Catchpole Brent: Building Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Catchpole Brent: Building Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:619;Page:14849] 
BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First) 
: 
 I would like to follow on from my earlier speech and pick up on the classes of licence for building practitioners. This is where a builder has to reach a certain standard before being able to take on a certain level of construction. Under the regulations there is a series of levels. At the basic level are the licensed building practitioners who are not fully qualified. They can enter at that lower level provided they meet the criteria. They are peer reviewed and they are allowed to tackle only certain styles or types of houses. If they want to move up to the next level then they have to prove their ability to take on multi-story buildings. They can prove that through the peer review system and the registration board. There is a mechanism whereby if they fail to live up to the standard expected at the different levels they are disciplined by a disciplinary board which can deregister them to a lower level. Ultimately if they are completely beyond recovery they have to prove their capability of taking on work. 
I would just like to pick up on the do-it-yourself builder. Everybody has been talking about a former Prime Minister being able to build his own house. There are a lot of stories about that. Even today he would be able to build his own house but he would require a licensed building practitioner to sign off the outer envelope of the building— 
Lindsay Tisch 
: He has to be supervised. 
BRENT CATCHPOLE 
: Yes he has to be supervised and anything to do with structural walls has to be signed off by a licensed building practitioner. Anybody else can participate in building a house so the former Prime Minister could and would be able to—[ 
Interruption 
] No probably this one cannot—although we cannot say that because as it was pointed out to me in the dinner break: “Hey what about the red-blooded sheilas who can wield a hammer?”. There are plenty of these women and there are very very good ones. There was an excellent woman who helped on Women Build 2000 for the Habitat For Humanity project. She did a very good job and is highly recognised in the industry. 
So this measure is a clear indication that the licensed building practitioner regime is welcomed by the industry. It will sort out a lot of the inconsistencies. The only thing—and I think Richard Prebble touched on this—is that we in New Zealand First feel there is one feature of the licensed building practitioner regime that should have been taken further. That is in terms of dealing with phoenix companies where a builder or developer forms a company purely for the development of a particular project then winds it up without any assets. The assets are held in another company which are then leased to the building company. Basically there are no assets for the client to then claim on. New Zealand First believes that this bill should have gone that extra step with the licensing regime and taken that aspect further. There is still potential for it to happen although the Minister and the chair of the Government Administration Committee assured us that the issue will be picked up in another Act within the commerce area. We look forward to that. Believe me we will be watching for it very very closely. In the meantime the licensed building practitioner measure in this bill is very welcome in the industry. It is important so that the industry can progress and can regain the public’s confidence.