Kedgley Sue: Building Bill — Second Reading 
Kedgley Sue: Building Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:619;Page:14537] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party will be supporting this bill and we are very pleased to do so. As other speakers have remarked this bill emerged as a result of the inquiry into leaky buildings which I participated in. The inquiry contained shocking revelations about the number of New Zealanders who had their lives destroyed by finding themselves in homes that had not been properly built. The leaky building crisis amply demonstrated that the building industry was not properly regulated. Basically this bill seeks to ensure that consumers have proper protection and that there is proper regulation in the building industry. 
The Green Party is very pleased that many of the amendments we proposed relating to health and energy efficiency were added to the bill. We are delighted that sustainable development and health have been added to the purpose clause and that amongst the principles that must be taken into account when administering the bill are issues of heritage energy conservation and efficiency the use of renewable energy water conservation and efficiency the efficient use of material and waste reduction. As we are all only too well aware energy shortages are fast becoming a way of life. We are looking at damming our rivers by building new hydro stations yet even basic things such as insulation are not being done. Half our houses are not even properly insulated despite the fact that research shows that people who live in well-insulated homes have much better health and that children who live in uninsulated homes are twice as likely to experience asthma and take days off school because of colds and flu. Research also shows that there are huge energy savings to be made from properly insulated homes. So why are we not addressing these very basic things and for example providing incentives to insulate New Zealand homes rather than wanting magic-bullet solutions such as building new dams? 
Buildings and houses use large amounts of resources—concrete steel wood and so forth. They have a large ecological footprint so any sustainable future must consider their impact. When we build our houses and buildings we supposedly build them to last for 50 to 100 years—apart from some of these terrible leaky buildings which may not last even 7 years. Basically if we are to build them to last for a very long period of time then anything we can do to make them more energy efficient will pay off over time in terms of reduced energy use. That will benefit the whole of New Zealand as well as individual homeowners. Huge energy savings could be made for the entire nation if we reduced energy use by doing just simple things such as installing proper insulation and solar heating. 
So although we are pleased that energy efficiency and the efficient use of materials are now principles that must be taken into account in administering the bill we do not believe that that goes nearly far enough in the context of New Zealand’s ongoing energy difficulties. The bill states that they must be taken into account but we believe that it should direct the chief executive to give higher priority and attention to issues of energy efficiency and conservation. We would like to see a system of energy ratings for all new homes so that anyone buying a home knows how energy efficient or inefficient it is. Only the other day I was told of someone who had bought a very smart fancy new home and was absolutely aghast when after 1 month a power bill came in amounting to $1200. The new owners had no idea they had bought such a grotesquely energy-inefficient home. Another problem we believe is that the bill applies only to new houses and buildings and not to existing ones. We believe that any significant alterations to existing homes should be required to match the energy-efficiency standards in the building code just as they match the fire safety and disability access standards. We will be moving amendments to that effect. 
We also believe that territorial authorities should have been given the power if they wish to set standards that are higher than those in the building code for reasons of resource conservation. Territorial authorities in different parts of the country may wish to set higher standards for energy efficiency or water conservation than the standards found in the code but unfortunately the provisions of this bill prevent that. Again that is something we shall seek to rectify through amendments to this bill. 
We are particularly pleased that for the first time the chief executive of the new building department will be required by this bill to take into account the health effects of building materials and products as a result of amendments proposed by the Green Party. It is nothing short of astonishing that at present there is no requirement for the thousands of building products used in constructing our homes and buildings to be registered let alone assessed for their health effects. I actually had to write questions for written answer and ask for a briefing on this. Unfortunately the answer came back that basically no building materials used in New Zealand are assessed for their health effects although nine building products out of the thousands on the market are accredited and apparently in that accreditation process some health issues are looked at. That is literally nine out of thousands on the market. 
We know that buildings are built with large amounts of highly toxic substances. The treatment used in preserving timber is the most well-known example but there are large numbers of others such as resins glues flame retardants particle board which gives off gas and formaldehyde which was recently classified as a carcinogen not to mention other health concerns such as moulds fungi and staphylococcus. If we look at flame retardants for example we find there are about 173 types of fire retardants on the market. Some of them are carcinogenic. Fire retardants migrate from the material they are used in and are released into the environment yet the Building Industry Authority could not even provide answers as to which ones are used in New Zealand let alone what it thought the health effects might be. The building code says things like “gas emitted from building materials should not give rise to harmful concentrations” but there is nothing that we are aware of to enforce that. The fact is that indoor air can be more polluted than outdoor air. We spend about 80 percent of our time indoors so we are exposed to indoor pollutants for long periods of time. We have a whole new proposed national environmental standard for air quality but it is silent on indoor air quality. A number of submitters pointed out to us that they believe that this is an extremely serious issue which will become a major health concern that we will be forced to address in time. 
It is interesting that many people spend a lot of effort trying to keep their homes clean and so forth and they are not aware of the risk being posed to their health by building materials that are not healthy. Really what we are saying is we have to create indoor environments that are healthy for occupants and that use as many natural products as possible—that use sunlight renewable energy new technologies and so forth. 
Construction and demolition waste is a major contributor to the large amount of waste that is sent every year to our landfills. Some estimate it contributes about 17 percent. So we are extremely pleased that the need for waste conservation has been added to the bill. Heritage is another issue. The whole bill was silent on heritage. We heard submissions that suggested that the bill could be used to destroy literally hundreds of heritage buildings around New Zealand. So once again the Green Party initiated amendments that seek to protect our heritage buildings in New Zealand while at the same time requiring them to be earthquake strengthened. 
We strongly support the registration of builders. We believe that it will do much to address the leaky building crisis. We do have concerns which have been expressed by others about the effect of the new regulations on owner-builders. We believe that they are probably excessive and that in a way owner-builders are being penalised by the provisions of this bill when they are not the ones who created the leaky building crisis that this bill intends to resolve—it was the developers. We also have concerns about the continuance of private building inspectors. We believe that they do not offer the consumer protection provided by local authority building inspectors. 
Overall despite those reservations we believe that the bill offers much greater protection for consumers and homeowners and for that reason we are happy to support the bill.