Twyford Phil: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Twyford Phil: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8573. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 I am willing to lay a bet that when the Hon Maurice Williamson took up his warrant as the building and construction Minister sorting out the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board was probably not high on his list of strategic priorities—Maurice’s to-do list. I guess one late night 4 years ago he was sitting in the Bolton Hotel scribbling a list of things he wanted to achieve as Minister and sorting out the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board probably was not one of them. 
It is fair to say that the problems of the plumbing gasfitting and drainlaying industry and the problems associated with that industry’s board have been the bane of the lives of a number of building and construction Ministers over the last few years. It is a troubled industry. The dysfunctional relationships in that industry—I think it is fair to say—have plagued the operation of the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board and that sort of entrenched animosity between members of the board and people involved in I think two different industry associations has tied up what should be an effective mechanism to regulate and clean up an industry. It has been plagued by fighting and animosity for some time. This bill the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill is not the first plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers legislation to come before this House in the last few years. I think we are probably all hoping that it will be the last. 
Darien Fenton 
: Oh no! 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: Labour supports this bill. Well you know I have a lot of sympathy for the remarks of Su’a William Sio who pointed out—I think quite rightly—that the people of New Zealand would like this Parliament to be focusing on things that are more of a priority for them. They want education sorted out. They want jobs. They want child poverty dealt with. They want Auckland’s housing crisis addressed. Instead the Government Ministers like the Hon Maurice Williamson and this Parliament are having to spend time on what for most Kiwis is a pretty obscure piece of legislation. 
 I want simply to underline some of the comments that my colleagues Raymond Huo Maryan Street and Su’a William Sio have already made and that is that Labour is supporting this bill going to the Government Administration Committee because we feel that the issues deserve to be aired and that the various warring parties in the industry deserve the opportunity to come along have a say and see whether or not this bill can sort out the mess that the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board has got itself into. 
We have rehearsed already our discomfort with the fact that this is retrospective legislation that is seeking to validate a practice that should never have taken place. The Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board should never have been using a levy that it extracted from registered members of its industry to prosecute and discipline members of the industry who are not registered members. As the Minister said earlier it is perfectly normal in this kind of situation for an industry body like this which is charged with maintaining standards and regulating the industry to exercise a disciplinary role for registered and non-registered members. The problem is that the enabling legislation for this board restricted its purview to registered members of the board. So the board has got itself into a real pickle here and it needs this House to retrospectively validate those levies that have been spent in a way that they were not supposed to be. As Maryan Street said we can thank the Regulations Review Committee which has done its job well. It identified what I think it described as an unusual or unexpected use of the levy power and it has pursued this issue with some diligence over the last year or so. So we owe thanks to the Regulations Review Committee. 
My colleagues have pointed out also that Labour by supporting the bill at this stage is not uncritically supporting the conduct of the board. We are not endorsing the behaviour of the board in acting beyond the law—acting in fact beyond the scope of its levy power. Rather what we want to do is send this bill off to the select committee try to get the problem sorted out and give all the parties a chance to get in the room and express their views. 
I want to just provide some background about the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board for those people listening. Its job is to protect the health and safety of the public by regulating and ensuring the competency of people in trades carrying out sanitary plumbing gasfitting and drainlaying work. This bill allows the board to continue to collect offence fees. Currently it is about $600000 a year from registered persons for this 2013 licensing year. This bill validates both the disciplinary levy and offence fees in the past and changes the rules for the future. The effect of this is that the board cannot be required by registered persons to refund the moneys that were collected unlawfully by the board. I think as Maryan Street pointed out if we do not do that basically the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board will go belly up and that will make a complicated and difficult situation much worse. So we support the bill on the basis that it is a necessary evil and something that needs to be done. 
The last thing I would like to do is just touch on the main provisions of the bill. Section 143 of the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Act is the empowering provision allowing the board to impose a disciplinary levy on registered plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers. The board is allowed to use that levy for investigations into allegations or complaints against registered persons only and for disciplinary proceedings. Well what this bill does is it empowers the board to impose those levies against registered members but it enables the board to use those levies for prosecuting or disciplining any—either registered or unregistered—players in the industry. So it extends the purpose for which the board may impose the levy and clause 4 of the bill amends section 143 of the Act in that way. 
Finally Part 2 of the bill is the validation clause. What it does is it retrospectively validates the disciplinary levy and offence fees that were imposed between 1 April 2007 and 11 January 2012.