Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill, Building (Consent Authorities) Amendment Bill

Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Minister for Transport Safety) Link to this

Before the debate was interrupted on Thursday, my colleague the Hon Judith Tizard, on behalf of the Minister for Building and Construction, was reminding the House that the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill does not require that general damages must be awarded. Indeed, prior to the High Court judgment, such damages had been awarded in only a minority of determinations—just 21 percent. Moreover, when there has been an award, the amounts have been modest, averaging just $9,450. The bill clarifies and confirms Parliament’s original intent. It restores to the adjudicators and the tribunal deciding these claims the ability to award general damages for mental anxiety or distress, in the same way as do the courts.

The Minister wishes to thank John Gray and other Leaky Homes Action Group members for their strong support for this amendment. Also, thanks are due to the New Zealand Law Society for its active and expert guidance, which has been of great value, and to the Social Services Committee for the efficiency and focus with which it has dealt with this legislation within a very short time frame.

The Building (Consent Authorities) Amendment Bill amends the Building Act 2004 by extending the date by which territorial and regional authorities have to be accredited and registered as building consent authorities, or by which they have to transfer their building consent functions to an accredited and registered building consent authority—for example, a neighbouring council—to perform, from 30 November 2007 to 30 June 2008. The legislation also allows more time for territorial authorities to transfer to regional councils the responsibility for issuing building consents for new dams built in their areas. A fail-safe provision allows for the extended deadline to be extended by regulation, rather than legislation having to come back to the House, in the unlikely event that an extension becomes necessary.

The amendment to the Building Act 2004 establishes an accreditation and registration scheme for building consent authorities. The scheme will strengthen New Zealand’s building controls system. The aim is to ensure that building consent authorities have the resources and the systems in place to deliver high-quality building consents in a timely manner. Guidance and support is being provided to councils, and the Government has provided a $3 million accreditation assistance package. Councils have a strong commitment to achieving accreditation by November or making alternative arrangements. Local Government New Zealand is also providing strong leadership to the sector on this issue. I am advised that, so far, 72 out of 73 territorial authorities have applied to become accredited, and one, the Palmerston North City Council, has achieved accreditation. Nine regional councils are arranging to transfer their building consent functions to a registered building consent authority, and the remaining three are preparing to apply for accreditation.

Although the vast majority of local authorities are on target for meeting their original deadlines, some councils, particularly small rural councils with capacity or capability limitations, may not complete accreditation or transfer their functions to a registered building consent authority on time. Making the leap to the higher standards that the Government has set for building consenting, inspection, and approval, so as to protect prospective homeowners, is proving to be a challenge for some. A few councils simply need more time to come up to speed and make the necessary changes. The Government is making no criticism of those councils; they are working hard to get across the line. Extending the date simply reflects that councils are committed and working hard towards achieving accreditation or transferring their building consent functions, but that some are unlikely to be able to complete the process by November 2007. Allowing these councils an additional 7 months ensures the certainty, continuity, and confidence of building consent activities, the building industry, and people building and renovating. This is a prudent and common-sense action to take, as is using an existing bill before the House to give effect to this action. I commend these bills to the House.

KATRINA SHANKS (National) Link to this

I rise to speak this afternoon to the third readings of this legislation—the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill and the Building (Consent Authorities) Amendment Bill—again, because this is the second time I have been prepared to deliver my third reading speech. This legislation certainly has been very interesting. For someone who is new in the House, it has been extremely interesting. The way these bills have been put together is actually quite disgraceful. I will give the House a little bit of the history on how we got to where we are today with this legislation.

In 2002 we started off with the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act, initially brought in to address the incidence of leaky homes. In 2006—only 4 years later—that legislation was then repealed and the Government brought in the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act 2006. From what I understand, both those bits of legislation were rushed through the House, did not go through the process in a timely manner, and were rushed through the submission process. Now, 1 year later in 2007, the legislation before us is again being rushed through by the Government without it being drafted properly or having gone through the processes properly. This legislation is to remedy distress and mental anxiety, something National had suggested should be addressed back in 2006. Obviously, we were ignored, because we are here, exactly 1 year later, discussing the matter yet again.

But what concerns me most is the process in relation to this legislation—legislation that I have been involved with in the Social Services Committee. The Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill came before the Social Services Committee, but we did not get submissions, because, yet again, there was no time for these. The legislation was rushed through the select committee to get it to the stage it is at today. So we went through the first reading, the select committee stage, the second reading, the Committee stage, then to the third reading. And, whoops! What happened at the third reading stage? It was found that we had got it wrong; that it was not quite right. So instead of going into the third reading, the bill was referred back to the Committee of the whole House, and this is where it gets really interesting. If we want to talk about writing good legislation, then this legislation is not a good example; this is talking about rushing legislation through the House.

What happened last week when we went back into Committee on the bill? What happened was that Supplementary Order Paper 133 was tabled. What was on that Supplementary Order Paper? It had on it amendments that included extending the time during which a territorial authority may act as a building consent authority. That is very interesting, because that actually has nothing to do with leaky homes. So how come this measure got attached to the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill of 2007 as a New Part 3? The measures on Supplementary Order Paper 133 were rushed through without going to the select committee and without going through the submission process. They were rushed through.

Clause 18 in New Part 3 on Supplementary Order Paper 133 extends the period a territorial authority may act as a building consent authority. Why has this happened? The reason is that once again the Government had got it wrong. It put in the wrong date by which territorial authorities must put the building consent authority process in place, so this amendment has been put through on the back of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill, which has to do with distress and anxiety and nothing at all to do with leaky homes. Then what happened? We turned round and what did we find? We found Supplementary Order Paper 134. That is interesting, is it not? What does that tell us? That Supplementary Order Paper splits off New Part 3. So the Trojan Horse amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 133 goes through attached to the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill of 2007, then Supplementary Order Paper 134 splits it off. All of a sudden we have two bills, one of which has not been to a select committee or through the submission process. It has just been sneaked through to fix, yet again, an error by this Government in its legislation. What did it create? It created the Building (Consent Authorities) Amendment Bill. That is very interesting, is it not?

Let me talk about that bill. I went back and had a look at what has gone through recently in relation to the building sector. The Building Bill was enacted in 2004, but, oh no, we had to improve that because, once again, that was legislation that had been rushed through. Then in 2007 the Building Amendment Bill was introduced to make the 2004 legislation more workable. Now, also in 2007, we have the Building (Consent Authorities) Amendment Bill. Why could that not have gone into the Building Amendment Bill that was introduced just this year?

We have to ask ourselves what sort of legislation we are writing here. I have to say that it is not very good legislation. It is actually disgraceful that we get away with writing this sort of legislation. What does the building industry think of this legislation? It would not know what to think, because it is so confusing. It is confusing even for us when Supplementary Order Papers keep appearing, and legislation keeps getting repealed and new legislation brought in to improve the workability of previous legislation. Why can the Government not just get it right the first time? What is so hard about writing good legislation? What is so hard about going through a process and having respect for that process? What happened in respect of this Supplementary Order Paper and the Building (Consent Authorities) Amendment Bill was that those pieces of legislation went right outside the process. In fact, this has not happened since 1995. Why has it happened all of a sudden? It is a matter of: “Whoops! We’re fixing another mistake in legislation that has let this country down again.”

Why did we have this legislation to begin with? The reason is leaky homes. That is exactly why the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill came in to begin with. So we have this new legislation to fix something that is going wrong. How do people get leaky homes in New Zealand? They get them because there is moisture in their homes. That is what creates leaky homes. This can be for a number of reasons—for example, it can be due to not putting battens between internal/external walls. But, let me think; there is one more thing we are talking about here. Leaky homes are still being built under the current Government. How can that be? Shall we talk about copper piping, because I am really good on copper piping at the moment. At the moment, copper piping from Britain has about a 50-year warranty, from Australia it has about a 50 or 60-year warranty, and from China? Copper piping from China has no warranty. Cheap copper piping is going into new spec homes, and that is being allowed to happen under this Government. We know that copper piping has been tested by the industry. Those tests found that it would last 7 years—and that is it. So under this Government leaky homes are still being built.

What does this legislation do to help those homeowners? It does absolutely nothing at all. In fact, what does the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill do to help those people who have leaky homes right now? It does absolutely nothing. All that people with leaky homes want is to have their homes fixed. It is not actually too hard to work out what we need to do. What is this Government doing to fix the homes of these people? It is doing absolutely nothing. It is a matter of: “I know, let’s bring in another bit of legislation. Let’s rush it through. Let’s give them a remedy for distress and anxiety.” Does that fix people’s homes? No, it does not. If this Government would just commit to fixing leaky homes, these homeowners would not have distress or anxiety; they would have homes that are fixed. But in the last 8 years under this Government these homes have not been fixed.

What happens when people go to mediation or to a tribunal to get their homes fixed? I will tell members exactly what happens: nothing. They may get rewarded for damages, or get their houses fixed, but how often are those homeowners actually getting the money that is awarded to them? The answer is that it is not very often at all. So this Government has done nothing. This legislation is doing nothing to stop the leaky home situation or to give people some compensation to get their homes fixed. Currently, it is estimated that there are 15,000 people out there who have leaky homes.

PITA PARAONE (NZ First) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. One would think, in listening to the previous speaker, Katrina Shanks, that New Zealand did not have a problem with leaky homes.

SUE BRADFORD (Green) Link to this

The Green Party supports the third reading of the bills arising from the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill because we agree with the Government and other parties that the amendment is needed.

Given the nature of the original bill, and the fact that we had just finished dealing with a much larger bill on the same topic, the select committee process was mercifully brief. The main input from an external body was from the New Zealand Law Society, whose opinion had been formally sought because of the legally technical nature of the bill’s content. That august organisation, the Law Society, agreed with the Government—and I think most, if not all, of the parties in this House—that the amendment is desirable, given the result of a High Court decision of 29 March this year, which determined that general damages could not be awarded as compensation for mental anxiety or stress under the weathertight homes legislation.

As someone who sat on the Social Services Committee when it looked at the earlier bill, and heard and read submissions from so many people adversely affected by various forms of leaky building damage, it was impossible not to agree with the Government and the Law Society that this court ruling, although understandable from a legal perspective, should be overturned by Parliament. It is unquestionable that the Weathertight Homes Tribunal should be able to award general damages for the huge mental distress and anxiety that leaky homes have caused so many people, and that is what this amending legislation achieves. The Green Party, therefore, welcomes the unusual speed with which this legislation has completed its progress in the House, and looks forward to the clarification it will bring to all involved.

In finishing, however, I would like to make one final comment in support of what my colleague Hone Harawira from the Māori Party said in the House during earlier debate on the original bill. Although he acknowledged, as the Green Party certainly does, the reality of the enormous distress suffered by the owners of homes affected by weathertightness issues, we also would like to see a lot more political and public awareness of the realities of housing stress still caused by substandard and inadequate housing in so many communities around Aotearoa New Zealand. A disproportionate number of those living in permanently inadequate, unhealthy, overcrowded, and/or insanitary housing are tangata whenua. Many of them live in places like Tai Rāwhiti and Northland. We would like to see the same sort of attention given to the ongoing problems of these New Zealanders—many of whose housing issues are just seen, I think, as too difficult to fix—as is given to those affected by the leaky homes crisis addressed by the legislation before us today.

In regards to the second bill that has come out of the original bill—the Building (Consent Authorities) Amendment Bill—the Green Party also supports this, because we appreciate the difficulties some local councils have had in meeting the deadline to become registered. Although we think it is a pity that a Supplementary Order Paper had to be introduced in an urgent manner to get the legislation through, at the same time we recognise the reality of what the local territorial authorities are facing, and we look forward to the day next year when all the authorities are registered.

TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Māori Party) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa. Over the last 3 months, as the debate over this bill has progressed through the House, the Māori Party has consistently raised the question of how anyone can ignore the realities of lower-grade housing for Māori when debating the enhancement of leaky homes claims for other New Zealanders. We have speculated when the day will be when the “Substandard Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Bill” will come before this House. We have talked about the range of housing-related bills before Parliament this term, including data matching for Housing New Zealand Corporation clients and the first and second weathertight homes bills, yet none of these bills has come close to addressing the kinds of issues that we have raised throughout the debate.

I recall the words of Dover Samuels last year, who confirmed that Housing New Zealand Corporation had assessed some 1,527 families living in substandard housing in Northland. Mr Samuels estimated that about 80 percent of people living in substandard housing in Northland were, in fact, Māori, and that even if 1,000 houses were built tomorrow, that would not solve the issues. The funny thing is that we know that there are probably enough houses for all the families in New Zealand if they were distributed according to need rather than according to wealth. Instead, the rich live in spacious, comfortable surroundings while in poor parts of the country people squeeze into small, overcrowded, and dilapidated homes. We have made these points, and we will continue to raise them in the House and outside.

We have described substandard houses as unsafe dwellings where people may rely on open flames for light, heat, or cooking. These houses lack basic services such as a freshwater supply and a sanitation system. The infrastructure in some of these areas has been badly neglected, as is evidenced in poor sewage disposal and inadequate water and electricity supplies. We know of communities where the septic tanks are failing, greatly increasing the risk of hepatitis A and other infectious diseases. These are life and death issues and we must never forget the challenge of overcrowded, substandard, and dangerous housing conditions.

But we in the Māori Party, in line with our belief in manaakitanga, do also acknowledge the deficiencies and the traumatic impacts that have been suffered by the victims of leaky homes, so we have consistently supported the passage of this bill through the House in order to ensure that these people are entitled to the general damages for mental distress and anxiety that they should expect. But a funny thing happened just 10 days ago. Immediately prior to the third reading of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Bill, suddenly it was recommitted, with the impact of Supplementary Order Paper 133. In effect, the last-minute change brought about what can only be described as an abuse of privilege of parliamentary procedure.

We started off this whole debacle back in 2002 when, under urgency, Labour rushed through legislation to set up the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act 2002, which was eventually repealed. I take note of Minister Duynhoven’s comments before that these issues, in fact, happened during the regime of the National Government. Three years later, the Government realised it had made a massive stuff-up, so a whole new batch of rushed laws was sped through the House. If that was not bad enough, another bandage had to be applied, so a whole new series of laws is put before us, and 10 days ago, when one would think no more mistakes could be made, the Minister realised that more last-minute emergency surgery had to happen in order to set things right.

The request for the registration extension from 30 November 2007 to 30 June 2008 looks like a mere technicality from afar. The emergency amendment was dreamed up to extend the period for which a council may act as a building consent authority without registration. It was sold to the House as a mere courtesy to allow more time for councils to get their acts together and get registered by 30 June 2008. That may not be a big deal, except that what Labour did was to override the Standing Orders so, instead of going through the normal process of working through a Supplementary Order Paper, Labour decided to surrender the Standing Orders and put forward a motion to suspend them.

In the weekend, as the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination released its damning report on New Zealand’s recent race relations policy, I came across this quote from Martin Luther King, which I thought the House would appreciate in the context of this bill. Martin Luther King said: “Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.” The “lie of inferiority” that this Government believes it can get away with is to push aside any process and to suspend procedures when it suits in order to create a particular type of truth—the Labour truth. Labour pushed through the Electoral Integrity Act, in which it validated the invalid and made legal the illegal. In this bill, Labour has reduced the time that is available for the perusal of the fine print at select committee. Labour says that giving kids a slave rate of 80 percent of the normal rate—80c to every dollar—that an adult earns is actually a triumph for Labour because it can announce a pay rise 3 months later.

The Standing Orders of Parliament are here to do just that—to create order. The Standing Orders provide a system of checks and balances that honour the investing of legislative power in Parliament. These are the principles and standards that apply.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) Link to this

This legislation, the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill and the Building (Consent Authorities) Amendment Bill, is about rotting homes, but it is also as much about the rotten Government and the awful way in which it has dealt with building laws. We have both the problem with the Weathertight Homes Tribunal and that legislation and we are also fixing up the difficulties with the Building Act 2004.

The first point I will make is that this legislation is a complete contradiction of what Labour has said to builders. The swansong of the Minister for Building and Construction, Clayton Cosgrove, has been “Do it once, do it right.” Well, it is a pity that the Minister has not applied that to the Government’s own building laws. With the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act we had the Government’s first attempt to fix the issue of leaky homes in 2002; that was a mess. The Government came along again with the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act 2006 after Clayton Cosgrove had said that the Government had to amend the legislation, and he asked us to trust him that it had got it right that time; it had not. Now we have this third attempt at trying to get the legislation around fixing leaking, rotting homes correct. This legislation is literally the fix-up for the botch-up for the fix-up for the original fix-up.

The contradiction is that this legislation is exactly what should have been done 5 years ago. The tragedy is this. Five years after the inquiry into leaky homes, only 16 percent of claims have been resolved, $85 million has been spent on the bureaucracy of the Weathertight Homes Tribunal, and we have had eight Ministers from this Government responsible for the issue—it has been passed around like a hot potato. That $85 million amounts to $110,000 per home—not to fix it, but to pay for the bureaucracy of the process, when the average settlement is only $70,000! The tragedy of this legislative mess is that the dodgy developers and builders have had 5 years to wind up their companies, to disappear into the woodwork, and to leave the poor old homeowner without anywhere to go. Furthermore, the legislation is now resting on the shoulders of councils and ratepayers. The irony is that the Government is having an inquiry into why rates have gone up! The Government need only have a damned good look in the mirror. One of the things that has contributed to that rate rise has been the botch-up that the Government has made of dealing with the issue of leaky homes.

But this legislation goes further. At a very late stage, through an abysmal process where the Government broke the rules of the House and suspended the Standing Orders, it introduced changes to the Building Act. Let me just go through the scale of the mess that this Government has made with that 2004 Building Act. Back in my office over the dinner break I went through some of the speeches that were made before that legislation was passed in 2004. I read the contribution from Lindsay Tisch, who said that we should oppose the bill because it was a gross overreaction and would add hugely to the compliance costs of the building industry. That member could not have been closer to the truth. We had assurances from the Minister that there would be no increase in compliance costs. Well, let us look at the record and see what has happened.

Last week we heard the submission from the Registered Master Builders Federation of New Zealand to the Commerce Committee. The federation said to the committee that there has been a 900 percent increase in fees and Government levies since the passage of the Building Act. I had to go back to the original submission, because I thought that a 900 percent increase was extraordinary. If one looks through the submission from the federation, one gets a picture of why New Zealand has a home affordability crisis. We have it because this dumb Government passed a Building Act that has added hugely to the costs and the bureaucracy of building a home in New Zealand. The submission states this: “It takes longer to sort out consent issues now in New Zealand than it takes to build the house.” Is that not ridiculous? Can members opposite think for a moment about how nutty things have become in our country when it takes longer to deal with the paperwork of building a house than it takes actually to build it?

Take this comment from the Wellington City Council in this very city, for example. It said this: “A typical house plan four years ago was three A3 plans and 9 pages. Under the new Building Act we now require 12 A3 plans”—that is a fourfold increase—“and up to 300 pages of supporting documentation.” That is a tenfold increase! How can this Government say with a straight face that it is concerned about issues of home affordability, when its track record is that bad? Let me give some other figures. The median price of a section today is more than the average cost of buying a house was when Labour came into Government. The Government is destroying the dreams of ordinary New Zealanders to buy their own homes. We see, for instance, in the last census period, that every year homeownership has dropped by 1 percent. During the period of 2001 to 2006, when Labour was in Government, homeownership in New Zealand dropped by a startling 5 percent. For the record, for the preceding 5 years under a National Government homeownership figures in New Zealand were stable. You see, the Government’s economic policies have meant that interest rates have gone up from 6.7 percent when Labour came into Government, to 10.4 percent now. We have seen the average price of a home go up from $172,000 when Labour came into Government, to an average now of $340,000. Is it any little wonder that we have a home affordability crisis with the policies that are being pursued by this Government?

Then we come to the very minor tinkering in this legislation. Will the legislation fix the 900 percent increase in Government and council levies on building a house? Of course it will not. Will it fix the fact that it now takes longer to get consent to build a house than it takes to actually build it? Not on your life! Will it fix the problem of the tenfold increase in the amount of paperwork that is required to build a house? Of course it will not. So I say to members opposite that they cannot talk about home affordability when they have put in place dumb legislation relating to New Zealand’s building laws. It is absolutely urgent that there is a review of that legislation, that we strengthen the commercial disciplines so that builders and developers are held accountable for their building and construction, but that we do not impose the massive amount of red tape and bureaucracy that has been imposed by this Government.

I say to members opposite that home affordability will be one of the key issues at the next election. Even the slightest look at what this Government has done to the Building Act will see that change of that legislation is absolutely essential if we are going to allow ordinary New Zealanders to have that dream of owning their own home. National says that Labour has failed New Zealand in the way in which it has dealt with leaky homes. It has failed New Zealand with the huge increase in compliance costs that is reducing homeownership in New Zealand.

We say that these bills are just another sad botch-up from a Government that does not understand the building and construction industry, and because of that complete lack of understanding of how we are going to get maximum quality at least cost, it is destroying the dreams of New Zealanders to own a home. How many more bills will we get from this Government on the issues of leaky homes and building before it gets them right? I tell the Government to go back to the drawing board—this legislation will not fix the problem. The Government has failed. It is not just the houses that are rotten, but also this Government.

BOB CLARKSON (National—Tauranga) Link to this

In regard to the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill and the Building (Consent Authorities) Amendment Bill—what a flipping mouthful—I say that we are going to change this legislation to allow claims for mental distress. I find this strange. To fix the mental stress we just have to fix the leaky houses. It is as simple as that. People will get over their stress problems straight after their houses have been fixed. Unfortunately, that is how it is. We need to back this legislation, because some people will be awarded extra funds to cover their stress and they might get paid. I agree that this could happen.

I ask who will pay these extra funds. In most cases builders have gone broke, and they do not pay out in full. In some cases the owners have been left high and dry. They will not get paid out on the house repairs, let alone on the mental stress. I suggest we change this amending legislation. I think it should say to vote to get rid of the Minister. He knows nothing about building houses, and that is a fact. The guy knows nothing about building houses. He does not know how to fix this major leaky home problem. This is tearing the hearts out of the people of New Zealand.

I will just jump in here. Today I saw 40 apartments and one house in Auckland, and it is just shocking. These people are torn to pieces. They have no money to fix their homes. We should take advantage of all these amendments and vote on whether this Government should be thrown out. On second thoughts, I will withdraw the second part. The people of New Zealand have already decided what they are going to do. We are ahead in the polls, of course. Labour is like the setting sun. The lights are going out on this party.

Would the Minister please get real, get a decent policy, and get it sorted out. Please think of the people involved and how they are being ripped off. The people of New Zealand who have leaky homes just want their houses fixed; it is as simple as that. They should not have to wait for years to have their homes made waterproof. The Minister keeps saying that the Weathertight Homes Tribunal is a good system. He quoted one person in a select committee one day who had had success with the tribunal. He said that this person had sorted out the whole problem himself. He used no lawyers, nobody else, just himself. He handled the complete Weathertight Homes Tribunal hearing himself, without a lawyer, and had won the case. I wonder whether that owner was paid out in full. If he was not paid out in full, he will now be very mentally stressed. If this new amendment was in place, he could have claimed for mental stress. But the funny thing is that he would not get any more money because the builders have mostly gone broke and will not pay out any more money. It is a waste of time. He would end up with a bigger bill from lawyers who would be chasing this extra money.

Please tell me how this amendment to allow claims for mental stress will help a person who wins a claim at the Weathertight Homes Tribunal hearing when there is no money to pay that person. I will repeat myself. The builder has closed the company down and there is trouble getting money from the defunct company. The Minister is breaking the hearts of many New Zealanders. I suggest that the Minister should concentrate on getting leaky homes fixed. He should stop playing around with different amendments to the legislation and deal with the problem. We have leaky homes. The owners of these houses trusted their builders and trusted the inspectors who signed the compliance certificates. They have no money to repair these houses. I ask the Minister to think outside the square and deal with this problem. Labour will not find the answer; National will.

To finish, I say that claiming for mental distress and winning the claim but not getting paid out in full will not help. These people will end up with a bigger lawyers’ account, as I said earlier. I would like to mention something that the MP for New Zealand First said before. He was talking about the Hartley deal in Auckland. This is a funny case. In actual fact, the claim was for $270,000 and the Weathertight Homes Tribunal, through its system, got them $90,000. The system completely broke down. The Hartleys took their case to the High Court and they got another $90,000, which is a total of $180,000. You see, I can count. But they are still out of pocket. I happen to know that the builder who built that house has offered them a full and final settlement of $46,000. If that case had been up now and they had gone for mental distress, where was the money going to come from? The builder has no more money. It is almost a waste of time. We have leaky homes that need fixing, and we have people who have no money to finalise their affairs. I say again, let us find a way to fix these houses.

We all make bad decisions at some time in our lives. Labour members make a bad habit of blaming National for this, but they have had 8 years in which to sort out this damn problem. I say that it takes a good person to rectify a bad decision, if they blame us. The point is that those members are not making that decision. They have had 8 years in which to deal with this problem, and they still have not dealt with it. The Government has failed and failed, just like the amendments have. Thank you very much.

DIANNE YATES (Labour) Link to this

I do not know who wrote that last speech, but it is a bit disappointing that he or she did not have someone better to read it. I repeat a quote made in the Independent and in recent newspapers. They quoted Cicero: “Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to be always a child.” That applies to the lack of weathertight buildings, and the problem of leaky buildings.

I chaired the inquiry into the weathertightness of buildings, and I am sorry that Mr Clarkson seems to have forgotten the cause of the problem, or, should I say, the multiple causes of the problem. We learnt that the main reason was deregulation. Who was responsible for deregulation of the building industry, I ask Dr Nick Smith? Who was responsible? We all know who it was. We all know that at the time George Chapman, a well-known person—