Shearer David: Building Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading 
Shearer David: Building Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading 
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DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call on the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) and I will be taking a full 10-minute call unlike National members opposite who specialise in— 
Nikki Kaye 
: It had better be good. 
DAVID SHEARER 
: I can tell Nikki Kaye that National members have on average spoken for 26 seconds. That speaks to why we are here at the moment which is because of National’s mismanagement of the House and the collision of all of this legislation at the end of the year. I remind the House that 2 weeks ago the Leader of the House said that we would not need to go into urgency before the end of the year but here we are sitting under urgency until the weekend. I do not mind doing that but I think that a democratic principle is involved here which is that there should be good debate on important legislation. This bill is one of those important bills but the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill was probably the most significant and even it did not get more than a 3½ second call from National members. 
This legislation has a long history dating back to 1991 with the deregulation of the building industry and the building codes. The idea was that somehow the market could regulate standards and ensure that buildings could be built more flexibly more cheaply and more efficiently but ultimately it was at a huge cost to New Zealand. We have just been told that it was at a cost of $11 billion but actually PricewaterhouseCoopers puts it at closer to $23 billion which is about the cost of the health and education budgets for a year put together. 
In 2004 the Labour Government brought in the Building Act which tried to tighten up considerably the regulations in relation to buildings and building construction. I think that it was perhaps too heavy and too prescriptive and that this bill provides in a sense a rewriting of the situation back to where the law should lie. Nevertheless the leaky building situation is still with us and I think the key point about this legislation is that the accountabilities are set and the expertise required by builders and councils is explicitly set so that there is real protection for homeowners and everybody else in New Zealand. In relation to leaky buildings it is the rest of New Zealand that is paying for the array of faults that happened right throughout the industry. 
This bill moves to a more balanced building consent system. It looks at low-risk building work such as a low deck a basic shed or something that any Kiwi would build and it enables that work to be done without consent which is a very welcome provision. I think we can be well and truly over-regulated; applying for consent to build a shed and having to wait for 2 months to get that consent from the council at huge cost is unnecessary. Low-risk building work such as a simple one-storey house would go through a quicker simpler consent process with fewer council inspections required and rather than having to rely on the council it would rely on the skills of a licensed builder. Consents for high-risk more complex houses will go through the current kind of system that we have. Those are all sensible changes to the Building Act and will make a difference in terms of efficiency and the ability to get things done much more quickly. 
This legislation also provides for a rebalancing of responsibility back towards professionals and tradespeople which is important. However I think it highlights the fact that the deregulation in 1991 brought about a major problem with the smaller number of builders who were trained who came through a proper apprenticeship scheme and were able to take on large building programmes. There were very weak skills in that area which contributed to the problems we have seen today. 
This legislation also includes better tools for consumers to hold professionals to account. It includes mandatory written contracts and deals with how disputes will be solved how money will be paid and how finances will be backed up. 
This legislation is good but it is pretty modest. I do not think the bill goes as far as many people would like it to go. We should consider the comments made by John Gray the President of the Home Owners and Buyers Association. He may even be watching the debate tonight and seeing the short calls that National members are taking on this bill and the cynical way in which they are treating the passage of legislation through the House. He accused the Government of a weak Building Act review and said that the changes had stopped short of a national building warranty scheme or a fidelity fund which he wanted as a backstop for homeowners which my colleague Phil Twyford talked about before. Mr Gray said: “The building industry needs to give itself an enema”. It is spoken like a true builder: to the point and saying that basically this bill is not as good as it could be. He continued: “The focus on potential liability is a sad indictment on an industry that … is still failing to focus on quality outcomes and to give consumers the level of protection they deserve …”. They certainly do deserve that protection as we have seen in relation to the previous legislation on leaky homes because families have been bankrupted and people have suffered huge financial burdens. 
The building industry is extraordinarily important in New Zealand. It is worth from memory about 5 percent of GDP. An enormous amount of people work in the industry. Yet right at the moment as Moana Mackey pointed out earlier in her speech building consents are at an all-time low. In Auckland the number of building consents being approved now is about half the number of consents being approved a year and a half ago. Although the demand for housing is still there building is not happening and we will have a major shortage of housing in particular in Auckland in the coming years unless we are able to do something about it. 
I will come to a couple of points that are more particular to this bill. Phil Twyford mentioned the fidelity fund. It has been brought in in Queensland. It is a more heavy-handed approach I agree but it does set up a fund that can be used to not only backstop any liabilities that could happen but also contribute to innovation and the building safety codes that we do not have at the moment. A fidelity fund offers the scope to be able to do that. 
The bill lacks provision for materials and I believe it should be looked into at the select committee. A lot of the leaky building debacle happened as a result of new materials that were untested or not tested sufficiently. The materials leaked or rotted and owners ultimately paid the price. This bill does not sufficiently protect consumers from faulty products of manufacturers or retailers and I think that needs to be addressed. 
Finally I hope that this bill brings about the culture change that needs to happen in our building environment. I do not think it will do that; it is too light and too modest and it does not go far enough. But the ultimate test and the ultimate challenge is to bring about a much more professional building practice in New Zealand. That is what we all should be aiming for with this bill. Thank you.