Smith Nick: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill Building (Consent Authorities) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Smith Nick: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill Building (Consent Authorities) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Volume:641;Page:11306] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 This legislation the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill and the Building (Consent Authorities) Amendment Bill is about rotting homes but it is also as much about the rotten Government and the awful way in which it has dealt with building laws. We have both the problem with the Weathertight Homes Tribunal and that legislation and we are also fixing up the difficulties with the Building Act 2004. 
The first point I will make is that this legislation is a complete contradiction of what Labour has said to builders. The swansong of the Minister for Building and Construction Clayton Cosgrove has been “Do it once do it right.” Well it is a pity that the Minister has not applied that to the Government’s own building laws. With the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act we had the Government’s first attempt to fix the issue of leaky homes in 2002; that was a mess. The Government came along again with the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act 2006 after Clayton Cosgrove had said that the Government had to amend the legislation and he asked us to trust him that it had got it right that time; it had not. Now we have this third attempt at trying to get the legislation around fixing leaking rotting homes correct. This legislation is literally the fix-up for the botch-up for the fix-up for the original fix-up. 
The contradiction is that this legislation is exactly what should have been done 5 years ago. The tragedy is this. Five years after the inquiry into leaky homes only 16 percent of claims have been resolved $85 million has been spent on the bureaucracy of the Weathertight Homes Tribunal and we have had eight Ministers from this Government responsible for the issue—it has been passed around like a hot potato. That $85 million amounts to $110000 per home—not to fix it but to pay for the bureaucracy of the process when the average settlement is only $70000! The tragedy of this legislative mess is that the dodgy developers and builders have had 5 years to wind up their companies to disappear into the woodwork and to leave the poor old homeowner without anywhere to go. Furthermore the legislation is now resting on the shoulders of councils and ratepayers. The irony is that the Government is having an inquiry into why rates have gone up! The Government need only have a damned good look in the mirror. One of the things that has contributed to that rate rise has been the botch-up that the Government has made of dealing with the issue of leaky homes. 
But this legislation goes further. At a very late stage through an abysmal process where the Government broke the rules of the House and suspended the Standing Orders it introduced changes to the Building Act. Let me just go through the scale of the mess that this Government has made with that 2004 Building Act. Back in my office over the dinner break I went through some of the speeches that were made before that legislation was passed in 2004. I read the contribution from Lindsay Tisch who said that we should oppose the bill because it was a gross overreaction and would add hugely to the compliance costs of the building industry. That member could not have been closer to the truth. We had assurances from the Minister that there would be no increase in compliance costs. Well let us look at the record and see what has happened. 
Last week we heard the submission from the Registered Master Builders Federation of New Zealand to the Commerce Committee. The federation said to the committee that there has been a 900 percent increase in fees and Government levies since the passage of the Building Act. I had to go back to the original submission because I thought that a 900 percent increase was extraordinary. If one looks through the submission from the federation one gets a picture of why New Zealand has a home affordability crisis. We have it because this dumb Government passed a Building Act that has added hugely to the costs and the bureaucracy of building a home in New Zealand. The submission states this: “It takes longer to sort out consent issues now in New Zealand than it takes to build the house.” Is that not ridiculous? Can members opposite think for a moment about how nutty things have become in our country when it takes longer to deal with the paperwork of building a house than it takes actually to build it? 
Take this comment from the Wellington City Council in this very city for example. It said this: “A typical house plan four years ago was three A3 plans and 9 pages. Under the new Building Act we now require 12 A3 plans”—that is a fourfold increase—“and up to 300 pages of supporting documentation.” That is a tenfold increase! How can this Government say with a straight face that it is concerned about issues of home affordability when its track record is that bad? Let me give some other figures. The median price of a section today is more than the average cost of buying a house was when Labour came into Government. The Government is destroying the dreams of ordinary New Zealanders to buy their own homes. We see for instance in the last census period that every year homeownership has dropped by 1 percent. During the period of 2001 to 2006 when Labour was in Government homeownership in New Zealand dropped by a startling 5 percent. For the record for the preceding 5 years under a National Government homeownership figures in New Zealand were stable. You see the Government’s economic policies have meant that interest rates have gone up from 6.7 percent when Labour came into Government to 10.4 percent now. We have seen the average price of a home go up from $172000 when Labour came into Government to an average now of $340000. Is it any little wonder that we have a home affordability crisis with the policies that are being pursued by this Government? 
Then we come to the very minor tinkering in this legislation. Will the legislation fix the 900 percent increase in Government and council levies on building a house? Of course it will not. Will it fix the fact that it now takes longer to get consent to build a house than it takes to actually build it? Not on your life! Will it fix the problem of the tenfold increase in the amount of paperwork that is required to build a house? Of course it will not. So I say to members opposite that they cannot talk about home affordability when they have put in place dumb legislation relating to New Zealand’s building laws. It is absolutely urgent that there is a review of that legislation that we strengthen the commercial disciplines so that builders and developers are held accountable for their building and construction but that we do not impose the massive amount of red tape and bureaucracy that has been imposed by this Government. 
 I say to members opposite that home affordability will be one of the key issues at the next election. Even the slightest look at what this Government has done to the Building Act will see that change of that legislation is absolutely essential if we are going to allow ordinary New Zealanders to have that dream of owning their own home. National says that Labour has failed New Zealand in the way in which it has dealt with leaky homes. It has failed New Zealand with the huge increase in compliance costs that is reducing homeownership in New Zealand. 
We say that these bills are just another sad botch-up from a Government that does not understand the building and construction industry and because of that complete lack of understanding of how we are going to get maximum quality at least cost it is destroying the dreams of New Zealanders to own a home. How many more bills will we get from this Government on the issues of leaky homes and building before it gets them right? I tell the Government to go back to the drawing board—this legislation will not fix the problem. The Government has failed. It is not just the houses that are rotten but also this Government.