Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Well thank you Madam Speaker. I'm yet to be convinced that it's a pleasure to be speaking in the first reading of this Building (Building Products and Methods Modular Components and Other Matters) Amendment Bill because it's a classic sort of fix it—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm sorry to interrupt the member—Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: I was just getting going!DEPUTY SPEAKER: —ha!—but the time has come for me to suspend the House for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Thank you Mr Speaker. Before the dinner break I was just launching into a presentation on this Building (Building Products and Methods Modular Components and Other Matters) Amendment Bill first reading and I was saying that just by its very title this is a bill that people listening at home and watching will be able to tell is pretty dry but it appears on the surface to be a good tradesman-like - type bill because it does I think quite good work. We'll have an opportunity to explore and tease that out at select committee.The Minister introducing it indicated that the bill's to go to the Environment Committee. The Environment Committee hasn't had much work to do recently so I guess we will have an opportunity to finally do something. We're 2½ years nearly three years into the administration of this Government and my colleague Tim van de Molen when he was speaking highlighted the point that this is the first bill that the Minister for Building and Construction has brought to the House in that entire time. That shows I think the New Zealand public about the lack of delivery that has occurred over this period of time. It's been slow and when it does arrive it's rushed and sometimes rattled but there are aspects of this bill that are I think worthy of consideration.One of the challenges for people wanting to build homes and construct additions or build commercial buildings and what have you is that they have to rely utterly on the integrity of the builders of the advisers of the architects and of the product suppliers. It's fair to say that there have been over the years a number of occasions where the veracity and suitability of some of the building materials some of the componentry and indeed some of the workmanship has been very questionable. We all know the histrionics that have surrounded the disaster that has been wet and leaky buildings and is still ongoing for many people working their way through those sorts of issues even today. So this is a bill that seeks to make a whole lot of on the face of it relatively small changes but cumulatively and seen as a whole package they're actually I think quite important.One of the aspects that I think is worthy of consideration and mention in this first reading debate is that the Building Act 2004 actually doesn't provide any clear definition of what a building product" or a "building method" is and what role that a product or method should play in the construction of a dwelling of an office of a commercial building or something like that. These are fundamental questions. So back in 2004 I've got no idea why the legislators of that time decided not to give definition to what was a "building product" or a "building method" and therefore there's been this very large degree of wriggle-room space that has enabled somewhat dubious suppliers of product that has been less than adequate and suitable for purpose to supply that to have it built into the construction of the building that's being built and then the Gib board and the paint and panelling goes on. And then it's not until some years later that actually the fault occurs because the faulty product is out of sight out of mind everything looks lovely on the surface and it's not until sometime later that the real damage becomes obvious and then the costs start to mount up for the property and building owner. So I'm keen to find out at select committee what it is and how it is that the Minister and her officials are going to try and define "building products" and "building method" but I think that's an important part of it.The bill also seeks to establish a voluntary certification scheme. I quite like voluntary schemes because what it means is it's a sector that is self-policing self-administering in terms of making sure that the cowboys if there are cowboys in their industry in their sector—those people are effectively judged by their peers and hopefully run out of the sector because it's the relatively few who often spoil it for the vast majority of particularly very competent and careful craftsmen tradesmen and people like that who actually do very good work in most cases.Another aspect of the bill relates to an updating of the penalties and fines that are appropriate in terms of penalties where an offence has occurred. Now the current level of offences and fines in the legislation has not been updated at all since the principle bill was first passed back in 2004. Interestingly enough in some other statutory work that the Environment Committee is doing currently there is a clause where actually the penalty regime needs to be not based on a dollar value because there are inherent problems with a dollar value simply becoming out of step and out of relativity with appropriate levels of punitive fining when bad stuff does happen and when there is a need for a deterrent value in a penalty.So the primary fault that I have with this bill on first reading is that so much of it seems to be predicated and closely aligned to the Government's intention to reform the Resource Management Act (RMA) to allow for some fast tracking and cutting of red tape. Now the problem I have with that is that here we are 14 or 15 weeks out from a general election and it's only now under urgency under extreme circumstances like we are meeting tonight and discussing this bill tonight that the Government has finally—after 2½ nearly three years—got its act together to bring this piece of legislation to the House. We still haven't seen the shape and form of the fast-tracking RMA amendment legislation that Minister Parker has promised to bring to the House. We understand from scuttlebutt around this precinct that in fact there are issues relating to the coalition's relationships between their parties that are preventing that bill coming to the House.Chris Bishop: I've heard that.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: You've heard that too have you Mr Bishop? Well certainly it's a common source of conversation and speculation around this precinct at the moment—is that part of the reason that the Government can't propose and advance its RMA reform packages—SPEAKER: Order! Order! Back to the bill.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Back to the bill. Well the bill is predicated almost entirely on advancing the Government's RMA reform agenda so I'll be looking forward to seeing how that goes at select committee.I'll be looking forward to analysing the various moving parts of this bill and there are many of them. We will be supporting this bill through to first reading. We will be looking forward to adequate and full scrutiny and we'll be looking forward to hearing the submissions from I'm sure what will be a wide range of interested stakeholders who will want to have their say and speak from a point of view that is expert and knowledgable from the construction and building sector. So we will be supporting this bill and I'm sure that the Environment Committee as I said who have not had an awful lot of work to do during this Government's term will finally have an opportunity to get its teeth into some serious work and it seems that the Building (Building Products and Methods Modular Components and Other Matters) Amendment Bill is just the bill for the Environment Committee to get its teeth into.SPEAKER: Before I call the Hon Ron Mark I'd just like to invite the Hon Mr Simpson to shift one place to the right. I'm sure the member needs not much invitation to shift to the right!"