Halbert Shanan; Salesa JennySHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. It's my honour this afternoon to rise and speak in support of the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill. Can I open this afternoon by acknowledging Minister Poto Williams and the work that she's been doing and also acknowledge the importance of pronunciation when we acknowledge any names within this House. So Minister Williams I think you've done an incredible amount of work gearing up in construction and—when I listened to your presentation to our Transport and Infrastructure Committee last week—just the incredible amount of planning that this Government has done in order to gear up to where we need to be. I think particularly about the future of our construction sector and how critical it is to the success of Aotearoa New Zealand moving forward. I think of how this sector is organised how it's supported and led because our reality is that 275000 New Zealanders work in this space currently and that continues to grow with the amount of work that we're doing here. But also there are the 4.5 million of us who rely on it for warm dry and efficient homes; our local schools that are being built; the hospitals that the Government is delivering; safe worksites; high quality roads and rails. There's a lot of infrastructure being built into this country. And I guess as New Zealand gears up for all of this activity to grow and to reach $43 billion in the 2021 Budget it's crucial that the Government and industry work alongside each other as well as our councils and iwi. We want to see value for the $10 billion that Government spends annually on construction and infrastructure and the sector and workforce need to know that this future is bright from the leadership under this Labour Government and that we have a strong pipeline of work under way. When I've thought about this bill and researched and done the work behind it I've learnt so much in my short time as a member of Parliament and this House on a subject matter area that is somewhat new to me. Two weeks ago I went across to Devonport to meet with a small business on the Shore who are building houses—a Māori-owned business who have a number of developments across Auckland's North Shore out west and out in Papakura. They invited me to see this piece of work because of the apprenticeship scheme that they are running and not one not two but eight apprentices presented themselves on that day across a number of disciplines all of Māori descent and all from Northcote in the North Shore. So it was a wonderful surprise and something that I was very proud of. What this bill does for me is that when I think back to these particular people that are contributing to our construction in this country—they are going over and beyond in order to train apprentices and do right by New Zealand and people and what this Government is attempting to do which is to build houses and hospitals and schools—why should they have uncertainty? Why should they have uncertainty about a proportion of their payment 10 percent in fact? Therein lies the challenge for me—that we want these people with our infrastructure spend to gear up our workforce to gear up their business to help us build houses because it's in dire need in this country yet they have all the uncertainty. That's the question that sits with me. So the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill amends the Construction Contracts Act 2002 to particularly strengthen and clarify the retention money regime. The retention money is an amount held back by one party to another. It's commonly between 2 and 10 percent of the contract and it's often paid after 12 months following the expiry of the defects liability period if—and if—they are satisfied with the job that's done. That is on a gentleman's handshake. It's on a high-trust model and leaves some of our most important small businesses with the level of uncertainty and question that we actually don't want them to have. Sadly in the past there has been a number of cases where contractors have used retention money as working capital. If the contractor goes bankrupt the subcontractor loses out on getting refunded their retention. And again close to home there's an example of Stanley Group an organisation that was based on Auckland's North Shore. In that particular example Stanley Group had been liquidated—an Auckland and Waikato building company. The companies were placed into liquidation on the Thursday after a vote by shareholders—as quick as that which I found out at the Companies Office. The business at that time had about 100 staff had three projects under way Housing New Zealand in Māngere Hamilton and Whakatāne. And what we found in that was the creditor's business would likely be owed; about $150000 is what they found themselves short. Another director and creditor found himself short being owed about $250000. So that's the liability that sits on our subbies—our subcontractors—that we're asking them to carry on a gentleman's handshake when we need them to have confidence to gear up build build build in this particular industry. So that's a hard ask.When I look at the timeline of how this has come about—and you know I'm not totally sure how to do this but can I acknowledge the previous Minister for Construction and Building for the work that she did in the lead up to this. There was hard yakka there but yes it does go back to 2014 with the Hon Nick Smith and through to the last Government under the Hon Jenny Salesa and then geared up as a part of this. I acknowledge the points that were raised by the previous member Nicola Willis where she asked why this had taken so long. I think she said that it was lodged in May last year. Since then we've had a COVID pandemic across this country. This House didn't quite sit as normally as it did so one would expect—it's not only that but the inclusion of an election in 2020. And when the House sat this is now in front of us under the leadership of the Hon Poto Williams. So we've certainly got work to do to continue to push these types of bills forward. They support those that we need to be supported in this particular time when we build back better. I always say we build back better together. And again I say that this Government does and has to work alongside industry alongside our councils and alongside our iwi and that in the current circumstances where we don't have enough houses for the people that we need across Aotearoa New Zealand then politics can't play ball in the work that we need to do. We need to get up and do that. But it's also part of a larger programme of work that we're doing in this space. I'm so proud that under this Government we've issued more consents than we've ever issued. In Auckland alone in March alone 4128 new homes were consented—the highest number since the 1940s—Marja Lubeck: Many in your area?SHANAN HALBERT: —many many in Northcote as we build those houses mixed dwellings and we increase the growing pains of intensification. But we'll get through it together. I also as I talked about the apprenticeship scheme before am just so proud of the work and the number of apprentices: Māori Pacific rangatahi—young people across this country that we're building this workforce for. Again I finish on this point that when we're building houses we're building hospitals and we're building cycleways and walkways across our Waitematā there's a lot of opportunities—a lot of opportunities for work economic opportunities—but we still need to stand there hand in hand across Government industry iwi and council and let's do it together. I commend this bill to the House.Motion agreed to.Bill read a first time.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is That the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill be considered by the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.Motion agreed to.Bill referred to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.