Williams Andrew: Building Amendment Bill (No 4) — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Williams Andrew: Building Amendment Bill (No 4) — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 01 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:1828. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of New Zealand First as the building and construction spokesperson to speak on the Building Amendment Bill (No 4). New Zealand First has said previously in this House that we will support good policy but we will oppose bad policy. In this case we are opposing this bill because we believe it contains a certain amount of bad policy that is not in the best interests of New Zealand or New Zealanders.  
We seem to not learn by our mistakes of the past and we seem to go full circle and repeat our mistakes. We went through the whole episode of the leaky homes saga in the 1990s and through the 2000s which has cost this country in excess of $20 billion. As a result of that this country now has a huge debt hanging over its head that can only get larger not smaller and in fact more and more leaky buildings are being found by the day. That does not just mean leaky homes; that includes leaky schools leaky hospitals leaky commercial buildings leaky all sorts of buildings and leaky buildings of any nature in this country.  
What we are basically doing in this bill is now opening the books even wider to allow self-regulation in the sense of the building industry to a great extent. It is basically taking the regulatory side away from the local authorities and the councils who would at this point be overseeing much of this work and giving it back to the industry to say: “Well you self-regulate. Here are the rules this is what you will do and you must comply with it.” As we all know rules are there to be broken and that is exactly what has occurred throughout the leaky homes situation and that is what will occur again through this Building Amendment Bill (No 4). I am sad to say that probably in 10 years’ time we will be looking back on this and there will be amendments required to this bill—significant amendments to this bill—because people will say: “How did we ever allow much of that to go through? Why did we go back to the wild west in New Zealand? Why did we turn New Zealand back into a situation where basically virtually anything could go up without too much oversight by the local authorities?”.  
I was a hearing commissioner for 9 years in local government and I sat on many many many building consent and resource consent applications. When you have sat as a commissioner and you have heard the applications before you you do understand why it is necessary to have a regulatory authority that is at least having an oversight to much of the building process that is going on. For instance and I raise the issue of heritage nowhere in this document do we hear the mention of the word “heritage” yet much of this work that will be allowed to occur without any consent from any authority could have a great effect on the heritage buildings within this country. For instance it says here in clause 7 of Part 1 of the schedule: “Repair or replacement of outbuilding—The repair or replacement of all or part of an outbuilding” is permitted. So basically an outbuilding could be there that might be 100 years old it might be 120 years old and somebody without a permit can literally just replace it as long as it is within the same footprint and build a new building on the same footprint. To my mind we could see decimation of heritage buildings throughout New Zealand based on that clause alone.  
It also says here under clause 10 of the schedule that interior alterations to existing non-residential buildings will be a permitted activity so in other words shops offices libraries factories warehouses churches or schools can be retrofitted internally without a consent. Well again we have wonderful buildings throughout New Zealand heritage buildings but basically they could be stripped out gutted completely removed on the inside and replaced with no consent from an authority. So again we could have decimation of our heritage buildings. This also allows for things like carports to be put up without a permit. Again can you imagine what sorts of structures could go up in the form of carports around the country. It also allows for retaining walls to be built as long as they do not exceed 1.5 metres depth in the ground. Well a lot of retaining walls are right on boundaries with other properties affecting neighbours and if there is no consent given for a particular retaining wall you could have a huge impact if it does not have the required drainage put in it if it does not have the right footings and if it is not done to a certain standard. But if it is permitted to be done up to 1.5 metres then this could have a huge impact on property owners and neighbours.  
This bill allows for fences and hoardings to be put up up to 2.5 metres in height. Well most fences in most cities are 1.8 metres and they have discretion usually up to 2 metres in height for most residential areas. This will allow fences to be put up up to 2.5 metres in height. Again this will allow basically large fences to go up all over the place without any authority or consent at all. If you carry on through it allows signs to go up that do not exceed 3 metres in height. Again large hoardings can be put up. At the moment authorities have control over signage throughout the country and can determine where signs go how high they are and that sort of thing. This basically allows for signs to go up that do not exceed 6 square metres and do not go higher than 3 metres. Again we will have outright large-scale erection of signage around this country with no authority being able to intervene and stop it.  
I look through this and I think there are not enough safeguards in here. I have a great impression from working with building inspectors and working with local councils and authorities on the North Shore and in the Greater Auckland area and I have been very impressed with the work that the building inspection people do. They are the watchdogs for building. They are the ones who go out on site and make sure things are done to a certain standard. They have been the ones unfortunately who have been put in the invidious situation of having to approve buildings under the building code that allowed for the kiln-dried timber and the monolithic cladding that ended up in the leaky homes but they were inspecting buildings to the building code that was passed by the National Government back in the 1990s. So they were approving what was an approved building code. However in retrospect many of those same building inspectors would say that the same buildings should never have been allowed to go up in the first place and the building code should never have been amended back in the 1990s to allow those sorts of buildings to be constructed.  
What we are seeing here is basically again a dilution of the building standards. What we are seeing is an opportunity for wholesale erection of all sorts of structures. For instance pergolas—it will be a permitted activity to put up a pergola anywhere you like. And again pergolas do fall down. They do topple. I have personal family experience of a person who has come off a pergola because it was improperly constructed. This allows for tents and marquees to be put up any time you like as long as they do not exceed 100 square metres in floor area. Again sometimes in this situation you do have to have somebody controlling it because again these structures can be built on all sorts of land situations—slopes hills and all sorts of parks and recreational areas that are not really suited.  
This is again basically an attack by the National Government on local government. It is very clear that National does not like local government. They see this as another way of diluting local government. This is basically kneecapping the whole process of local government in terms of its regulatory role in overseeing building inspections. New Zealand First certainly supports the reduction in fees and the reduction in costs in terms of the building sector. We certainly support the reduction in the cost of inspecting the works and finding cost savings but we have great concerns that through this and in years to come what we will see is a lot of shonky building going on. We will see a lot of what we would call replacement of buildings and replacement of structures when in actual fact they will be new structures. We see this as potentially affecting significant heritage buildings throughout New Zealand because people will simply turn a blind eye to what is replaced in an existing situation. So New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill and we will be opposing it through this reading.