legislation in the future. But that is not a debate we want to have now. The fact is that the glass is half full. Something constructive is being done but underpinning this legislation there is still a fundamental weakness—that is the very means by which we can give effect to this legislation to fix these homes that these people desperately need. To fix the homes we need more than just legislation we need more than just the banks signing up the money we need the people wearing the shorts and builders’ tool belts and with hammers and nails out there doing the job. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Show us that again. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: The Minister missed it. We need them doing the job. These are people who turn up every day at 7 o’clock in the morning and work hard. They are great people they do a great job but we need many many more of them. I think this is the fundamental weakness in the legislation. I would like to hear in the future a better plan from the Government not the one it has reiterated but a better plan as to how it will upskill the industry and provide us with the skilled tradespeople necessary to construct and rebuild the houses in Christchurch and repair the leaky homes. Labour will support this legislation but much more needs to be done.