Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill

PANSY WONG (National) Link to this

I am really delighted to take the first call on the previously non-existent Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill. When we flick through Part 5, we can hardly find a single page that has not been amended. So I am delighted to say that the Commerce Committee is indeed a very hard-working and responsible select committee—all the more so because of the National Party members on the committee. We have actually gone through Part 5 with a fine-tooth comb, even though it deals largely with matters of definition. I will share with members some of those distinctive details. I am raising them because the Minister the Hon Harry Duynhoven is in the chair. I am glad about that, because I know he will take them quite seriously.

For example, we actually spent quite a bit of time on clause 69, “Exemption for sanitary plumbing in rural areas”, and on clause 70, “Provisions relating to alteration of boundaries of local authority districts”, and, ultimately, we ran out of time. The officials could not quite get all the background information that would have enabled the select committee members to understand why the exemption relating to sanitary plumbing in rural areas is to be continued. Do we care less about people in rural districts than in urban areas, or is it the practical issue that if we impose the same requirements in rural and urban areas, then rural people might not get plumbing, etc., done? And why is it that the boundary of a local authority district would be subject to the type of exemption set out in clause 70?

So I point out to the Minister in the chair, the Hon Harry Duynhoven, that although the select committee worked diligently on the issues, we regret that because of the time limit some of the important issues have not been tackled. I first register for the benefit of the Minister that there is unfinished work for him to champion. [Interruption] I am not sure why there is all this movement in the Chamber; I would like members to respect the plumbers and the drainlayers, etc., who appeared in front of the select committee to make submissions. I promise that we will raise the unfinished business so that the Minister can continue to look into it in the future, given that those exemptions have not been explained to us properly because the officials said that their records did not go back very far and they could not really get to the bottom of the issue in the time available. So, in the meantime, the select committee has accepted that those exemptions will continue. But, certainly, at some appropriate future time, we need to get to the bottom of what the valid reasons for those exemptions may be.

Some of the other exemptions that we have raised are good ones. For example, apprentices are exempt during training. We have accepted that it is very practical for them not to be licensed or registered while they are going through their study.

I think the Minister will appreciate that the select committee has worked diligently to improve on these now separated bills, given that National opposed the first reading of the Energy Safety Review Bill.

CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) Link to this

I rise to speak to Part 5 of the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill. As we have said tonight, its provisions began as part of the Energy Safety Review Bill and morphed, as members know, into the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill. Before I rose to speak tonight, I was thinking about the stages we have gone through on this bill and the various plumbers and electricians who came before the Commerce Committee. I cast my eyes through the telephone book here to see which plumbers from Hawke’s Bay will be sitting tonight with their ears to the radio, listening to the debate on this bill. They are the likes of J J O’Connor—the Minister in the chair, the Hon Harry Duynhoven, may know some of these guys—my own brother, who owns Total Plumbing and Irrigation Ltd, Rigby Plumbing, and Hagen and Owen Ltd. Those are all core guys who are part of the Hawke’s Bay network. In particular, I pay my respects to E G Wall, a plumber from Hawke’s Bay who passed away recently. He had had over 40 years’ service in the plumbing industry in Hawke’s Bay, and he will be difficult to replace. It was guys like E G Wall whom we heard talk before the select committee about some of the issues they would have to face, which I will talk about in relation to Part 6 and Part 7, regarding licensing and registration.

I will step back to Part 5, which deals with the purpose of the bill and gives a number of definitions for the legislation. We spent much time on deciding what the definition of “drain” and “drainlaying” would be, and on discussing the meaning of “gasfitting”, where a gas supply would start and where it would finish, and the meaning of “sanitary plumbing” and various aspects of that part of the bill. Those matters are hardly earth-shattering but are important. In coming back to the purposes of the bill, I say this legislation will replace the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act of 1976. It covers the registering, licensing, and disciplining of plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers, and it contains mechanisms designed to assure the public that people engaged in the provision of sanitary plumbing, gasfitting, and drainlaying services are competent to undertake the work.

When we first came to the Commerce Committee, a number of submissions were before the committee, and those submissions were one of the key reasons for this bill being split from the Energy Safety Review Bill. The likes of George M Todd, craftsman plumber, came before the select committee and told us he strongly opposed the introduction of competency-based licensing and the move away from registration-based licences. In fact, that gentleman strongly opposed the Energy Safety Review Bill. He felt that it gave too much power to the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board. That was one of the first reasons for splitting the bill. As Minister Duynhoven announced earlier, there had been very poor consultation from the board back to the plumbing fraternity, so we made the decision to split this legislation from the Energy Safety Review Bill. That meant we could go back and consult the industry in more detail.

The second reason for splitting the bill off from the Energy Safety Review Bill has not been covered in much detail tonight. That was the issue around the relationship between the industry training organisation and the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board, which, at that point in time was the subject of a ministerial inquiry, undertaken by Hazel Armstrong. But there were two major concerns in that regard. The first was the level of pass rates that were coming out of the industry training organisation. The commentary on the bill states that in 2005 only 11 percent of national certificate holders who sat the final qualifying exam set by the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board passed that exam. That was down from a pass rate of 39 percent in 2003. So the second concern was that it was very clear that there had been a breakdown in the relationship between the board and the industry training organisation. The board was putting in a capstone examination and it had failed to talk closely with the industry training organisation. The relationship was so bad that the industry training organisation was not putting through the plumbers at the level that was needed. Those reasons, together, meant there was a change to the original bill.

BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) Link to this

I was in my office listening to the debate and found it so enthralling that I thought I would come down and make a contribution. The reason is that I have some experience with the plumbing industry—and I declare a conflict of interest upfront—in that I own a company that manufactures hot-water cylinders. My company has been in business for 45 years, and my association with the plumbing industry and the history of my company in that association is one that deserves recognition.

Registration as prescribed in the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill is overdue, but that is not to tarnish the reputation of those people who have been in the industry for a long time. In fact, it provides them with the due credit they deserve, because here is an industry, if there ever has been one, that is worthy of our respect. Anyone who has had something go wrong with their plumbing recognises the need not only to get someone who is competent to fix it but also, as an added advantage, to get someone who is registered and is able to do the job and can give that guarantee of quality service that the community deserves. That is the type of tradesperson we in this country respect.

I heard the Minister say in an earlier debate that he is an electrician by trade, and I think he takes pride in the fact that he has that recognition. Is it not as reasonable to give that recognition to the plumbing industry, as well? So here is a bill that, in my view, is long overdue.

When I had the opportunity to sit on the Commerce Committee on the bill, I was very impressed with the way members of Parliament interacted. They were taking the issue extremely seriously. The contribution from members around the table was one that gave me confidence that the parliamentary process does, at times, work well. Of course, I think the lead was coming from the National members on the select committee. My colleagues there were taking the issues extremely seriously. They were putting issues on the table and saying that we needed to work around them to make sure we structured a bill that would work, not for the time being but for the longer term.

Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Associate Minister of Energy) Link to this

Thank you, Mr Chairman. I think it is a pity that Katherine Rich, the chairperson of the Commerce Committee, is not here this evening, because—

PANSY WONG (National) Link to this

The Minister is not going to get away with many of the statements he has just made. Although the Commerce Committee may have listened to the public, I am afraid the Minister has not. Let me list some of the very strong feelings against the bill in its original form.

First of all, let me remind the public that National did not support the first reading of the Energy Safety Review Bill. But we are now supporting the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill, because, firstly, it has been separated out and, secondly, a lot of changes have been made to it. Let me share this submission from the Horowhenua branch of Master Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers (NZ) Inc. First of all, the reason why plumbers were against the original bill—wholesale—was that they had received a letter from the Hon Damien O’Connor on 27 May 2004. The Minister made it very clear to plumbers that the Energy Safety Review Bill—[Interruption] If members on the Labour benches would calm down, I do intend to share the detail with them.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. As a member of Parliament, I am completely offended tonight by the total lack of respect for the Committee process. Members on the Opposition side are debating this bill seriously, because a lot of submitters felt very strongly about it. But all I am getting is a barrage of people talking, on the Labour side of the Chamber. Mr Chairman, I would like you to exercise your authority and bring some respect back to this process.

MARYAN STREET (Labour) Link to this

I would like to endorse some of the comments that the previous speaker has made in her speech on this Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill. The select committee treated this bill with a great deal of seriousness, but I want to traverse a couple of points in it that were critical to the development of this part. Clearly, a number of issues were raised in the course of our hearing the submissions on this bill that were almost beyond the scope of legislation as such, but that were issues of real concern.

We traversed some of these issues in the first reading of this bill, when Katherine Rich, as chair of the Commerce Committee, made reference to exam pass rates somewhere in the order of 11 percent. The issues to do with the relationship between the industry training organisation and the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board were behind a lot of the feeling and the impetus that resulted in this bill.

The registration and licensing components of this bill have been traversed previously in debate, but it is worth noting that the Commerce Committee did take very seriously the concerns that were raised—certainly, concerns that some of us, by our own research, discovered as we proceeded with some of the submissions to this bill. I took the opportunity to look through 10 years’ worth of annual reports of the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board in order to look at pass rates, and I discovered that there was certainly something rotten in the State of Denmark in respect of the numbers that entered into apprenticeships and the numbers who exited the other side as qualified plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers.

This issue was addressed largely by Hazel Armstrong’s report, which was commissioned by the Minister for Tertiary Education because of his interest in the provision of education for apprentices through tertiary institutions. As a result, we heard a number of things that, as I say, may not have been specifically within the scope of this bill, but they were important and did deserve a respectful hearing. I think that where we got to in terms of registration and licensing was absolutely right, and it reflected where we had got to with the electricians and their registration, as well.

So with the combination of these two pieces of legislation, we now have a uniform process for the registering—that is, the training and the acknowledgment of the completed training—of tradespeople, who in this particular case are plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers, and for the ongoing licensing of competence of these tradespeople. It was distressing to see how many young people—young men—had chosen to go into these occupations and had not been permitted, through some dysfunction between the industry training organisation and the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board, to take up a career of their choice.

I will not speak to subsequent parts of this bill at the moment, but when we come to Part 8 I may well take another call to point out the areas where we have corrected those particular issues in this legislation. Suffice it to say, right now we have a streamlined and unified registration and licensing process that not only protects the identification of tradespeople as registered tradespeople but also protects the public and workers in respect of ongoing safety issues.

CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) Link to this

I rise to speak to Part 6 of the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill. Before doing so, I acknowledge the officials for the hard work they put into this bill, which has been ongoing and arduous. I say well done to them; they have done an excellent job.

Part 6 gets to the heart of the bill and deals with the registration and licensing of plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers. When this part was originally considered by the Commerce Committee as part of the Energy Safety Review Bill we got comments from plumbers in the field who had not been consulted by their board or did not really understand how this licensing or continuing professional development would impact on them. That is when we had the likes of George M Todd saying in a submission that he strongly opposed ongoing professional development.

When that happened, I realised I needed to understand where this licensing was going, what it would entail, and what ongoing competency would be required of plumbers. So I went and had a talk to the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board. I found out that licensing is still required right now, and that it costs $90 per year. There is already a licensing regime with the existing registration certificate. Of the three trades we are talking about—plumbing, gasfitting, and drainlaying—there is already an ongoing competency requirement for gasfitters, which, at the time, I was not aware of. Gasfitters are audited on an annual basis, unlike plumbers, who are audited on a job-by-job basis on the major plumbing jobs they do in houses. Gasfitters are not audited this way; they are audited annually by the board, so they already have a continuing professional development requirement. But what does that actually mean?

Plumbers were coming to the select committee concerned that the requirement would take hours and days of their time and would cause ongoing costs for them by taking their employees out of the trade to go on courses. I found out that the board was proposing a 16 credit per annum continuing professional development qualification. Those 16 credits were divided into two lots of eight credits, whereby people could choose between technical courses for eight credits and non-technical courses.

The technical courses included welding and pipe sizing—the standard types of courses that one would think it would be good for a plumber to go forward with. It was the non-technical courses that the plumbers were—justifiably—concerned about. These included the likes of becoming a Microsoft Word user, for which people could get four continuing professional development points. They could get points for gaining email and Internet qualifications. These options were on the table, and this is where many of the plumbers became concerned. They thought these courses would become compulsory.

The reality is that the non-technical side of the course is non-compulsory, which made a big difference. Many plumbers, particularly those who were heading towards the end of their working life, were concerned. E G Wall, whom I talked about before and who has been plumbing for 40 years, came to see me in my electorate office and said: “Why in God’s name do I need to be doing a foundation Excel course in spreadsheeting?”. I could not argue with him. The very fact that these non-technical courses are not compulsory made a big difference.

Moving on, I approached a number of gasfitters, who are already involved in continuing professional development courses. A young gasfitter called Carl Simons said that there should be ongoing competency. He felt it was a good thing but that it needed much better consultation and course provision. I say to the Minister that we need to make very clear to the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board that the provision of these types of licensing courses should be available throughout the regions, so that plumbers and gasfitters do not have to travel around the country to attend a particular course. I think that is a very important point. Young Carl Simons believed that the ongoing licensing requirement added another level to his trade, and said he was right behind it.

I talked to Murray Rigby, who is a 52-year-old gasfitter in the Hawke’s Bay. He did not think it was a bad thing. He thought the courses were pretty straightforward. He felt there was a lot of resistance initially but that overall it was good for the profession and would take him forward. So I recommend to the Minister that these courses be made available on a regional basis and that there be plenty of them, so that plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers can get to them easily.

Licensing has been a key issue in this legislation. It is an area we were concerned about. Lastly, National members, Labour members, and the wider committee were concerned about the older plumbers. In the commentary to the bill the committee put in something that I think officials and the board need to take note of. We stated: “We were concerned by the introduction of licensing requirements for tradespeople in the later years of their profession, who after thirty or forty years of plying their trade will be required to pass competency tests.” We were concerned that if those tests were too onerous, guys in their twilight years would just say: “Enough! I can’t be bothered going on.”, and we would see those people leave the trade. We did see that happen initially when continuing professional development was introduced to the gasfitting side of things. That is something we need to be careful of, and that is why members from National, certainly, and I know ones from Labour, put that particular part in the commentary on the bill. Thank you, Mr Chairperson.

Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Associate Minister of Energy) Link to this

I will take just a brief call partly to answer Chris Tremain, who mentioned in the debate on Part 6 some issues in regard to the way courses were structured by the plumbing industry, etc. Mr Tremain quite rightly said there was concern in the industry, particularly among its older participants, that these courses were somehow mandated by the legislation. Well, that is the job properly of the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board, and Part 8 of the bill sets out how the board will function. It improves the transparency of the board, addresses some of the issues in this bill, and addresses some of the issues that have been causing some grief in the industry. That is a result of the review that the committee had. The committee saw fit to change this part of the bill and to strengthen it.

The determination by the industry training organisation—the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board—as to what sorts of courses are necessary for a practising licence and what sorts of courses might be offered, is entirely up to the board to make rather than for us to prescribe in legislation, and that is fit and proper. I think that it is probably what we have now, and that this bill will be welcomed by the industry.

I take on board what Mr Tremain said about how plumbers were saying that they were fearful of this legislation and that the changes were going too far. The bill is now in better shape as a result of the select committee work done on it, and as a result of officials working with the industry to try to redress some of the misinformation that had gone out early on.

The industry, as we heard earlier, had not been adequately consulted—not by the officials, the Minister, or the ministry in terms of getting the bill together, but because the industry itself did not have effective communication between the board and the participants. The ordinary plumber working in society was not getting the feedback from the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board as to what should be happening.

There is, of course, split accountability. The Energy Safety Review Bill properly comes under my delegation, but the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill was a subset of Ministry of Health delegations. Therefore, different Ministers were involved, as well.

So I will just say that I am very pleased with where this legislation has got to. The points made by Mr Tremain were valid, and they have largely been addressed by what has happened. I shall be particularly interested to see, when we get to the review stage in 3 years’ time—as is set out in the legislation—how this has worked out, and whether the plumbing, gasfitting, and drainlaying industry wants to change the provisions that are now before us in this bill. Thank you, Mr Chairperson.