Mapp Wayne: Building Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Mapp Wayne: Building Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:619;Page:14837] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I thank Sandra Goudie for drawing members’ attention to clause 35 “Procedure for determination”. She is absolutely correct. Clause 35 states that in making a determination under this legislation—not under a resource consent or anything like that but for a building consent: “… the chief executive must—(a) avoid unnecessary delay and formality;”—that seems fair enough—“and (b) recognise tikanga Maori and receive evidence written or spoken in Maori;”. 
I guess that Maori is an official language so that point might be reasonable but tikanga Maori in relation to the Building Bill seems quite extraordinary. As my colleague pointed out as we have seen from the foreshore and seabed legislation “tikanga Maori” has an extraordinarily broad definition. It includes things tangible and intangible and the Minister in the chair John Tamihere knows that. The bill now creates enormous uncertainty. Surely the intent of the Government and its handmaiden United Future must be to produce some level of certainty for New Zealanders. Surely the intent of abolishing the Building Industry Authority—as bad a decision as that is—and replacing it with the Ministry of Economic Development is to improve New Zealand’s building regulations. That must have been the intent as bad as it is. Now the Government has this enormous extraordinary new process of tikanga Maori in this bill. There are places where tikanga Maori has relevance. I think everyone in the Chamber would acknowledge that. 
Jill Pettis 
: Such as a pa. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: But how on earth does it relate to determinations by the chief executive in the way— 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: It might help me. Could I declare my swimming pool to be a Maoripa? 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: That is the sort of thing that could happen. Where we had flawed but at least relatively certain legislation under the 1991 Act the political correctness of this Government means that it has brought into play concepts that frankly have no place in Building Code determinations. I heard the chief Labour whip say: “What about a pa?” That is not the subject of a determination. That is something that a marae committee itself would take into account as it produced its own designs. It has nothing to do with the determination by the chief executive. Determinations relate to general rules that relate to buildings overall—in other words to the building code if one likes. So now we have taken something from the private domain—something relating to a particular marae or iwi in relation to their own buildings—and transplanted it into the building code as a general proposition. That is fundamentally wrong. 
One thing that National has stood for is equality before the law. We stand very strongly for that because we believe that on most issues the rules should be the same for everyone and should be understandable. Issues of culture and so forth by and large relate to an individual’s or a group’s culture. Culture does not have a specific role or place in economic regulation which is what the Building Bill is about. Now the Government is importing into the bill cultural concepts. I say to the Minister that that is the reality. The Minister has some understanding of the bicultural world so I think it is reasonable to us in this Chamber and around the nation for the Minister to explain how come this provision is in this economic regulation and why we would bring these cultural concepts into legislation that is about the general rules relating to buildings. I find that extraordinary.