van de Molen TimTIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's lovely to be able to take a call on this bill. It's a critical industry the building and construction sector. I'm proud to be a spokesperson for it for National and I do commend the Minister for Building and Construction for the work that's been done in this space. It is an area that offers huge potential and I've been quite excited actually as I've been learning more through this portfolio. I met with PrefabNZ and their enthusiasm in particular for the modular construction space was really interesting. I think what this bill is doing is a great step towards helping to reflect the changes the modernisation the new technology the different building practices that have come into our system here in New Zealand over time. It's appropriate to now be setting up the modular component manufacturer certification scheme for them to better reflect I guess the ability to turn out consistent products in a safe and efficient manner that can then give confidence to those building consenting authorities—the BCAs—to be able to sign those off in a fast-tracked process I suppose. One of the things I hear consistently when I talk to people in the industry or those who are just wanting to build a house or any number of construction projects is the time it takes to consent. That is a sticking point consistently around the country. The ability to shorten it in instances down to 10 days is fantastic so having that within this bill is good. I do just want to highlight one of the concerns that was raised by I think it was PrefabNZ actually during their submission around how you ensure where the liability sits within that process. Of course the construction of a particular modular component versus the installation may be done by a person who is not necessarily adhering to how the manufacturer anticipated that module would be assembled or installed into whatever site it is and so yeah there's just a question mark over that. But the process itself I think is good. We're supporting this—I will say that. So you know there's been some good—Hon Member: Hooray! TIM VAN DE MOLEN: —work done on it and—thank you. Thank you. Well done to all the officials and the select committee for their work on it as well throughout this process. As I said this sector has huge potential and the Minister touched on this being part of phase one. I am excited to see the progression of that and I look forward to seeing phase two as well the next steps. There's always more that can be done around some of that regulation because what I hear as well when I'm out there talking with participants in the industry is that we have seen a significant increase in the level of compliance and the time it takes to get things done but actually we're still seeing issues slipping through as well. So the additional compliance hasn't solved all of those concerns we're having around some of the standards and ensuring that we're delivering safe products and that our consumers can have confidence in that. So I look forward to seeing phase two which hopefully will address some of those aspects and give a bit more certainty and take out some of those areas where we are still unfortunately seeing issues coming through the sector not just in this particular modular construction space of course but more broadly across the industry.So in terms of this bill the product certification scheme was one area that I thought was really good to see work done alongside the minimum requirements for information. Right so this was all about trying to speed up the ability to get the process signed off and also to give confidence to those people using whatever products or methods they are using that they comply and adhere to the standards necessary. So those aspects were great.The other one that I really wanted to touch on in my contribution here was around the broadening of the scope of the levy. That's an area that again has come up in numerous discussions I've had around the ability to utilise I think it's about $60 million - odd worth of surplus levy at the moment to make some proactive changes or improvements in different areas rather than just having that levy there and maybe offsetting it and reducing the levy over time until it dwindles down. But broadening the scope as proposed here enables some practical changes to be brought forward in my view and I'm really excited by that particular aspect to give a bit more flexibility to I think tick some of those boxes that we're hearing from industry need to be explored in more detail and obviously funded alongside that.Lastly the other aspect I wanted to touch on was around the penalties and offences and some of the changes made there obviously around the levels of fines but more specifically around the extension from six months to 12 months to investigate a potential offence. Again this comes back to giving confidence and certainty to those participants in the industry that standards are being met. So that additional six months I think gives a good balance between of course wanting to proceed and to have an appropriately compact investigative time frame and also ensuring that any necessary process can be gone through to cover off—well firstly to take up and explore the potential of an offence but also to look at whether multiple offences have occurred and to gather appropriate evidence. So that extension of a further six months I think provides a nice window to enable that to occur without it being an unduly long time to work through that process.All in all there's some really good stuff in this. I'd like to acknowledge all the submissions that came in—96 I think it was—from a whole range of different sectors so I thank them for their contribution as well. I'm excited to see this progressing through and I'm very keen to see the next phase as well Minister. I look forward to seeing that in due course but I commend this bill to the House. Thank you Mr Speaker.