Smith Murray: Building Bill — First Reading 
Smith Murray: Building Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:611;Page:8428] 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 This bill is a monument. It is a monument to the failure of the laissez-faire free-market philosophies of the 1980s and 1990s. This bill is a monument to the naive ideologies of the 1980s Labour Government known as Rogernomics and of the 1990s National Government known as “Ruthanasia” and to the ACT party’s base philosophy and the base philosophy of the right-wing elements of the National Party. This bill is a monument to the naive idea that if one leaves things to market forces everything will turn out all right. That sounds good; personal responsibility without Government intervention sounds like quite a good idea—everyone free to do anything he or she wishes as long as it does not unduly impact on the rights of others. But a self-policing market with competition deemed to ensure that consumers receive the best quality at the cheapest price is a nullity. It just does not exist. The abysmal failure of the present Building Act is testament to the fact that self-policing markets do not work. 
With the Building Act 1991 we had deregulated building practice. The Local Government Act that came in at a similar time subjected territorial authorities to cost-efficiency practices. We found an unregulated building industry. What did we get out of those things? We got cowboys people with merely a dog a ute and a radio who would turn up with a hammer in hand and offer their services for less than the more reputable builders could offer theirs—low cost but low quality. Consumers lacking knowledge and information to compare building practitioners and compare work quality were sucked in. The ideas that one’s home was one’s castle and that homes stood the test of time were shown to be fallacies. The whole market philosophy of one gets what one pays for unfortunately became the reality for a lot of homeowners in New Zealand. The requirement for territorial authorities to be cost-effective coupled with a lack of adequate guidelines put pressure on territorial authorities to speed up building consents and certification processes and to reduce their level of inspections. Cost-effectiveness can be a good thing at times but when it comes to the question of regulation and the policing of work it is often the enemy. 
So what can we learn from the failed practices that the present Building Act gave us? We can learn that market forces left to their own devices without regulation or policing will always result in quality reductions. Parties to transactions who have inadequate information or knowledge to assess competitive offers will suffer. Market forces may work in purely commercial environments where there is a level playing field where there are real alternatives and where both parties have skilled knowledge of what they are dealing with; they do not work in the imbalance usually evident in retail transactions between commercial enterprises and the general public. It is totally naive to think they will. 
This bill seeks to provide the necessary balance between the freedom that encourages enterprise creativity initiative and the benefits of competition against the restraint through the setting of standards and the policing of standards that is necessary to ensure that minimum standard levels are adhered to. The balancing of that freedom and that restraint will provide the maximum benefit for New Zealand society particularly for consumers and this bill seeks to achieve that. No doubt during the select committee process we will be able to fine-tune that. With the input of people from all sectors of the industry coming from all perspectives we will be able to find the balance that is best for New Zealand society. We certainly do not have it now. Certainly the experience that we have had over the last year or two through the problems with the weathertightness of homes graphically demonstrates the need to provide that level of restraint. 
But what is at the root of this bill to make it successful? Perhaps in my view the most important aspect of these reforms comes down to the question of education the training of building practitioners guidelines and clear standards acceptable solutions ways of doing things that can be proven and certified by a reputable authority and oversight—building certifiers territorial authorities and the restructured Building Industry Authority working effectively. It is important when we talk about that education area that all those things do work effectively. 
It is important that the training programmes that are brought in for building practitioners go beyond the mere technicalities. I am afraid that is the problem we have with our current system where the programmes are broken down into modules and people are taught how to do this specific thing or that specific thing without there being a holistic approach to the whole of building practice. Too many gaps in that situation are left. Training is critical. It is important that it is not just functional but also trains building practitioners in quality standards and implants in them the need to be proud of their work. 
In terms of guidelines and clear standards it is important that they are also balanced. Although there is a need to provide those guidelines if that becomes too heavy if the amount of paperwork and the cost of that paperwork get out of kilter then builders simply will not buy it. It is important that a clear balance of that information is there. In these days of electronic transactions and information it may be that use of the Internet is the most effective way to deliver that. 
But there are underlying problems with our education system at the moment that I fear will also impact on this unless they are addressed urgently. I refer particularly to the interface between secondary education and workplace requirements which from what I have learnt from the industries I have talked to is nothing short of abysmal. For example with regard to the engineering industry one of the leading Hutt Valley firms approached a local college and asked to speak to the metalwork teacher. The person on the other end said “A what?”. The firm repeated it and the person said: “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.” There is a problem with particularly engineering in that training in our secondary schools towards that very valuable area of work is not happening. Therefore we are getting to a situation where students who do pick up engineering at a tertiary level pick it up because they see it as something one does if one cannot do anything else and we are not getting good-quality engineers. I learnt that engineering is a high-tech business now and there is a need to have capable students who are able to do it. 
That is just one area of building practice. In the other areas of building practice it is important that we train people that being a very good builder a very good carpenter or a very good electrician or being any other occupation involved in building practice is something to be proud of a career that has a great deal of respect and one that people can be proud to be part of. 
So United Future welcomes the bill. It is the result of quite a lot of discussion and consultation through the select committee inquiry into weathertightness and through the subsequent discussion paper and the feedback the Government received from that. It builds on all those things and enables us to work towards a future for the building industry that is positive for our society and that regains it the respect it once had. However there is a lot more work to do yet. In my estimate this bill probably goes 75 to 80 percent of the way in terms of the legislative requirements but more important are the regulations that will follow. The training in and testing of products and processes will need to be set up and will need to be robust. We are very pleased to see the certification of builders. We are very pleased that territorial authorities will again have primary responsibility for the issue of code compliance certificates. We are very pleased that there will be better regulation of products. It is important that not just products but their interface with other components of buildings have attention. This will be an interesting and useful project to be involved in. United Future is very pleased to support this first reading.