Turei Metiria: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 05 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13349. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): The Green Party will be opposing the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill because quite frankly and quite simply it is just not fair. There are some important issues in this debate but it is not fair to make this legislation retrospective and therefore allow the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board to continue to hold on to the fees that have been paid to the board unlawfully for some time.Like the Minister for Building and Construction and like other parties in the House we do understand that there is a problem with the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Act 2006 in that it did not give the proper lawful authority for the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board to collect the levies and fees that it did for the purpose of prosecuting unlicensed practitioners. It does appear that that 2006 legislation was intended to provide that lawful authority but it did not and that is a mistake that does get made from time to time. We also agree that the board should be able to prosecute unlicensed practitioners. It is important for industry standards to have a body that is able to do that and the fact that there are fees levied for that purpose is not unreasonable either.So in principle we agree with the purpose the intention of this legislation but the difficulty is that although we could have supported a bill that does this for the future we simply cannot bring ourselves to vote for a bill that makes this power retrospective. We have communicated that with the Minister so he understands what our position is.There has been I understand a long history of grievance and dispute between the members and the board about the payment of those fees and the use of those fees. It is quite frankly very poor practice when members who make a financial contribution to this board have to go to the Ombudsman in order to find out how that money is being used and what it is being spent on and to make sure that the purpose for which the money was given is actually being played out. So there is a whole history here around plumbers and gasfitters—the people who are affected by this bill—working very hard to seek a decision that the legislation does not provide lawful authority and to seek a remedy for that.They have been everywhere that you can go—the Regulations Review Committee twice the Ombudsman the Auditor-General. They have spent considerable time bringing this issue to the attention of the legislature so quite rightly the legislature is responding. But it is not fair to say now that those people who have had the burden of paying an unlawful fee have had the burden of trying to find out—against it appears the board’s practice—how that fee was being used and what was being paid for should then continue to lose money as a result of that unlawful action and the poor actions of the board. Why should they now be required by Parliament to give up the money that was unlawfully paid given that they have spent so much time and effort to bring this to our attention and that it has taken so long to do so?So in short the workers and the families who are affected by this legislation and its retrospective implementation have fought extremely hard to bring this to our attention. They have incurred costs in order to do so. Now that we are about to try to fix the primary problem we should not demand that they continue to pay. So on that basis the Green Party does not support this bill. We do not support the retrospective aspects of this legislation. We think that it is unfair to make those demands on those workers and their families. Thank you.