Prebble Richard: Building Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Prebble Richard: Building Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:619;Page:14825] 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the Act party to speak to the bill. First I shall declare my interest in the matter. I am a director for a holding company of one of New Zealand’s larger building companies. I have to say on behalf of the company that builders are not greatly worried about this bill because costs will just be passed on. 
Now I will speak on behalf of the ACT party. We are worried because costs will be passed on. The effect of this bill will be to increase costs. When we look at the issue of leaking buildings—and I am not saying that it is not a serious issue—we see that that situation fundamentally arose from changes in materials and from some regulations to which changes builders are not adjusting fast enough. The idea that the licensing of builders will solve that problem is nonsense because it assumes that the leaky building crisis was caused by do-it-yourself builders. We all know that that is absolute rubbish. 
Members should have listened to the contribution made by Ken Shirley who at the age of 19 built his own home. The New Zealand tradition is for people to be able to do things for themselves. Under this bill—which is supported by United Future a party that says it is in favour of families and people doing their own thing—people will not be able to do that any more because now they will have to be licensed builders. The cost of that will be considerable. 
Is the cost worth the problem? No it is not. Members just have to look at the size of the bill. It is 358 pages of new regulations that people will have to meet in order to get a home. If members look at one of the problems ordinary Labour voters have they will see that under this Government the cost of people getting into their first homes has become more and more difficult to afford. Affordability is going the wrong way and this bill makes it worse. 
The ACT party says that with the leaky building problem the Government should have allowed—as it should with every other problem—prosecutions and the like to sort the situation out. Do we need 358 pages to meet a problem of public relations and public perception? No we do not. 
Yes maybe the Building Act does need to be revised. However a revision should be done to make it simpler to lower compliance costs and minimise red tape. I say with some authority that the fact that the building industry is not jumping up and down does not mean to say that this is a good bill. The industry just realises that the Government is taking out a substantial competitor group in this country—New Zealanders who do it for themselves. 
I am amazed that members do not realise that licensing builders is not the answer to the problem. Indeed I say that we should vote against the bill. The ACT party which comes to this matter as it does to a lot of other business matters with some experience says that this bill is not the answer for the solution; it will be an additional problem. 
I tell the member who suggested having a registered list of the people who worked on a building that if he thinks having that list will enable people to pursue the fly-by-night builder he is mistaken. The very nature of the name “fly-by-night” means that if he thinks people will come back from Perth in order to fix the really ripped-off - type buildings he is mistaken. 
All this bill means is that the cost of going down to one’s local council to get a building permit will increase. In my area the cost of a permit went up 90 percent 2 months ago; I think it was by 90 percent that the Waitakere City Council increased the permit cost. If that member thinks that that problem will be made easier by this bill he is mistaken. Of course the bureaucrats and those who will be doing the licensing see that the bill will mean another growth industry. 
But does any member consider that the real problem existing for a large number of young people—that is the cost of getting their own home—will be made easier by the new Building Bill? Does anyone think that? I notice that a number of Government members are looking in any other direction rather than mine to give me an answer. Of course they do not. 
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 This bill has 358 pages and contains 386 clauses. It is a knee-jerk response to an issue— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Part 1. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: Yes I am coming to that Mr Chairman. It is a knee-jerk reaction to a syndrome known as leaky homes. I understand the intent of the bill but as the ACT member who has just spoken pointed out trying to license builders is simply not the solution. When we think through what this bill will do we see that it will simply add compliance cost on compliance cost and will put out of the scope of the average Kiwi the opportunity to build his or her own home. I am talking with some experience on this issue. A number of years ago I did build my own home but under this nonsense I would not be able to. 
Hon Member 
: I wonder whether any Labour members have done that. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: Well I can tell the Committee for certain that they will not be able to do it under what is being proposed here. Licensing builders will simply kill the entrepreneurial spirit of do-it-yourself Kiwis. That is what will happen. There was a very simple alternative to this. Rather than licensing builders and putting in place huge compliance costs we could simply have modelled what the Australian states have done and introduced a builders warranty insurance. It is not complex and it is very easy to administer. The burden of responsibility is not passed on to the builder or to the consumer; it goes to insurance companies which insure by virtue of a very small premium—[ 
Interruption 
]. 
The United Future member is calling out. He wanted the alternative and now he is not prepared to listen to it. Licensing builders and putting in place this type of complexity will add something like $6300 per project. It is the death knell of do-it-yourself builders. Garden sheds like the one that member may have built on his property will no longer be part of the landscape. The solution was very simple: rather than licensing all we had to do was look at best practice in another jurisdiction and the answer was the Australian building warranty insurance concept. The idea is that home handymen who want to build or renovate their own homes have to get an insurance warranty that states that the work will be done to specific standards. For the exchange of a small premium—about $350 when I last looked at it—the insurance company involved said it would accept that responsibility and that that responsibility would be good for 7 years. Any other person coming in and purchasing the property would have a guarantee that the work done by the previous party was to an acceptable standard. That would have been a much simpler solution than putting in place knee-jerk reactions that run to 386 clauses in a 358-page bill and that simply will not be adhered to. 
Clayton Cosgrove is calling out as is his wont. He is a man who is not practical in any sense. I am sure that he has not built his own home or has any experience in this area but he is prepared to yell out across the Chamber rather than make a constructive contribution. He claims to have lived in Australia. If that is right and if he had had his wits about him then he must have heard of builders warranty insurance. Rather than be an unconstructive critic in this Committee stage he could be saying: “Yes I am aware of it.” He should have said what should and what could have taken place. That would be a far better response than what is being suggested here. 
I challenge any member in the Committee to pick up this bill and quote me chapter and verse because it simply will not happen. Can members imagine hard-working builders out there saying: “Oh I think I’d better refer to clause 207 to see if I’m doing OK.”?