Dyson Ruth: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 05 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13354. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Can I first of all acknowledge the contribution of the member Chris Auchinvole on the Government Administration Committee as well as Mr Deputy Speaker himself and Kanwaljit Bakshi who along with my colleague Trevor Mallard and Green member Holly Walker considered this Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill. At the time of its referral to the—I did acknowledge you Mr Deputy Speaker as one of the members of the committee. I specifically acknowledged you.Chris Auchinvole: And your other Labour member.Hon RUTH DYSON: I think Mr Auchinvole is losing his attention span. I certainly referred to the Hon Trevor Mallard.Chris Auchinvole: No it wasn’t Trevor.Hon RUTH DYSON: It was Raymond Huo—quite right thank you. When this bill was originally referred to the select committee in March of this year the Minister for Building and Construction asked our committee to have 1 week—1 week—to receive the briefing on the bill from officials whom we could not appoint until we had the meeting and within that same week to call for and hear submissions and within that same week to deliberate and report back to the House. That was the urgency that was accorded to this bill in March of this year—we were given 1 week.I went back to the Minister for Building and Construction the Hon Maurice Williamson. I said to him that I thought that that was not really appropriate or reasonable and he agreed. We extended the length of time the select committee had from 1 week to 2 weeks—we had 2 weeks—and in that time the committee appointed its advisers received its briefing called for and received submissions heard submissions and deliberated. We did our work in the best way possible. We took this issue seriously because we understand the value to our public health and safety ofhaving the regulation of the practice of plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers. This is actually not a small issue; this is a really important issue. If we have people performing that work who are not qualified to do it then we can have serious health and safety issues and none of us on the committee wanted that. So we did take the issue seriously thinking of it as being within that public health and safety frame.But what we were asked to do was to really consider the fact that this matter has been considered by the Regulations Review Committee it has been considered by the Ombudsman and it has been considered by the Auditor-General and I do not think that any of those bodies are lightweight or insubstantial. The Regulations Review Committee is rigorous. The Auditor-General is completely independent and has a rigorous process as does the Ombudsman. All three of those bodies came to the conclusion that this process was wrong. The Auditor-General recommended alternatives. Our committee discussed at length—given the short time we had; it was not as long as we might have preferred it to be—how this problem could be fixed once and for all and it is not my view that retrospectively validating fees and levies that have been ruled to be inconsistent with the law by the Regulations Review Committee the Auditor-General and the Ombudsman is the way to fix the problem.Chris Auchinvole who just resumed his seat before I took the call noted how often he has been part of discussions to try to resolve this matter. He said that if the Hon Maurice Williamson had made a mistake—you know it is hardly imaginable but if he had made a mistake—then he would front up and say: “I’ve made a mistake.” and would put his hands across the water and try to fix it. Well actually that is what we did. We said to the Hon Maurice Williamson: “You can do your political point-scoring as much as you like”—his entire third reading speech was political point-scoring—Chris Auchinvole: Oh!Hon RUTH DYSON: —clearly Chris Auchinvole missed it—“but we actually want to fix this in a way that ensures that the public health and safety issues are resolved and that is fair to the plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers and this is not the way to do it.” So on that basis and actually with great sadness to be honest because I do not want this bill—Chris Auchinvole: Here we go—here’s the kicker.Hon RUTH DYSON: —to come back again we are going to vote against it.Chris Auchinvole: There we go.Hon RUTH DYSON: The member knows that. He was at the committee when we made that determination.It is not actually within the scope of this bill but I also want to draw the House’s attention to other concerns that were raised and I want to give our commitment as a party to working with other parties throughout Parliament to address the issues that were raised by submitters. They raised a very significant issue about the lack of transparency and accountability. So money is being collected from registered tradespeople for a purpose that has now been determined as being outside the law—this is what this bill is going to alter—but the accusation has been made in the committee that that is not what those fees and levies are used for entirely. There are other purposes for which those fees and levies are used. That is the accusation that was laid. I would like the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board to improve its accountability and transparency so that all doubt about the use of moneys collected can be put to bed and at the moment I do not have that confidence. So that is the first challenge I would like to give to the Minister and to the board.We were told that the board collects just under $35000 a week and yet last year only 13 people were prosecuted. That seems to be quite a large amount of money for a small number of prosecutions and again the accountability and transparency of thecollection of fees and levies—the use of the money and exactly what cost what—would remove any doubt about that. We want to be confident that the fees and levies that are collected are used for the purpose for which they were collected and at the moment there was certainly some doubt raised with the committee. There is an extraordinary amount of money reported to us that is being spent on legal fees despite the board having in-house lawyers. Again if the board was a bit more open with the members about why it might have needed at some stage to engage counsel from outside its permanent staff then there would not be such suspicion about it. I do not think a board should operate with its members in a way that creates suspicion. It should work in the opposite direction.The Minister has on several occasions in the House and indeed again this evening said that this bill will bring the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board in line with other boards that regulate the activities of tradespeople. That is not what the select committee was told. The select committee was told that there is a myriad of ways in which boards operate and I frankly do not think that that is very satisfactory but I think it is a misrepresentation for the Minister to say that this would bring the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board in line with other boards because that is certainly not the advice that we have taken. In fact with the licensed building practitioners and the electricians we were specifically advised that they have an entirely different method of funding. The idea that the board would be insolvent is a bit of a nonsense. It is less than half a million dollars that it would have required and actually now because of the passing of time there is no such danger and no such risk of insolvency to the board.The final point I want to make is that I think that the board has carried on despite the Regulations Review Committee’s ruling despite the Auditor-General’s comments and despite the Ombudsman’s determination that the board has acted in a way that I could only describe as arrogant. Those bodies determined that the board should not continue with the practice in the way it did but instead of desperately seeking a solution to resolve the issue it went—as if it was the only option—to the Minister and said: “We require retrospective legislation to validate the collection of fees and levies.” I do not think that that is the only answer and I do not think that this is the best answer. I think that we should have sat around the table with the relevant bodies and tried to reach a solution that would as I said earlier guarantee the New Zealand public the health and safety that we require of plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers. They are doing an important job. There are high risks. Chris Auchinvole was absolutely correct when he talked about the public health contribution made by these tradespeople as opposed to medicine. He was absolutely 100 percent correct with that but we also wanted a solution to this issue that was fair.Unfortunately retrospectively validating legislation that has been ruled by the Auditor-General the Ombudsman and the Regulations Review Committee as inconsistent with the law is not the best answer.