Williamson Maurice: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Williamson Maurice: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:669;Page:16040] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Building and Construction) 
: 
 I move  
That the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill be considered by the Local Government and Environment Committee that the committee present its final report on or before 28 April 2011 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 187 189(a) and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
This bill brings to the House the legislation that will underpin a package the Government has negotiated with a number of parties. We have negotiated with local government and with the banks and we now have a package to bring to the House. 
I will be very brief and say in summary that the package will allow homeowners to voluntarily choose whether to take it. The most important point I can make to anybody is that no one will be forced to take this package. If they take it 25 percent of the repairs will be paid by the Government; 25 percent of the repairs will be paid by the local authority if the local authority was the consenting authority—sadly for some people if the consenting authority was an independent certifier they will not get that 25 percent—and the remaining money be it 50 percent or 75 percent will be given as a guaranteed loan from the bank to pay for it. 
It is most important to point out here that some protection will be put in place so that local authorities cannot be sued for any more than that commitment and they cannot be sued by being joined in a roundabout circuitous route. The homeowner will still be allowed to sue the builder or the developer but the local authorities were concerned that the developer might then try to bring the local authority into the litigation and it would be back for some more liability. This package will exclude that possibility. It will give a cap to local authorities that their maximum liability will be 25 percent of the repair. 
It gives the Crown some safety. The Crown did not need to buy into this package. Twice the Crown has been joined into the litigation and the courts have said that no the Crown has no standing in this. So we could have said that we were not going to do it. This package will give homeowners the right if they choose to pick a 25:25:50 arrangement. 
I am sorry that there will be some limits. There is a 10-year limit and people who are just outside that will be upset but every time we try to look at the magnitude of the sum of money involved our eyes begin to water. Our PricewaterhouseCoopers report showed that the damage is estimated to be $11.5 billion but possibly as much as twice that amount. They are huge numbers and a Government with a deficit on the books every month of about $1 billion struggles with them. I apologise to anyone who is excluded from the package but we cannot leave it open-ended for everybody. 
I have been out and about and I have seen people in tears in their house. They are stuck. They cannot get it fixed and they cannot get the bank to lend anything. They have pleaded with me to please just do something. They say they did what they thought was right. They invested all their life savings in a property. They thought it was the right thing to do but now they are sitting in a piece of rotting junk. 
I commend this bill to the House. As I said before I hope that when it comes back from the select committee we can bang it through its remaining stages and begin to start offering those settlements. The money will be paid only on receipt of work done so it will guarantee that the actual fix to the house is done and money is not just paid to someone who may then onsell it so we have the problem once again. Thank you.