Dean Jacqui: Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Dean Jacqui: Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:649;Page:18477] 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Otago) 
: 
 Earlier in this debate I made a note to myself on the Order Paper—as members do—in response to one of your rulings Madam Chairperson. The note said that I thought this Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Bill was about providing solutions. I thought Part 2 was about making amendments to other enactments that enhance and underpin the aim of this bill which is to make housing more affordable for people. 
Phil Heatley 
: Don’t talk about that. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: You see I made a note to myself earlier on in this debate during the debate on Part 1. As I think about things I like to note them down in case I get an opportunity to speak again. My note was that I thought this bill was about providing solutions. But apparently we are not supposed to talk about that so I will move on to Part 2 “Amendments to other enactments” and to the amendments to the Building Act 2004. 
I started my contribution to the Committee stage by keeping it local so I will go local again and I will go back to the Waimate District Council and its grappling with the Building Act. I had a letter from the chief executive of the Waimate District Council Tony Alden outlining the compliance costs that his small rural local authority has to meet in terms of audits long-term council community plans and most specifically compliance with the Building Act 2004. The Waimate District Council if it decides—because this is an enabling bill and is about providing solutions—to undertake a housing needs assessment will have to apply the consequential amendments to the Local Government Act 2002 and the Building Act 2004 but that will be at a cost and at a time when councils like Waimate’s are grappling with accreditation and coping with the poaching of their planners and engineers by larger authorities. The Government has created a trade in planners because of the Building Act. There is not only a shortage of planners but a trade in planners. Small rural local authorities are the very ones that are least able to cope with the requirements of this so-called enabling bill which has the so-called purpose of providing solutions. National can see only problems and costs with this bill. 
The amendments to the Building Act will not just happen by themselves. The Waimate District Council if it decides to undertake a housing needs assessment will require a great deal of work from its one planner—if it has a planner. I do not whether it does at the moment because sometimes in small authorities those positions remain vacant for a time and they have to bring in consultants. That is life! The Government’s changes in the Building Act have created a market for planners and engineers and the small local authorities are the ones that miss out. So my Waimate District Council will struggle with these amendments to Building Act 2004 should the council decide to have an assessment—because this is an enabling bill with the aim of providing solutions which apparently we are not to talk about but they are there none the less apparently. It will struggle with these amendments to the Housing Corporation Act 1974 and these amendments to Local Government Act 2002. This bill will come at a cost to the ratepayer.