Ardern Shane: Building Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Ardern Shane: Building Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:619;Page:14868] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 I rise to talk on the title of the Building Bill because I believe it is totally wrong and totally misleading. In fact a much more suitable title for this bill would be what the Rt Hon Helen Clark found when she was tramping down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. That would much better describe the over-the-top regulation that is in this bill. This revelation came about earlier tonight when we found out that the Prime Minister herself had been to Vietnam to have a look at what they do there with regard to building regulation and qualification. That is where it came from because we cannot find anybody in the Labour Party who will admit to having been the genesis of this brilliant piece of bureaucratic nonsense. So that is the only conclusion I can come to. 
Let us just go back a bit and find out as we debate the title how this whole process started. It started as the result of the National Opposition putting a huge amount of pressure on the Government to go through an inquiry as to the problem that was starting to develop and resulting in leaky buildings. The problem was starting to develop in a very small percentage of buildings which were mostly in Auckland. 
What did that inquiry find? It found that there was a systemic failure within the building industry. It was not due to one particular thing but the inquiry pointed to a use of monolithic cladding to a failure in terms of training and qualified builders and to a major problem in how supervision was taking place. At the end of the day— 
Simon Power 
: And the problem with design. 
SHANE ARDERN 
: Yes—and to a problem with design; architects were particularly mentioned. But when we return to the bill we find that under the title there is absolutely no solution to those problems. 
I ask members opposite: when Bob the Builder is driving down the road in his ute with the dog and the radio and with this piece of doorstop sitting on the seat underneath the dog how will that stop the problem of leaky homes? I look forward to a member on the other side taking a call to explain that to the Committee tonight because I am sure that anybody who is listening will be very interested in how under the title that will happen. 
I have here before me a list of things that were suggested as recommendations by the do-it-yourself people out there in the building industry. They said that the Government should consider overhauling the current warrant-of-fitness regime. They also said that the Building Industry Authority should be empowered as a self-governing body to make sure that those who slipped through the cracks—and remember they comprise only 1 percent or less of those who built homes in New Zealand during this period—should be brought into line so that people had some redress. 
They also said that we should remove all references that are misleading or difficult to follow. What do they mean by that? They mean terms or references such as “may”—which should be replaced with “shall”—and “it is unclear in the terms of the code of compliance what it means to be responsible.” They said that some of that stuff should be cleared up and that it should be written in plain English not in the kind of English we get in Parliament that needs half a dozen lawyers. 
The lawyers have debated this bill tonight and not one of them can agree on what each clause stands for or states. I have noticed some wide-ranging views in the Committee amongst the lawyers. It is quite interesting for somebody who does not have a law degree to listen to the debate that has come from the lawyers. 
Simon Power 
: Depends on who’s paying the bill! 
SHANE ARDERN 
: Of course—it depends on who is paying the piper. That is probably how it works; it depends on what side of the fence one happens to be sitting on at the time. But it seems to me as somebody who does not have a law degree that there is a reasonable amount of ambiguity amongst the lawyers here about what various clauses in this bill stand for. 
Further the bill will take 5 years to come into force. I know there have been other Acts of Parliament that have been slow finding their way through but surely the title of the bill should be the “Very Slow-Release Solution Bill” or the “Will take 5 years to be enacted and still not fix the problem Bill”.