Sage Eugenie: Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSage Eugenie: Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 18 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:9189. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]EUGENIE SAGE (Green):E Te Māngai o Te Whare tēnā koe. He mihi nui ki a koutou. I am very pleased to take a call on the Building (Earthquake-prone Earthquake Buildings) Amendment Bill for the Green Party and I would certainly like to acknowledge the 185 individuals who died 5 years ago on Monday. I think we were certainly very conscious of them in all of the work that we have done on this bill. It is certainly a bill as Todd Muller said that is a good bill. It improves the system for managing earthquake-prone buildings it defines them and it establishes national time frames and procedures for strengthening them. We in the Green Party originally opposed the bill as introduced and that was primarily because of the provisions in it around unreinforced masonry buildings and the exemptions in relation to access provisions for people with a disability when building owners were strengthening their buildings. There have been some quite major changes in both those areas so we are very pleased now to be able to support the bill.As an MP I am certainly very grateful to the members of the royal commission on the Canterbury earthquakes. The commission did a very in-depth review and a very substantive report which provided the basis for this legislation. I particularly acknowledge everybody who appeared before the commission particularly the families friends and workmates of people who died or who were injured in the quakes. The commission in its report identified some quite significant problems in the Building Act both in the way it was drafted and in the way it was being implemented. It highlighted that there were some gaps in information quite big inconsistencies and variability in local practice with the way the Act was applied and that there was very poor understanding of risk across the country. It was the commission that provided options for reform and some quite detailed recommendations for change.This bill was introduced to Parliament in December 2013 and it has been before Parliament for over 2 years. That has enabled a very thorough comprehensive and consultative process by a select committee and I think it is a process—because it enabled two opportunities for public submissions both on the bill as introduced and then on the interim report of the select committee and the recommendations that officials were bringing back to change the bill—that has resulted in these significant changes. I think it is a process with these two opportunities for submissions and the consultative approach that the Ministers took—both the Hon Maurice Williamson and the Hon Nick Smith—that other legislation in this Parliament would benefit from.The committee heard some 121 submissions. We were able to hold hearings in Auckland Wellington Christchurch and Dunedin and then issue that interim report. I particularly acknowledge the number of submitters who put a huge amount of work into very detailed constructive and informed submissions—they had a major impact in changing this bill. They were from earthquake survivors local authorities property owners engineers scientists and GNS. The Green Party would particularly like to acknowledge the role of the science community and earthquake engineers. I think it would benefit legislation if we heard more from Crown research institutes like GNS when we were developing legislation. In the Green Party we were very pleased that the Government rejected the approach that the employers and manufacturers association and the Wellington Employers’ Chamber of Commerce were recommending. They were saying that the market was already pricing the risk posed by earthquakes so there was not any need to regulate. We certainly believe there is a need to regulate.We would also like to acknowledge—as others have done—Dr Ann Brower because it was her advocacy on unreinforced masonry buildings and in particular parapets facades verandahs and the like that was quite compelling in influencing the select committee at that interim report stage to then go on and change the provisions in the original bill. In the bill as introduced there was a failure to give sufficient priority to reducing the risk of loss of life and of serious injury from these features of unreinforced masonry buildings like parapets and verandahs.That was really disappointing to the Green Party and we had to work quite hard with others in the select committee to get that changed because the royal commission had already noted in its report: “the majority of deaths due to the collapse of [unreinforced masonry buildings] in the February earthquake occurred in public places outside the buildings that failed due to the out-of-plane collapse of facades gable ends and parapets.” So it was disappointing that officials did not recognise that in the bill as introduced. It was Dr Brower and others such as GNS who argued of course that it was much cheaper and more cost-effective if building owners focused on repairing these features like verandahs and parapets as a priority given that that would be cheaper than repairing and strengthening the building as a whole.We are very pleased that that has been changed but there is still a shortfall here. This is that the provisions in new sections 133AC and 133AD inserted by clause 23 of the bill require councils to use the special consultative procedures of the Local Government Act to consult their communities on which thoroughfares—whether they be roads or footpaths—and which unreinforced masonry buildings should be priority buildings for the purposes of having the faster time frame for strengthening them. In our view and also in view of the royal commission it is an engineering and a technical exercise as to whether unreinforced masonry features should be strengthened. It should not require councils to consult with their communities using those quite detailed procedures under the Local Government Act. It should be an engineering and a structural assessment rather than a consultative process.It is interesting that these unreinforced masonry buildings are a special category of priority buildings because for the rest of the priority buildings the councils just get on and do this assessment; they do not require consultation and we think the unreinforced masonry buildings and their features should be in that same category. I guess one of the other issues in terms of the consultative requirements is that it imposes more cost on councils. That is ironic given that the Minister who is in charge of this bill the Hon Dr Nick Smith has also been very critical of councils for their cost regimes. So we think that these unreinforced masonry buildings and their features should have a similar status to the other priority buildings that the bill sets out.The other issue that we are very pleased has been amended is in relation to the provisions requiring the provision of facilities for people with a disability when buildings are strengthened—but my colleague Mojo Mathers will discuss that issue in more detail. The only other remaining issue that we have some concern around is the methodology that is going to be used to identify earthquake-prone buildings and how that has been left to subsequent regulations. That methodology I think is of interest to councils around the country. There has been quite a lot of discussion about it. Councils such as Hamilton have already done quite a lot of work and developed a methodology to identify these buildings and it would be good if officials had been able to produce the regulations before the actual bill is passed.But I think in conclusion that the way the select committee dealt with the bill—and I congratulate the chair Scott Simpson on his chairing in a consultative and cross-party way—did significantly improve the legislation. We are very pleased to be part of a Parliament that has worked hard to significantly change and improve the bill and I hope provided a policy basis for work to strengthen buildings so that we are not again in the position that people were in in Christchurch. Thank you.