Power Simon: Energy Safety Review Bill — First Reading 
Power Simon: Energy Safety Review Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:627;Page:21799] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I look forward to discussing this bill in some detail. No doubt the Government would have secured the numbers for the bill to proceed to a select committee but the National Party will not be amongst those numbers. I met in my electorate last night with a large number of master plumbers and they are extremely concerned about this bill and there are a number of reasons why. Whilst the plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers of New Zealand have no difficulty whatsoever with upskilling and keeping themselves ahead of trends and with being on top of their game as it were they are deeply concerned about the nature of the competency-based licensing system the relevancy of the courses that are being offered— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: They still control that. 
SIMON POWER 
: No I tell Mr Duynhoven that the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board controls it actually not the plumbers themselves. The board is not an industry-based organisation and it is a serious misfortune of this bill. 
The tradespeople on the ground are telling me that the courses have to be relevant. They do not consider that the courses currently prescribed fall into that category. In front of me I have a copy of a letter from the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board dated January of this year outlining some of those course credits. They are extraordinary. These are not matters that busy tradespeople should be wasting their time having to undertake in order to satisfy yet another regulatory body that is interested only in its own survival and not the welfare of its members. 
Courses such as “Personal Skills Needed to Stay in Business” are offered for 10 credits each. These modules include such essential courses as “Getting Your Message Across” “Networking and Establishing Business Relationships” “Negotiation Skills” and things like “Conflict Resolution”. The tradespeople at the Masonic Hotel last night told me that the biggest problem with this type of regulation is the cost that will be incurred by the tradespeople in having to attend courses that are valid only for 12 months—they have to be redone every 12 months—whereas previously a tradesperson who has his or her trade registered is in the trade for good. 
It is exactly the same as in the legal profession. If a member of a profession or a trade establishes himself or herself as competent in a particular area there is no good reason why he or she should be put through those sorts of hoops. 
The big problem is that the people who will end up wearing the cost of this are the consumers. The consumers will end up wearing the costs of those tradespeople having to attend those courses. I am told by the New Zealand Society of Master Plumbers and Gasfitters Inc. that they were not told of the changes to its Act. They were not involved in any prior consultation about the bill. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: That’s not true. 
SIMON POWER 
: I tell Mr Duynhoven that the board may well have been involved but the association itself and those people on the ground were not and they told me that directly last night. But most important and it was raised a number of times at the public meeting last night the legislation—the administration of the plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers legislation—will be shifted from the Ministry of Health to the new Department of Building and Housing. 
Now these people have told me that the major reason that plumbers prefer to be under the Health Act and working with the Ministry of Health is that they see their role as being one of providing sanitary conditions for people to dwell in. They do not want to be part of a new department that was created because of the leaky building crisis. Those people told me last night that they believe that their role in providing sanitary arrangements for people dwelling in homes is of the utmost importance. 
It is a problem when it becomes clear that the new legislation is actually creating more problems than it is worth. I am told that when gasfitters were put in this position those who had been in the profession for a long time would be of the view just simply to throw their hands up and say: “This is all too hard; all I want to do is get on with the business of practising my trade.” Instead a whole new regulatory regime of 181 pages arrives at the doorstep of self-employed people who just want to get on with the business of running their trades. These are self-regulatory arrangements whereby it is pretty obvious if somebody in the trades is not doing the job. These industries and trades have their own ways of sorting these matters out. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Is that not how we got the leaky buildings syndrome? 
SIMON POWER 
: That is exactly the point Mr Duynhoven. These people were not involved in that so stop treating them as if they were. Let them get on with the business of running their own trades properly and constructively. I have to say that the Government has badly misjudged this legislation and will get it badly wrong when the plumbers and tradespeople front to the select committee—presumably the Government has stitched the numbers—and it is a major problem as far as they are concerned. I was extremely surprised when I was asked to front at the meeting last night to hear their concerns about this legislation. They feel completely disempowered by the process and were completely ignored as this legislation was drafted. 
So National will not be voting for this legislation to proceed. We reserve the right to watch very carefully how this Government and 180 pages of regulation gets its fingers into the business of good hard-working New Zealanders who just want to get on with the business of practising their trade.