Clarkson Bob: Building Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Clarkson Bob: Building Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:641;Page:10840] 
BOB CLARKSON (National—Tauranga) 
: 
 I am very pleased. I think that past Minister has got it all mixed up. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: Not yet. 
BOB CLARKSON 
: But I am pleased to see he did not die from coughing there for a while because we want him to last for at least this term. 
In regard to the Building Amendment Bill I say that National will support it to the select committee and will be debating it with vigour. We look forward to it. I get sick of this Government bringing bills amendments and variations to old bills to this House. We waste a lot of time debating bills that do not have a good end result. A good example was the dog-chipping bill. For some strange reason dog chipping has not stopped— 
Russell Fairbrother 
: Dog chipping isn’t in this piece of legislation. 
BOB CLARKSON 
: I will start again since the member interrupted. For some strange reason dog chipping has not stopped dogs biting people. 
Why do we waste time debating bills that are badly written in the first place? We now have another case of the building laws of 2004 not being up to standard and causing major costs and confusion in the building sector. Why can we not get bills right in the first place? I expect the problem is that we have a Minister who is a public relations officer. He would not know anything about building. I was going to say that he is also a consultant but I had better not give him too many credits. He knows nothing about the building industry. Mr Cosgrove quoted that I do not know a screwdriver from a chainsaw. I will say that Mr Cosgrove does not know his arse from his elbow. [ 
Interruption 
] I forget the term for that now but it is not rude. We will debate it if members wish. 
I would know a lot more than Mr Cosgrove ever did. I have been building buildings for years. Some of the clauses in this amendment to the Building Act will add thousands of dollars to the cost of houses. We are desperately trying to build affordable houses at the moment. These amendments will put affordable houses further out of the reach of the family unit. Let us talk about the clause in the bill that deals with licensed building practitioners. We are expected to license tradesmen as building practitioners. I thought being a tradesman was a licence. I am a tradesman—a fitter and turner. I consider I have a licence to build steelwork and all that sort of stuff. I cannot understand why a tradesman is not automatically licensed. There should not be any argument there. A tradesman carpenter obviously is there to build houses. 
Why are we putting more costs on to tradesmen who end up having to transfer that cost on to the houses they build? I suggest that it might be better to license the building inspectors. I am not talking about the building consent authorities which will be certified etc; I am talking about the people who are employed by the consent authorities. These inspectors were the people who did not in many cases check the building of houses that were incorrectly built a fair few years ago. There are many cases where houses built under the control of tradesmen and hammer hands were not built correctly. This problem should have been picked up by inspectors. There will always be builders tradesmen and various others who cheat the system. We need licensed inspectors who know what they are doing to stop building buildings of a poor standard. I will make sure that the select committee has a good debate and listens to submissions as to whether we are getting these amendments right. 
To finish I will turn to the DIY builders. I have no problem with DIYers building their own houses. I have not seen a leaky building that was built by a DIYer builder. Why are we attacking DIYer builders? Let us deal with the facts. The problem is with the inspectors. The Minister has got it wrong again. The Minister wants more rules more regulations and more bureaucrats. That is pretty normal in the Labour Government. Let us hope that the select committee convinces the Minister that he has got it wrong. We originally built houses that did not have all these rules and regulations. Let us get into the real world. Let us get the Building Act right.