Smith Murray: Registered Architects Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Smith Murray: Registered Architects Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:19939] 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 I begin by congratulating the New Zealand Registered Architects’ Board and the profession of architects on achieving their new bill after 40 years replacing their 1963 Act and bringing them into a form of governance that is of a more contemporary nature. I know they have waited a long time for it and I guess that once they saw the bill come out of the select committee they thought they were getting close only to have to sit on their hands for a number of months before it finally came to the House. But the bill is here tonight and it will be passed tonight and no doubt they will have a cocktail party of their own to celebrate. 
I must agree with Stephen Franks’ comparison of this bill with the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill and agree that this bill is succinct at 87 clauses. It is something more of the sort of ilk we would expect in terms of a Government bill regulating a profession. Certainly it makes the 380 clauses in the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill look ponderous complex and way over the top as I have said previously. I guess the architects have to be congratulated on having a modest-sized bill come through the House. I would only like to see lawyers achieve the same result at the end of the day. 
This bill is about setting standards in terms of architecture but it is important in relation to the new provision for standards educational qualifications and things this bill now implements that the Registered Architects’ Board as it now is does not continue with the reputation it has for being a bit of an old boys’ club and for being restrictive. I know that there is some concern out there from some quarters that there is a degree of patch protection as far as architects are concerned. 
I think it is important for the good of the profession as a whole and for the whole building industry in fact that architects have an inclusive organisation that tries to foster difference within its midst. It may well be that architects need to look at different standard qualifications in terms of architecture to accommodate some of the people who have architectural degrees but who want to work more in a fringe area than in the main areas of high-rise buildings commercial buildings and buildings with other complicated designs. It is important if the registered architects’ profession wants to maintain a broad membership that it can accommodate the needs of its members both at the highest levels and at lower levels. I would encourage it to do that. Certainly at the Government Administration Committee we heard from architectural draftspeople and others who are working in areas on the fringes of strict architectural work and we heard their concerns about where they fitted within the industry. I will commend to the Registered Architects’ Board that it tries to take an inclusive approach but I recognise that it does have to set some minimum standards. 
This legislation as I said in my second reading speech ties in very much with the Building Act and with the licensed building practitioner regime. There will be a design group there and the indications within this legislation in terms of its facilitation which allows the Minister to delegate functions to it are that the board will be looked to in order for it to play an important role in relation to design practitioners under the licensed building practitioner regime and in setting standards for that group—at least in a consultative way if not also in a way that involves the assessment of practitioners in terms of the various categories of design. I think the board could make an important contribution in that area but if it is to do that it is important that it takes the inclusive approach I was referring to earlier. 
I congratulate the board on achieving this milestone of a new Act and wish the board well for its future as it implements the Act sees it bedding down and furthers the interests of its own profession. 
Bill read a third time.