Upston Louise: Building Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Upston Louise: Building Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
[Volume:652;Page:1793] 
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
: 
 I rise to speak in support of the Building Amendment Bill (No 2) put forward by the Minister for Building and Construction Maurice Williamson. For many hard-working New Zealanders 9 years of a Labour Government has meant that the dream of owning their own home has slipped further from their grasp. I am thrilled that this bill means that housing affordability will get a little bit closer for those who have that dream. 
The issue at the moment is that to construct a house is very time consuming and very costly and the layers of bureaucracy are incredibly difficult to navigate to wade through. There is such an amount of unnecessary paperwork steps and hoops to get through in this process so I am really pleased that this bill will fix a number of problems. Firstly there is the issue raised in terms of issuing multiple-use approvals for dwellings and buildings. For those organisations or businesses that want to construct multiple dwellings it will mean a much simpler process and therefore it will mean that the costs will be significantly fewer. There will also be less time involved in getting a project to completion. 
Another component of the bill is the reduction of the statutory time frame whereby the time for processing a building consent application will be reduced from 20 days to 10 days. This is significant if we look at the amount of time involved with these projects. Another key purpose is to differentiate between the major and minor variations to consented building work. That will mean that minor pieces of work do not have to go through this huge drawn-out process. It will reduce time and it will reduce money. Another thing that this bill will achieve is that it will be voluntary for an owner to obtain a project information memorandum—a PIM—from a building consent authority that is a territorial authority. 
I thought it would be quite useful to look at a couple of case studies in relation to the proposed legislation. The first issue is around compliance costs. Any time compliance costs are added on to a business they flow through on to the end-user and the end-user in this instance is the person who wants to get into a house. I firmly believe that it is an important part of the New Zealand way of life that we each and every one of us are able to aspire to homeownership. Some of us have big hurdles to overcome but if we can do anything to make that goal more achievable by reducing compliance costs and by reducing the time and energy involved with the building process—without sacrificing quality I might add—then it will be a great thing for average hard-working Kiwis who want to get into a home of their own. 
The other thing that is particularly important at the moment given the recession we are currently in is the impact that those sorts of extra costs and delays are having on those organisations or companies that are in the building trade. I met with the representative of one of those organisations in my own electorate on Friday. This is a local business that has been around for 10 years. It was recently employing 10 staff but is now down to four. The business has an apprentice but the owner is not sure whether he can hang on to his apprentice. The lag time between an owner deciding to push the go button and build and all of the time involved before the business can actually start construction is a delay that I hope will not put that business into the ground. Every time a building firm goes under in this recession it also takes the guy who builds the cabinets the person who sews the drapes the carpet layers and the people who put the glass in. You name it there is a whole industry of people who go down every time one of our building companies fails. Anything we can do as a Government to reduce unnecessary compliance reduce the time and reduce the costs has to be a good thing. 
I want to see that these local businesses are able to survive and weather the storm of the recession and that they come out on the other side so we can build more houses and so hard-working New Zealanders can achieve their dreams of getting into a home. I agree with Kelvin Davis; I think it is disgraceful that we have large numbers of New Zealanders living in substandard housing. If we can trim $20000 off the price of a house then we can get more people into houses that are worthy of them and not tolerate the sub-standard conditions that too many of our New Zealanders are putting up with. 
That is the first case study I wanted to look at. The second is around simplifying and streamlining. I know that changes were made to the Building Act in 2004 but I have to say to Labour members: “Sorry guys you did not do a good enough job so we’re going to have to do some tidying up.” I worked in local government at the time that this Act came in and I can tell members that the layers and layers of bureaucracy and additional work that got wrapped around the building process were absolutely outrageous. Possibly a small amount was necessary but the reality is that there was extra paperwork and extra work built in for no sound reason. We are getting in there cutting the red tape getting it back to basics and making sure that the process is as simple as it can be. The bill is getting rid of some of the things in the building and consenting process that are completely unnecessary. 
It was really interesting to watch the implementation of the Building Act and it will be interesting to watch from a different perspective now as a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee. I want to see that local government is efficient and productive just as there should be a level of productivity in other parts of the public sector. It is really important that we get on and focus on the actual job. For me the priority is getting people into housing at a price that they can afford. In terms of housing affordability some would say that we are in good times at the moment. We should be seizing the opportunity and making the most that we can of the economic conditions in terms of affordability. 
The third area I want to look at is the affordability side. Most days when I drive from Putaruru to my home I drive past a Habitat for Humanity home. This is a project where people are getting into housing that they potentially would not be able to get into otherwise. It is about making sure that social housing and community groups are assisting people to get into their own homes through innovative programmes. I personally want to see obstacles like red tape reduced for those sorts of organisations. If people want to build multiple dwellings then it should be much easier to do so. This legislation that I am standing in support of today will enable that. That is why I am really proud to support this legislation. 
Another thing that is important in this legislation concerns waiting times. I want to emphasise the lag time for business people. From the time a person wants to start his or her project there are time delays in terms of actually picking up the hammer and putting the first nail in a piece of wood. It is just a waste of time for any builder or the builder’s team to be sitting around and waiting for someone else to do the paperwork and it does nothing for us in terms of productivity. I really believe that this bill will take us quite a way forward in terms of improving productivity. The end goal in respect of that productivity is that more people will be in homes that they can afford and that provide a good standard of accommodation. 
Before I conclude I make the point that yes we are talking about driving down costs cutting through red tape and reducing the costs involved. But we are not talking about compromising quality. It is really important that the houses built in New Zealand are of the standard we expect and that we are able to move people out of sub-standard housing. The measures we are talking about in this bill do not compromise the quality of the housing we are talking about. I am very thrilled to stand in support of this bill which will ensure that home affordability and good-quality housing become an end goal for more of our hard-working ordinary New Zealanders.