Mapp Wayne: Building Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Mapp Wayne: Building Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:619;Page:14850] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I am very pleased with the enthusiasm with which this call has been greeted by members of the Government because they are now going to learn something about the deficiencies of this regime. We have been hearing from the member for Waimakariri who seems to be extraordinarily proud that he represents hard-working Kiwis who struggle to own a home. Well that is actually a good aspiration. We are all proud to do that. The real test however is: does the legislation help them? The answer here is no. 
One point I have to remind Mr Cosgrove of is this. Did the Government make a serious effort until pushed and pushed hard by the Opposition to deal with the leaky homes crisis? The answer is no and that member knows it. In fact the whole process of the adjudication tribunal had to be established as a result of drafting work that I and my colleagues had done. Members should remember what the initial response of Government was. It said that a special dispute resolution procedure was not necessary. It was only when it was faced with continual and relentless pressure from this side of the House and by distressed homeowners up and down the country that it felt compelled to act. So let us not hear anything from the Government about claiming credit. It acted only under pressure. 
The fundamental fault of the leaky homes crisis was not the lack of registration. That was not the problem. The problem was essentially building techniques primarily and poor supervision by the Building Industry Authority in relation to the development of the codes. If those codes had been well designed there would not have been a problem. Let us after all look at reality. This country for 100 years—well more in fact—has worked perfectly well without requiring a bureaucratically cumbersome approach to the registration of all builders. What we have had instead is an inspection regime. If that is conducted well and there are clear and transparent building codes there is no problem. There is certainly an issue about skills and that can be rectified. The Government’s solution of requiring registration of all building practitioners is flawed. 
One of the issues is this. The speaker for United Future claimed that it will be unnecessary to inspect most work because one has to have first work governed by a building consent and second structural integrity. Of course the two issues are kind of synonymous. That is the reality. All work subject to a building consent will also have structural integrity issues with it. So in reality every piece of work now done pursuant to a building consent is going to require close supervision—not just inspection but close supervision by a registered building practitioner. Now if the regime had been a stronger inspection regime that would have been a different story. I imagine that on this side of the Committee we would have supported that. We wanted a strengthened Building Industry Authority. We wanted the local authorities to be doing their work more rigorously. We wanted better building codes and better approved systems of construction. If those things had been done there would be no problem and we would not be requiring this excessively bureaucratic approach that the Government has now imposed upon the entire industry. 
I heard Mr Prebble say that many parts of the industry will be happy. But that is in part because it excludes new entrants. It is anti-competitive. One of the things we have always treasured in this country is the ability of people to get ahead—get into their own businesses work under inspection regimes and basically make progress. This bill will act against that. I have seen Minister after Minister in the chair fail to defend small businesses and people getting ahead—the very people that the Government purports to represent. When the rubber hits the road it completely fails those people.