Catchpole Brent: Building Bill — First Reading 
Catchpole Brent: Building Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:611;Page:8430] 
BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First is proud to have made a substantial contribution during the weathertightness of homes inquiry. I congratulate this Government on sitting up and taking notice eventually that there was a problem with leaky homes. For so long this Government sat on its backside and did absolutely nothing. In fact it completely shut out all the reports that were coming in about leaky homes. But finally it has sat up and taken notice and I am delighted that it has done so. New Zealand First will support this bill going through to a select committee. We see it as a means of straightening out the building industry where it has gone off the rails and as an attempt to get the confidence back into the industry that the public expects to have in it. 
We have an issue with a number of the provisions in the bill and one of those is to do with the fact that so many issues are to be determined by Order in Council. Some of those issues concern who is to be licensed how people are to be licensed and what they are to be licensed for. The only problem with doing that by Order in Council is that it does not allow for public debate on those issues or for a proper public consultation process to decide them. It means that the Government can make the decisions on its own and the Minister will abdicate her responsibility on those issues because they are to be determined by Order in Council with no public consultation. 
We see it as timely that this bill raises the issue of licences. The building industry needs licensing particularly in light of the weathertight homes and the leaky-homes problem that has plagued us for a number of years now. Many areas of the building industry are already licensed and I mention architects electricians and plumbers to name but a few. But up until now builders and the building industry have not been licensed. I have two words of caution in respect of the licensing scheme. Firstly I am concerned at the manner in which the licences are to be decided. As I mentioned it is all to be done by Order in Council. But secondly the main concern is that it will create a difficulty for people in terms of knowing what they are supposed to be doing at this point in time. 
 I raise another issue which is to do with the ageing workforce. There has been a worldwide study on the ageing workforce in the construction and building industry. Last month’s Hanscombe/Means report shows us that the average age of a skilled worker in the United States is 49 years. In Canada it is 45 years. New Zealand did take part in this worldwide survey but I was not able to extract our figures from the other section that we ended up in unfortunately. It is an interesting survey. It shows that the workforce and particularly the skilled workforce is ageing. We are not getting young people coming into the construction industry because during the 1990s so many of them went into computers and the high-tech industries;that was a softer option and there was a lot more money to be made. That is leaving a vacuum. 
Having said that I point out that members of this Government may see that situation as a golden opportunity to bring in a lot more immigrants to fill those job vacancies. That is a major danger firstly because it forces the value of our workforce down and means wages will be suppressed and secondly because it means there is no need to educate and upskill our own people. We will end up with a lot more immigrants coming in and filling those vacancies because it is an easy and a quick option to bring in immigrants to fill those spots rather than to train up our own people. By failing to train our own people we will end up with a workforce that is depressed and there will be no incentive for our young people to enter the construction industry and train properly. That is a major danger in the Government’s approach of opening the doors to immigrants just to fill a vacuum that has been created over time. 
The ageing workforce is in danger of being forced out of the building industry because people feel that they will have to retrain to gain a license. It would be a shame to see the ageing workforce that we have—the skilled workers already in the industry—being forced out because they have the knowledge to train the young ones who are coming into the industry. This Government crows long and hard about the Modern Apprenticeships scheme but I point out that the scheme is nothing more than a renaming or if one likes a rebranding of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority training programmes. All that the Government has done is to dress them up in a different title and to put them straight back out there. That scheme does not give young people a proper apprenticeship or the full work experience related to the industry they are in. So there has been no change as far as this Government’s so-called Modern Apprenticeships scheme is concerned. 
This bill dissolves the Building Industry Authority and replaces it with a chief executive but a chief executive of what? It does not explain what the chief executive is to look after. The bill gives some of the chief executive’s job description but does not state he or she has responsibility for an entity. The bill also puts the responsibility for meeting the code of compliance on to the building owner. It takes that responsibility out of the hands of the builder and puts it on the building owner. In the recent history of the building industry we have had a situation whereby developers and builders have gone into liquidation for the sake of avoiding their responsibilities. Not everybody is doing that but some unscrupulous developers and builders have gone into liquidation in order to walk away from their responsibilities. This bill now puts the onus of repairing and getting a building up to standard back on to the building owner where the building owner has not had the opportunity to obtain recompense from the builder. That needs to be looked at during the development of the bill. 
There are a number of implied warranties. One of the most important issues concerns Standards New Zealand. Too often Standards New Zealand is sponsored and is therefore captured by an interested party. That is a big danger. This bill does not deal with that.