Twyford Phil: Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:10047. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): As we kick off the Committee stage on the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill I want to focus in my opening remarks on the two Supplementary Order Papers in the name of David Seymour. Mr Seymour has put up a couple of amendments that pertain to Part 1 of the bill which I think deserve some serious discussion.The first is Supplementary Order Paper 152 which basically reflects the advice that GNS Science came to the Local Government and Environment Committee with and submitted. The amendment covers the areas that are in a low seismic risk zone—so we are talking about Auckland and Northland—that are basically deemed to have an extremely low risk of a severe earthquake for example one in 110000 years. David Seymour’s amendment would let that entire part of the country off the hook completely when it comes to the requirements of this bill. The argument is that including the buildings in this bill would have minimal benefit but would impose large costs on private property owners.We approached this debate genuinely with an open mind and I would like to invite the Minister in the chair the Hon Nicky Wagner to take a call on this and to share with us the Government’s view and the officials’ advice so that we can have a real debate about David Seymour’s amendment. It is worth I think on the face of it taking it seriously because it is based on the submission from GNS Science to the select committee. I suppose the basic question of logic that I have is that this House and the committee have created this stepped risk-based approach that is now fully reflected in the bill based on the idea of dividing up the country into zones of seismic risk. I think everybody accepts the logic of that.But the question is if we are going to allow a large part of the country to be completely let off the hook when it comes to the requirements of earthquake-strengthening in this bill is that a step too far? Is that driving a bus right through perhaps not the middle but the side of this bill? Is that a step too far? Is the science precise enough that we can say with any level of certainty that the risks—given that GNS Science came along to the select committee and said: “Actually seismic risk differs from place to place throughout the country and you need quite a fine-grained analysis of the areas of seismic risk.” can we be sure enough to support David Seymour’s amendment that there really is insufficient risk to justify imposing the requirements of this bill on a very large part of the country? As David Seymour says even the costs alone that will be imposed on the owners of buildings for getting the assessments done are very significant.On the other hand the risk-based approach that is now in the bill will mean I think that a non-priority building in Auckland for example would have a 50-year time frame when you add up the different components before remediation would have to be completed. If it was a heritage building the owners could apply for a further 10 years. That is a long time in anybody’s book. I think that is the kind of counterargument to David Seymour’s amendment. I want to just make it clear that we approach this with an open mind. We would really like to hear the Government’s point of view on this issue and of course hear from David Seymour.The other amendment from David Seymour would inject into the bill in clauses 6 and 23 an earthquake life risk rating. I think this is also an interesting idea that we think merits serious discussion. If for example a country church is deemed to be an earthquake-prone building but it is used only for a very short period of time sporadically—it might only have people in it for a couple of hours a week—does that justify what proportionately could be really significant costs?On the other hand you have to wonder whether or not it would be workable to create a system that could actually be implemented and managed that would allow particular buildings to be subject to a whole other rating system as is proposed by David Seymour’s Supplementary Order Paper and how that would be maintained over time. What if the particular building—it might be a sports club or some kind of community facility—has a very erratic usage pattern? In one week maybe it is not used at all and then it might be used intensively for a period of weeks or months. So these are real logistical issues that need to be debated and discussed and I invite both the member who has put these amendments up and the Minister in the chair to share the advice and views that are available on these two amendments.I have lots to say about Ron Mark’s amendment but we will not waste any time on that given that according to Mr Chairman that Supplementary Order Paper will not be debated at all.