Faafoi Kris: Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:10066. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): That is very generous of you Mr Chair to give me another opportunity. I do thank you for giving another member the call. It gave the Committee 5 minutes and the Minister an opportunity to see whether any of the questions I posed could be answered. Because they have not been answered I would just like to continue with the last few examples of new section 133AA in clause 23.Just as I was finishing up last time we were discussing storage tanks. If they do have tens of thousands of litres in them and are perhaps on the top of a building or at the top of a hill you would be concerned if their structural integrity was not up to standard. So again I pose the question—if the officials could be useful—as to who is responsible for making sure that those storage tanks within new section 133AA are up to standard and why they are exempt.The next two examples that are specifically laid down in new section 133AA troubled me some more as well. Again there may be a perfectly good answer for this but in new section 133AA(1)(j) the item that is exempt is “a building that is a dam.” If an earthquake were to hit and the structural integrity of a dam was not necessarily up to scratch and someone was charged with making sure that it was up to scratch I would hope that someone was looking after it. It could be the fact that it is a simple answer and it is that the power generator that is responsible for that dam is responsible for making sure it is structurally OK. But I cannot see that and I would potentially like an answer from the officials. And paragraph (k) also says “a part of a building that is a dam.” which I think goes to continue on our concern there.I would like to turn now to Supplementary Order Paper 152 under the name of David Seymour which looks to add to the list of exempt buildings by including a new paragraph (l) and that is “a building located in an area of low seismic risk.” Is that correct Mr Seymour?David Seymour: That’s right.KRIS FAAFOI: OK. I think there are two ways to look at this. I think as one of the members on this side of the Chamber said if you look at it in the sense of being in a low-risk area and it is not quite up to code but it could be expensive to get it up to code and doing so might not improve the safety of the building and risk to people then you might look at it in a pragmatic way and say: “Hey is it really worth doing this in a low-risk area?”. I think building owners might think: “Do we need to go to this expense? We’re in a low-risk area. If something catastrophic does happen it’s not going to make much difference. Why do we have to pay this money out?”.I guess you could look at it from another point of view as well and say that if someone was in a high-risk area and is in exactly the same position of I guess the percentage of code compliance they could say: “Well I’m in a higher-risk area I’m 25 percent and I’m not up to code. Why should I have to do this if someone in a low-risk area doesn’t have to do it?”. I do not know whether the member’s Supplementary Order Paper is going to get across the line—I wish him luck—but I guess there are two trains of thought as to whether or not that should be included in this piece of legislation.I do not want to take up too much more time but I hope that the officials can take the opportunity to answer some of those pretty basic questions around new section 133AA because they are exemptions. They will not be caught under this bill and I think if someone at home was to read the list they would be a little bit troubled as am I.