Turei Metiria: Building Amendment Bill (No 4) — Instruction to Committee In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Building Amendment Bill (No 4) — Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:14969. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I would like to make a short contribution. The Green Party is opposing this legislation and I want to just briefly set out why for the Committee’s information. The Building Amendment Bill (No 4) deals with consumer protection recommendations from the Building Act review. We supported the bill at its first reading and we were interested to hear the submissions and the response to the legislation because there had been concerns with the previous bills that came out of the review about the piecemeal approach to dealing with the original review’s recommendations. So we did support the bill going to the Local Government and Environment Committee. We have heard the responses from submitters. It is our view now that the bill does not deal with consumer protection sufficiently to justify our vote so we will not be supporting it any further.We did support the original bill because we are very much in favour of increased consumer protections. It is crucial that the regulatory environment for building and housing in New Zealand is first class. There is no room for substandard regulatoryreform. There is no room for substandard consumer protections. Of course we have had far too many lessons in this country that prove how necessary it is to have a first-class set of regulatory laws around building and housing.We have the substandard quality of most of the rental housing stock in this country which is largely old stock that is poorly insulated often poorly built damp and makes our kids and our families sick. We have had the debacle of the leaky homes which was the direct result of a previous National Government’s deregulation obsession. It has cost families and councils and communities millions and millions of dollars. Of course there are the weaknesses tragically discovered after major events like the Christchurch earthquakes. Given the very dynamic nature of New Zealand’s environment and our land and the importance of housing and building to the safety and protection of our families there just is no room for a substandard approach.So from our point of view having looked at the bill and heard the submissions we do not believe that this bill makes the sufficient reforms to justify the support. We did want to see a higher minimum standard if you like set in place. We agree with the Home Owners and Buyers Association that a mandatory warranting scheme with an independent authority was a better option. We do understand that there is likely to be more reform in the future and we are pleased about that. We welcome that and we will look very seriously at supporting future measures where there are stronger consumer protections. We look forward to more debate on that in time. But until those protections are genuinely stronger and provide sufficient support we will not support something that is substandard. So unfortunately this is not the bill that provides the kinds of protections that we would like to see put in place. We look forward to future legislation that does that. Until that time we will be voting against this bill. Thank you.