Ardern Shane: Building Bill — Third Reading 
Ardern Shane: Building Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:619;Page:14921] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 I rise in the third reading to oppose the bill which is what National members have done the whole way through so it will come as no surprise to the House. There are a range of reasons for that and there is a range of debate yet to be had on this bill. 
Let us start with how the whole process began. The 1991 Building Bill which was passed with the intention of reducing compliance costs was found to be a bit deficient. There is no dispute on this side of the House about that; the National Party accepts it. Certainly the building survey that was carried out in 1994 warned that there were some problems looming and something should be done. By 1998 the Building Industry Authority had investigated that and had decided that because of a range of reasons there were some problems starting to develop. I think it said at that stage that there was a development of systemic failure for the reasons that the Hon Ken Shirley spoke of earlier which included the change in the way that we built buildings and the desire to have them more airtight watertight and insulated and able to be heated from inside outside and everywhere else. Simultaneously we were going through a campaign primarily run by the environmentalists against the use of tanalised timber for a whole lot of misguided reasons that have been well stated throughout this debate. So we moved to a situation of monolithic cladding highly insulated construction and untanalised  
Pinus radiata 
 being used for the framing. All of that along with bad design in trying to achieve modern architectural desires led to the leaky house syndrome. 
It was decided by the new Labour Government that an independent inquiry should be conducted. It was chaired by the then State Services Commissioner Don Hunn. The Hunn inquiry overwhelmingly confirmed what the Building Industry Authority had been saying a year or two prior to that At that point it was decided that a select committee should look into it. The select committee inquiry of course was primarily driven by the National Party outcry at the Government’s lack of response to this issue. It absolutely put pressure on the Government through the media and in various other ways—in campaigns and at meetings up and down the country. I know that my colleague Wayne Mapp was very active in that; so was Tony Ryall. That led to the select committee inquiry which came back recommending some changes. 
The select committee then set out to go through a submission process which is quite normal; that is what happens with select committees. A number of people submitted. The summary of the submissions went along these lines: “Most industry players have little appreciation or understanding of the existing Act which is over 100 pages and has been in place for 12 years. Without significant expenditure and resourcing it is unlikely that the industry will have any greater appreciation of any proposed changes.” So it was saying that there was heavy-handed regulation. We have here a thick bill of 358 pages. I will digress a little by saying that when we have a practical problem like leaky buildings and it is handed to a bunch of urban academics to solve—the kinds of people who could not tell a claw hammer from a Skilsaw or rusticating from Hardiplank—then we end up with 358 pages of bureaucratic socialist nonsense that will not fix the problem. 
Jill Pettis 
: Stop saying that. 
SHANE ARDERN 
: There is no evidence that it will. That is the end result. I notice I have excited one or two members on the other side. I am pleased I digressed because it has woken up one or two members over there. 
What happened then was that the select committee listened to the submissions and overwhelmingly the submitters who came in were people with a practical building background—there were a few lawyers of course; we always tolerate a few lawyers in the process. They came through and said that what Mr Smith from United Future the party that says it stands for common sense is proposing will add a huge layer of cost to the industry will make low-cost housing more unaffordable and will make poor-quality houses more sustainable because nobody will have the money to be able to fix them. They said it will run the do-it-yourselfers out of business will put them completely out of business because they will be required to have a certified licensed building practitioner standing there on a Sunday afternoon with mum dad and the kids there inspecting their work on upgrading the new family room. 
I digress again. The house I grew up in was a traditional Taranaki sharemilker’s cottage. Every time another child was born another room was added on to the house. That was how it worked in those days. This bill will absolutely stop that practice from happening. That house used to leak like a sieve. People would say that was good. It was as cold as hell. In fact the old man used to say and I need to say it again: “You opened the fridge door and the cold air rushed in.” That is the kind of house I grew up in. That house could still be built to that standard under this bill. That is the irony. The things that that house had like eaves a corrugated iron roof sash windows and native untreated timber are what is being proposed in this bill. We could have had a building certifier standing there but the end result would have been the same. The house never fell down. The house was solid. It did not rot except for the weatherboards on the outside which had to be replaced from time to time. The house stood there for 100 years. People on the other side say that that could not be; well it could be. That is the reality. That is exactly what could happen. [ 
Interruption 
] Where are the standards in the bill? The Green member made a very valid point when she said that some of the issues around insulation—which of course is in the building code not in the bill—are not actually mentioned. 
Here is another interesting analogy. The old house I grew up in had water tanks. We had our own water supply from a tank on the roof. The tank occasionally would have in it the odd dead bird a few dead possums plenty of bird droppings from the roof a few leaves—they all added body to the water. But listen to this: the house had a corrugated iron roof painted with lead paint secured with lead-head nails with lead flashing and galvanised pipes to provide the water to the taps. It was perfectly safe and environmentally friendly—rainwater off the roof! It is a wonder we were not poisoned by the water we drank. 
Hon David Carter 
: It made you bald. 
SHANE ARDERN 
: Absolutely! I know there were some side effects as my colleague says but the reality is that that house would pass the test today. That is what happens when a bunch of urban bureaucrats try to design something. 
Let us have a look at some of the other bizarre things that have happened. Yes we have given the chief executive more power and I do not know that that is a bad thing. We will have to suck it and see on that one. We will not know until we test it. But here is the real acid test. How will a chief executive based in Wellington or Auckland have jurisdiction over what happens with house construction in Kinohaku? That is what I want to know. All that he will do is bind up all those people out there through the territorial authorities which now will have to adhere to instruction from the chief executive and with so much red tape that our traditional Kiwi bloke out there with a ute and his dog and his radio will be out of business. When a Kinohaku family wants to build on to their house they will have to get an Auckland-based carpentry firm or construction firm to go down there and build it. What will that do? It will add about $40000 or $50000 of costs to building houses in outlying isolated rural areas where the territorial authorities will not have the horsepower or the expertise to provide the kind of red tape that the member is advocating. That is what will happen. 
Of course all the Auckland firms are rubbing their hands together. The Hon Richard Prebble touched on this point last night in the House. He mentioned the director of such a firm. Those people love this bill because they know that the man with the ute and the dog and the radio is history. The typical Labour-voting Kiwi bloke is out of business and they know that. He will not be able to put up with this regulation. He will not be able to get through it. 
But that is not all. It gets worse. Not only will swimming pools need to be fenced but they will need to be caged. If people have a swimming pool next to a creek that runs down a mountain to the sea—that is how it normally happens—there may be no fences or gates around the creek but the swimming pool will have to have a cage round it. 
We oppose this bill. It is nuts.