Williamson Maurice: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliamson Maurice: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 11 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9333. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Building and Construction): I moveThat the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill be now read a second time. Can I say how enormously disappointed I am in the Labour Party forhaving opposed this at the Government Administration Committee and I assume for voting against it now. I want to give members of the public a little bit of background about this bill so they understand why it is here. Raymond Huo the Labour Party spokesman is saying Maurice Williamson is cleaning up one of the messes he has made. Well let us get some facts on the table.This bill is about industry regulation. There are a number of industry regulators out there in the building and construction sector like the Electrical Workers Registration Board and like the Registered Architects Board and there are a number of regulators out there that are not in the building sector—for example the Civil Aviation Authority which regulates pilots and so on and the Medical Council which regulates the performance of doctors. So New Zealanders fully expect there to be a regulator that controls behaviour in every one of the industries that are out there. Those bodies that I have just mentioned—the Electrical Workers Registration Board the Registered Architects Board the Civil Aviation Authority and so on—have the right to go after both licensed practitioners and non-licensed practitioners. Imagine if the Civil Aviation Authority could discipline someone who had a pilot’s licence but it could not touch someone who was flying a Boeing 747 every day who did not have a licence. It would just be nonsensical. Imagine if for example the Medical Council could deal to you if you were a licensed doctor but if you were just doing some do-it-yourself brain surgery in your backyard as a friend it could not touch you.Well guess what? The Labour Government passed some legislation in 2006—it was the Labour Government that did it. I am sorry I have to get into the attack here. I was hoping to work genteelly through this. I was quite keen on trying to take this calmly. I even sent this bill off to a select committee that we did not have a majority on hoping that Ruth Dyson who is normally a very good chair would shepherd this through quite calmly and we would get it through. The Labour Government cocked up. In 2006 it passed a bill that did not allow the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board to take action against non-licensed practitioners. So the Act that is currently in effect says you can go after those who are licensed and registered but if somebody arrives from overseas and says: “Oh I don’t have any qualifications but I’ll do some gasfitting.” and gets out there with his little Bunsen burner and starts wiring up some gas tubing the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board according to the current legislation cannot touch that person—cannot touch them. And I do not think there is a single New Zealander who thinks that makes sense.I had a look at the drafting instructions for the bill of 2006. I even had a look at the explanatory note. The Government—the Labour Government—of the day actually did intend for this legislation to cover both licensed and unlicensed practitioners. In other words the Act was supposed to allow the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board the power to go after anyone practising in the plumbing gasfitting and drainlaying sector. But there was a mistake in the wording and no one picked it up. I have to say I became the Minister for Building and Construction in 2008 and blissfully went about my life not worrying about the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Act 2006 until this issue was discovered. It went to the Regulations Review Committee and there has been a complaint to the Ombudsman the Auditor-General and so on. It turns out that there is a mistake in the wording and it is not legal for the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board to charge levies and fees to their licensed practitioners but use that money to go after ratbags who are not licensed. It can go after only those who are.So yes these five little clauses—three of which are just basically about the title and what Act it applies to so really there are only two clauses that are going through here—are retrospective. I am one of the people most ardently opposed to retrospective legislation except if it is validating what everyone had always thought was the case.Everybody thought the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board had the right to go after cowboys. There was an explosion in the Pizza Hut in Nelson that nearly killed people. It was appalling work and I am hoping the Labour Opposition is in favour of public safety and does not want practitioners like that to get away scot-free. So why am I bringing this little piece of tidy-up clean-up? To fix up the former Labour Government’s Act of 2006 because it forgot to put in the wording about non-licensed practitioners as well.Raymond Huo that Mensa genius on the Labour Party side is now claiming that this is Williamson cleaning up his mess. Well no it is not. This is cleaning up the former Labour Government’s legislation of 2006. Now Mr Huo has fallen foul of a little group out there called the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Federation. What is being portrayed here—and I am sure members from the other side will claim it—is that there are two large organisations out there representing the plumbers. One is called Master Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers and the other is called the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Federation. Well the federation this little group of people—how do you get to be a member of it? You sign up to its email. You just subscribe to its email. Several of the officials in the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment already are members of this little federation simply because they got a copy of its email. These people are out there.And Raymond Huo—listen to this; this is where it gets really good—is going to move an amendment when we get to the Committee stage that the fees that are collected now do not go to the board but go off to this little group.Hon Trevor Mallard: Tony dressed him this morning.Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Trevor Mallard has got no credibility left if he supports Raymond Huo’s amendment that this money collected would go off to the federation. He wants to pay it to this handful of malcontents. I want to hear from David Parker and David Shearer. David Parker is supposedly the keeper of the purse for the Labour Party and what Raymond Huo is advocating is that we should not make it retrospective which would then make the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board insolvent but that we should take it out of general taxation. How fiscally irresponsible is that! There is not another industry regulator that does not collect fees from its members to pay for enforcement. And somehow we are going to say to this one: “No that’s all right the Minister of Finance can dig into the revenue somehow and pay for it—and by the way he won’t actually pay it to the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board which does the regulating; he’ll pay it off to a handful of people who are the malcontents who come to every meeting and complain about things.” Well ask Master Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers what it thinks. It represents about 70 percent of all plumbers. It thinks that this is a legitimate thing to do because it means we can actually take some control over the behaviour of those cowboys out there. Unless this is passed the fees that have been collected in the past would be invalid and have to be refunded so that is why the law is retrospective.The second clause that is really relevant in this is that it says going forward from here that the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board can use those fees to go after cowboys. That is as simple as it can be in a nutshell. If any one person out there decides “Well I don’t know. I’m out of work. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I might go and do some gasfitting. I haven’t got any qualifications. I don’t know about leaks. I don’t know about explosions. We’ll have a crack at it.” well under the current law the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board could not go after them. It cannot touch them. I do not think that there is a single member of this House who thinks that that is acceptable and I am disappointed even in the Greens. During the first reading Holly Walker said: “Well we support in principle what the Minister’s doing here but he isdoing it too quickly.” So I immediately gave the Government Administration Committee more time. I said that OK a week is too tough I understand that. Let us go to a 3-week period where you can hear all the submissions because this has to be done.It has to be done otherwise you are advocating having the rule of the jungle out there in the gasfitting area and believe me even in the plumbing area where a lot of public safety can be put at risk especially in some high-rise buildings. I want to know that people who are practitioners in that field are actually legitimate and are skilled and competent at a certain level and that if they are not they can be gone after. As I said earlier on there is not another industry in this country where we would not have that. That is what I want to have in this area and I am really disappointed. I am hopeful that the Labour Party will actually see some light have a chat to Raymond Huo out in the back room and say: “Actually I think you’ve got this one wrong old son.” I do not know quite why he has got it wrong. He has somehow listened to the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Federation. This is a bill that has to be passed. It is Labour’s mess from 2006 that we are cleaning up. I hope that this Parliament will support it.