Catchpole Brent: Budget Debate 
Catchpole Brent: Budget Debate 
[Volume:626;Page:21070] 
BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise to speak on Budget 2005. I have done quite a lot of research into the leaky homes resolution service particularly and I have searched through the Budget from cover to cover without finding anything that showed this Government’s intention to stand up to its responsibilities. There is no figure in the Budget that shows the Government even cares about its responsibilities to the leaky homes resolution service. Seven Ministers—and I notice that one of them has just walked into the House—have presided over the problem under this Government. The attrition rate is incredible. I guess that the extent of the problem is such that as we become more and more aware of it those Ministers are very quick to give the hospital pass to one of their poor unsuspecting colleagues. That is what seems to be happening. The Minister who has just walked into the House presided over the very time that the weathertight homes debacle was very much in the media but he totally ignored the problem that was happening. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: Boring. 
BRENT CATCHPOLE 
: Russell Fairbrother is calling out “Boring.” Does that member think that this particular situation is boring to the people who suffer from the problem of owning leaky homes? The Minister who is in this House presided over the situation. 
I shall cite an issue that I discussed with that Minister. He claimed that no house in New Zealand would leak if it was built correctly under the building code. I think that every single house in this country including the one that we are in now has leaked at some stage during its life. There are particular situations whereby as the ground dries out foundations move and crack and that is not something that has been factored into that Minister’s reckoning. I tell Mr Fairbrother that this problem is not just a mere irritation that can be brushed off. It is huge. 
At the time of the weathertight homes inquiry I did some estimates and checking with the industry. The estimates that came back as to the magnitude of the problem—and I have some of those calculations here—showed that repairing the leaky homes would cost in excess of $2 billion. I am afraid that those estimates are a little shy of the amount now that we have realised just how big the problem is and how much it will cost to repair those homes. That is now estimated to cost around $5 billion which is a lot of money for homeowners to find in order to pay for their leaky houses. It is not a laughing matter; it is serious. 
At the time I estimated that about 20000 homes would be affected. From May 1996 to June 2002 139000 permits were issued for homes and it has now become clear that many of those homes will suffer from this problem. We have not seen anything but a fraction of the problem because in many cases the issue of those homes being leaky has not appeared yet. Perhaps in 10 years’ time a hot-water cylinder will burst or start to leak quietly and the timber in behind that cylinder will start to rot. Because the timber is untreated it will rot and that rot will travel from one end of the building to the other. 
New Zealand First believes that this Government is not playing its part with regard to this problem. It is not putting money into the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service to make sure that it is providing a service. New Zealand First wants to see more money put into that service to make sure that it can provide a satisfactory resolution for affected homeowners. The Government has provided a figure of 2109 claims against the resolution service as at 28 February 2005. That figure has now increased to 3500. The service is currently managing to resolve 120 claims a year. That is a ridiculous situation and the longer it goes on the more problems will appear and the more expensive it will be to repair those homes. This Government needs to put more money into the resolution service as New Zealand First will do when it becomes the Government. The resolution service needs to be properly funded so that it can perform the tasks it was set up to do. At the moment the service is not being funded adequately. 
Even worse than that the Building Industry Authority is being sheltered from its responsibilities by this Government. They have been palmed off on Treasury so that the Building Industry Authority cannot be sued. In fact the Budget has provided $4.5 million to fight against legal claims. That is $4.5 million that individual homeowners have no means of matching—they do not have a show of matching those figures. The Crown Law Office stated that it would not pay up if the Building Industry Authority is found to be guilty until the authority has been through all possible court proceedings. Every single appeal that it can possibly make to delay proceedings is another means by which this Government can avoid its responsibility. New Zealand First says that that is not good enough. It wants to see that turned round and things done to ensure that homeowners have a proper format to be able to claim against the authority. 
The authority is responsible for a lot of the problems which started in 1996. In fact Standards New Zealand started them when it agreed to the standard for kiln-dried. Then in 1998 the authority approved the system of using untreated timber matched with monolithic cladding and no wall cavities. As a result of leaking homes appearing the authority then stuck its head in the sand and refused to acknowledge the problem. During that time it had the Barrett report from Canada and numerous other reports from overseas that showed that the problem existed and had grown. The Minister Mr Hawkins knew and refused to acknowledge that a problem was happening. He stuck his head in the sand along with the authority. Maybe the authority refused to acknowledge the problem and did not tell the Minister about it but he certainly did not read his mail during that time. He received letters from various members of the industry right throughout that time explaining that the problem was huge and that he had to do something about it. 
New Zealand First wants to see money put into the resolution service so that people can have the service that was predicted to occur. But no those people have to front up with lawyers at a huge cost to themselves to be able to fight. The only claim that has been successful was from the owners of a multiple complex. Owners that are body corporates cannot go before the resolution service so all homeowners in multiple complexes that are under body corporates have to go to court anyway. Therefore the figures on the resolution service’s website are misleading because the true extent of the number of houses and homes that are affected does not appear in the statistics. The Minister is laughing. He thinks it is a joke that people have to go to court and resolve the issue in that way and that the authority refuses to participate in the very service that this Government has set up to help those people. Again the authority is the one that is refusing to acknowledge the problem. It is ignoring it and it is going round the long way by making people have to pay to go to court which will cost them a huge amount of money. 
New Zealand First says that the Government should put more money into the resolution service so that the problem of leaky homes can be resolved.