Dyson Ruth: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 11 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9336. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I want first of all to acknowledge and thank the Minister for Building and Construction for his contribution. I know that he feels really strongly about it but I feel slightly resentful at the insinuation he made that Labour does not support a safe regulatory regime for plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers because he knows that is not true. He knows that is not correct and that we support safety regulation. Had he read the report of the Government Administration Committee perhaps he would have some inkling of the solutions that we saw going forward. It is a very divided sector and that in itself is pretty unhealthy. Frankly I do not think that the Minister’s contribution has assisted towards any other way than it remaining divided. I do not think that that is the only leadership position that might have been taken but obviously the Minister decided to barrel ahead with it.I want to also acknowledge and thank the Minister for giving the select committee more time than he originally did. It took just one request and he immediately granted it and that was really helpful for us. The original proposal was that we have our briefing although we were not able to get advisers because you cannot request advisers until you meet so we had to first of all meet then ask for advisers which was immediately granted then we got our briefing then we would hear submissions from a small range of individuals and then we would deliberate—all at one meeting. We were a bit concerned about that given that even though it is a pretty straightforward issue in terms of what is being addressed it is not straightforward because of the complexity within the sector. We were trying to get it right not add to the mistakes that had been made in the past.The Minister is also correct in saying that when this legislation the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill was originally introduced it was the intention to have the offences and disciplinary fee funded in the way that the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board continued but he is incorrect in saying that everyone thought that was the case. If they had there would not have been an issue raised with the Regulations Review Committee and then subsequently with the Ombudsman. So we have had quite a lot of time actually realising that these actions are not within the scope of the legislation. The board understood from the Regulations Review Committee report and then the subsequent Ombudsman’s report that this was outside its jurisdiction.What the Minister is asking us to do in this legislation is basically leave aside that finding from both the Ombudsman and the Regulations Review Committee and say: “Well that was the intention therefore we should validate it.” Well from the perspective of the people who took the complaint they feel justifiably grumpy about that. They followed proper process. They went to the Regulations Review Committeeand they went to the Ombudsman and said “We don’t think the law allows this.” and both the Regulations Review Committee and the Ombudsman came back and said “That’s correct. It doesn’t.” So this is the way to fix it but it does not acknowledge the unfairness that those people felt. Nor does it engage with the proper process that they went through. They went to those two organisations the Regulations Review Committee and the Ombudsman and I think it is quite a big step to ask Parliament to just ignore the fact that for this considerable length of time that fee and levy have been imposed outside what the scope of the legislation was known to be.It may be a little group. If it is so little then it is surprising that it is going to bankrupt the board as the Minister has indicated. It is also a little surprising that the Minister says that even though it was outside the law we could not possibly go to the Minister of Finance and ask for a one-off appropriation so that the fees that were collected illegally could either in part or in full be paid back to the members who paid that levy and fee.So the proposal that the Minister has asked us to think about—I do not know that I am happy to do that actually but what I would propose to the Minister is that he think about a better engagement with the sector. This is not a group of people whom we want to be disengaged from the legislative process. They should be supportive of it. They clearly are not supportive of the board and I would not advise changing the board because we have tried that a couple of times. That clearly did not work.But I do think that the board could be more accountable and transparent. Actually the select committee members made that point directly to it and it took that on the chin. My reading of what it said back to us was that it would do that. It understood that part of the frustration that is felt in the sector is over the lack of accountability and transparency in regard to the board’s actions. So it collects money and the people whom it collects it from do not really feel confident about what it is using it for. Better transparency I think would improve the situation.This matter should be better resolved going forward. The legislation is a bit of a blunt object really. It is a bit of a sledgehammer approach. It does not offer any possibility of a fairer way of setting the levies and fees in the future and that is another one of the concerns that the many plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers who have communicated with us have expressed. There have been other examples in other industries that they say would be a fairer way of collecting the money. I do think that the Minister could again over the weekend—I presume we are going to have this bill back before the House early next week—look a bit more broadly at other ways of collecting that money.As the Minister alluded to my colleague Raymond Huo has proposed an amendment. It is that a percentage of the moneys be repaid to the affected parties. It does allow for an opportunity for agreement to be reached between the various parties in this discussion and it then offers the opportunity that if agreement cannot be reached on the level for repayment—you know it is somewhere between zero and 100 percent—then the Chief Ombudsman should make a determination.That seems to me to be a pretty sensible way forward. It would recognise that the aggrieved parties who took the complaint in the first place have had some recognition of that that they have not just had Parliament trample over their victory if you like which is what they saw it as. They saw that they had taken their complaint through a proper process and it had been agreed to actually. Both the Regulations Review Committee and the Ombudsman said “Yes you’re right.” and then recommended a way forward. So they feel as if having achieved this victory in terms of having the illegality of the fee and levy recognised they are now just being ignored. Well that is not a good way to treat people who have gone through a proper parliamentary process so the suggestionthat has been made in Supplementary Order Paper 204 is that an alternative approach be made. The end outcome would be the same in terms of the safety of the industry which from what I heard from the Hon Maurice Williamson is his primary concern.That would be unanimously supported in this House. Nobody wants cowboys operating in such a critical sector and there must be some method for the board to call cowboys to account. What Labour is saying is that this way is not the only way and certainly may not be the fairest way. The industry does not support it wholeheartedly. We have had as I am sure all members of the House have a lot of correspondence on this matter. Some—Hon Maurice Williamson: From a handful of people.Hon RUTH DYSON: No actually from a wide range of people and my constituency colleagues will attest to the fact that their electorate offices have had a lot of visits as well. I am sure that in the Pakuranga electorate there would have been one or two plumbers who tried to get an appointment with the Minister but perhaps he was pretty overloaded in his timetable; I am sure he is a busy electorate member of Parliament.So this has been a rushed process but I think we have had the goodwill of every committee member. For example we decided not to call for additional submissions but we considered the correspondence that we had received in the select committee on this matter. We treated that as submissions so all members not only read it but discussed it rigorously as well.The advisers on this legislation have been very hard-working and very attentive to the concerns that have been raised. They may have been a little frustrated that sometimes we wanted to try to get a better resolution. They had a clear mandate to progress this bill but I think they gave us considered and rigorous advice and all members of the select committee have put quite a lot of effort into it.It is a pretty unhappy situation though when you have such an important issue being the cause of such controversy and lack of agreement within Parliament. Who knows? We may well decide that over the next few days before the House next considers this we will be able to get a fairer resolution and a resolution that the sector buys into. That would be my preferred outcome and I certainly hope we can achieve that over the coming few days.