Mark Ron: Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMark Ron: Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:10073. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First):I appreciate the call and a final opportunity to say a couple of words again on my Supplementary Order Paper 160. I just want to raise a couple of interesting comments. I have just been on the phone to some people at Local Government New Zealand who I need to tell the Committee are hugely supportive—that is all the mayors and all of the rural and provincial councils have just reconfirmed they are hugely supportive of the Supplementary Order Paper of New Zealand First. And they are a little bit bewildered as to why the Government will not accept it as it has already indicated.I just want to make this point: we have heard some expressions of concern even from Labour. It does not know what the cost would beor how much money the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) would lose. It is the first time that I have ever heard Labour worrying about how much money the IRD is going to lose but never mind it is worried about how much money the IRD is going to lose.Let us put it this way.Looking at the low-risk buildings and the time given to remediate those seismic risks it is 35 years. So if the owner of a building in rural New Zealand is put in a situation where they find it unaffordable or less attractive or find that there is less incentive to earthquake-strengthen that building and they leave it sitting there for a period time and if in that time there is an earthquake and someone does get killed—you know a building out in Pongaroa or somewhere falls over and the one person who happens to be walking past there at 2.30 in the morning gets killed—it would be interesting if that landlord was then to say: “Well actually if there had been a tax break I might have got the work done.”It is also interesting that if half the building does fall down and he has to repair it under this clause—under the IRD ruling—he will get the tax break. So if we wait until the building is damaged before he repairs it and then strengthens it he will get a tax rebate but if we do not pass this legislation here tonight and he goes ahead and does the work he will not get a tax rebate. It is ridiculously ironic that we have a Government that says that it is pro-business says that it wants to assist business and says that it wants to incentivise it to do the right thing but it will not change the IRD definition that is now capturing these landlords and providing a disincentive for them to complete their earthquake strengthening on a building.What we will see and I have already had it in the Wairarapa—interesting that they come and talk to me but they do not talk to their electorate MP. I wonder why that is. They have come to me and said that they will walk away from buildings. I know that right now in rural provincial New Zealand there are people going around offering people who own buildings less than they currently owe on the mortgage because they know that these landlords are strapped. A small step like this by the Government—letting this Supplementary Order Paper go through changing the way in which the IRD rules on this question allowing the tax rebate on earthquake strengthening—we still believe would go some way to assisting those landlords assisting those property owners and incentivising them to get on with it.I also want to come back to David Seymour’s Supplementary Order Paper. I am going to indicate here that New Zealand First will support his Supplementary Order Paper. We will do it not necessarily because we are 100 percent convinced right now that the compliance costs on councils may be more than we would want but as an indication that where Mr Seymour’s thinking is is where ours is.If you are looking at buildings in low seismic risk areas where the population is very low why would you include those buildings—why would we? We raised this numerous times—I use the Pongaroa example. There is an old saying “If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to see it fall or hear it did it make a sound?”. Well in Pongaroa at 2.30 in the morning if there is an earthquake what is the risk of that wooden façade coming down on to the footpath? We discussed this at length and those who were on the Local Government and Environment Committee actually agreed that the risk is very very low.We in New Zealand First think—and we have heard quite a bit of discussion over on this side of the Chamber—that although we may not be entirely clear as to the total consequences we are saying that we think the principle of what Mr Seymour is saying is valid. We think that the consequences for rural provincial New Zealand in low seismic risk areas where there is a one in 100000-year chance of your being killed through an earthquake happening is worth consideration. The principle of that is worth thinking about.So on that basis knowing that the Government is going to reject its coalition partner’s Supplementary Order Paper and knowing that the Committee will overwhelmingly reject it we think the principle of what Mr Seymour is saying is valid and is worthy of some greater consideration and probably if we had had more of a chance to lash about this at the select committee we might have found a halfway house in there again. But the 35 years 15-year periods that are designated for low seismic risk areas as a committee we agreed on—we still agree on that. But I think it is fair to say that on the New Zealand First side we have a degree of empathy and sympathy for the principle of what Mr Seymour is saying. Thank you.