Auchinvole Chris: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeAuchinvole Chris: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 05 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13353. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): As always it is a pleasure to follow such a distinguished MP as Barbara Stewart. She is a lady who has wisdom and knowledge. If only she would break that sort of New Zealand First mould of being unable to vote for anything. It was not as bad as “Dismal Denis”. It was an interesting speech but it concentrated on the minutiae of who said what and when. I must say that I liked the Minister for Building and Construction’s speech because he got straight to the heart of it that what happened was a mistake. We have to be big enough to recognise our mistakes. Even though we do not like them we have to be big enough to correct them.The Minister made mention of Labour members saying that they are opposed to retrospective legislation. Well I am sure it is that most of us are. I wonder whether they will hold to that as my friend and parliamentary colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor progresses his bill the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill.Simon O’Connor: Is he a Labour MP?CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Well he is a Labour MP. He is not comfortable with it but he feels the bill is the right thing to do. So I will be interested to see what his colleagues on that side of the House do.All that happens with this Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill is that it tidies up the legislation around the funding of the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board so that—and this is the kicker; this is the kicker Barbara this is the kicker—it can effectively do its job of protecting public safety. That is the most important bit. The bill also validates the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board’s disciplinary levy which funds investigations and prosecutions of plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers not just the licensed variety but the cowboys and the cowgirls those who think they can do a favour for a friend by fixing up their plumbing gas or drains and who are practising without the proper skills and qualifications.These breaches the shoddy work done by unskilled workers could lead to illness. If anyone thinks that drainlaying is unimportant think again. If anyone thinks that plumbing is unimportant think again. Good plumbing has done more for longevity than medicine ever did. Medicine corrects things once you are ill. Plumbing stops you being ill.Hon Simon Bridges: More than the internet.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Far more than the internet.Hon Simon Bridges: Where would we be without the common bog?CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Minister I bow to your superior consideration of these matters.The disciplinary levy was the subject of a complaint to the Regulations Review Committee on the basis that the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board did not have the legislative authority to require registered people to pay for prosecutions against non-registered people. It is as silly as that and members on the other side are saying that we should make an issue of this. It is somebody else’s fight—it is somebody else’s fight; it is not ours. Ours is to legislate and to legislate properly and that did not happen in this particular case.I can speak with some experience in this. I have been doing plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers bills ever since I came into Parliament in 2005. I was a member of the Commerce Committee. I think Katherine Rich was the chair—Hon Ruth Dyson: So it’s your fault—it’s your fault.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: No this is not our committee’s fault because the bill we are having to correct was passed subsequently. It was a drafting error under a Labour Government. I am not concerned with that. The Minister is not concerned with that. We have not made this a political issue.Hon Ruth Dyson: That’s all he talked about.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: No we are not interested in making this a political issue I say to the member the Hon Ruth Dyson. She knows me better than that. We have discussed this at the committee. No no the fact that National is taking a very open-handed earnest and honest attitude towards the whole thing is simply the way we do things. I do not recommend to anybody that we get into other people’s arguments and that is the danger that the Opposition is getting close to.Another thing of course is that we recognise in others that which we least like about ourselves. A mistake has occurred. As the Minister said had this been our mistake I am quite sure that you would have the Minister saying “Gosh! I’ve made a mistake or a mistake was made in the drafting under my watch. Can you please work with me so that we can sort this out in the best possible way for the people concerned.” That is what we would be saying. Instead of which it would seem and I could not quite follow it at the Committee level I could not quite see where the argument was coming from and I am almost coming to the conclusion—reluctantly colleagues reluctantly—that this has a political content to it rather than a practical one.Simon O’Connor: Say it’s not true.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: I think that—well I would like to say that it is not true. We wait to hear other speeches from other members to see whether they can rid my mind of that suspicion. In the meantime I commend this bill to the House. It is an important one it does the right thing for the right people and it does the right thing for the industry.