Smith Nick: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Bill — Third Reading 
Smith Nick: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:636;Page:7178] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 National will support the third reading of this Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Bill but without the sort of rhetoric that came from the Minister that somehow this will be a solution. Yes the legislation will provide some small improvements but in no way is it a solution for the 15000 leaky-home owners out there. 
The Minister Clayton Cosgrove said that National in the Committee stage had thrown mud and been personally derisive. Let us get the record straight— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I said you proposed no solutions. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well let me deal with each of those. We have cited the statistics of his Government’s record. We make no apologies for doing that. When the original Weathertight Homes Resolution Service was set up the Government said that the problem would be resolved within 2 years. Four years later only 7 percent of claims have been resolved and we would be derelict in our duties as an Opposition if we did not challenge the Government on that record. I have not referred to the Minister by any sort of derisive term yet he has called me a grey warbler and made all sorts of other comments. It is typical of Clayton Cosgrove that when he cannot answer the questions he gets personal and he gets nasty. 
I have a very simple question I put to the Minister in the Committee stage and I will put it to him again. In the last year there have been 500 new claims and fewer than 200 settled. If that is the solution will he tell me how many claims will be resolved in the year 2007? 
Paula Bennett 
: Simple question. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: It is a fair question. Will he even assure the House that next year there will be more resolutions than new claims? The silence is deafening because the Government knows that this is a con. You see this bill changes the department that is responsible for the job. It changes the name of the service. We are now to have not a seventh Minister but an eighth responsible Minister in the term of this Government. I ask the Government how keeping on changing the Minister provides any solution for the leaky-home owner. 
I want to point out the appalling legislative process that has been around in dealing with this matter—that is the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act of 2002. It came into the House on 1 November and became law on 26 November. It was a failure and even the Minister has accepted that today. Yet today we are being asked to pass 10 pages of law that has never been to a select committee and that was only tabled in the House today. The Government has learnt absolutely nothing in terms of resolving this issue. A bill was introduced and sent to a select committee but only two of its clauses have survived—the title clause and the commencement clause—36 of the 39 clauses have been changed I tell the Minister. If he had done such a thorough and excellent job what sort of process is that? The process of dealing with this issue by legislation has been appalling. It failed once; it will fail again. 
And here is the chronic contradiction for the Minister. He said to the House that he wants the builders the architects and the developers to participate constructively in the mediation and settlement process so that we can fix the houses. He says that the Building Industry Authority and the Government failed in the 1990s but will the Government now participate in mediation? Will the Government be part of the adjudication process for finding a solution for homeowners? Not on your life! In fact the Government has spent $6 million of taxpayers’ money on lawyers going all the way to the Court of Appeal to eliminate any liability. So this Government is again saying: “Do not do what we do; do what we say. That is if there is any liability for us we will fight every step of the way through the courts. We will spare not a dollar in finding the best Queen’s Counsel in the land to avoid the taxpayer having to spend a single penny on fixing one of these houses. But if anybody else is involved then they should somehow participate.” 
National says that that is wrong. We say that there are four parts to the solution. Firstly lawyers are a part of and required in the process and their fees should be able to be claimed. The Government says no. Secondly National says that we should spend the money on fixing houses and not on the process. Thirdly National says that in finding a solution we should be able to deal with all the problems with homes and not just with the issues of leaky houses. Finally we say that we want the focus to be on getting results and the fact that this bill will not work is reinforced by the fact that no one in the Government will give any commitment as to the number of claims that will be resolved in future. Sadly leaky-home owners will have to wait for a change of Government before this problem is fixed.