Building and Construction Sector (Self-certification by Plumbers and Drainlayers) Amendment Bill — Second Reading
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Building and Construction Sector (Self-certification by Plumbers and Drainlayers) Amendment Bill Second Reading Debate resumed from 22 April. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Now, I’m advised that last time we were on this bill, we were up to call No. 5, and it is a New Zealand First call. RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (15:05): Cool, thank you, and is this part of the split call, Madam Chair, or am I taking the 10-minute call? DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, this is a split call. This will be your call, yes. RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Sweet—kei te pai. Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Green Party is still not supporting the Building and Construction Sector (Self-certification by Plumbers and Drainlayers) Amendment Bill. First of all, let me acknowledge all the plumbers and builders out there in our communities. I want to acknowledge that we need more of them in this House of Representatives—actually, if we’re to, genuinely, be a representative Parliament—and the Green Party does want to see reduced building costs, more healthy homes being built, fair treatment for homeowners, renters, and tradespeople. We particularly acknowledge for tradespeople, right now, with the current fossil fuel crisis, that their work i…
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Building and Construction Sector (Self-certification by Plumbers and Drainlayers) Amendment Bill
Second Reading
Debate resumed from 22 April.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Now, I’m advised that last time we were on this bill, we were up to call No. 5, and it is a New Zealand First call.
RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (15:05): Cool, thank you, and is this part of the split call, Madam Chair, or am I taking the 10-minute call?
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, this is a split call. This will be your call, yes.
RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Sweet—kei te pai. Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Green Party is still not supporting the Building and Construction Sector (Self-certification by Plumbers and Drainlayers) Amendment Bill.
First of all, let me acknowledge all the plumbers and builders out there in our communities. I want to acknowledge that we need more of them in this House of Representatives—actually, if we’re to, genuinely, be a representative Parliament—and the Green Party does want to see reduced building costs, more healthy homes being built, fair treatment for homeowners, renters, and tradespeople. We particularly acknowledge for tradespeople, right now, with the current fossil fuel crisis, that their work is currently harder to actually perform and, particularly, for them to provide for their families. We also acknowledge that for many builders, they’re operating in an environment where there is not a lot of work available in the construction industry. However, in this bill, we’re concerned that the benefits of expanding self-certification outweighed the potential risks of error in plumbing or drainlaying, given most work is not visible after construction.
The risks often coming from plumbing are not limited to the individual property but can result in cross connections between stormwater and sewage, causing pollution of rivers and seas and increasing health risks; overflows can also impact neighbouring properties. According to the regulatory impact statement, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s commissions have had to complete a more detailed cost-benefit analysis of both options, which was due in late March.
I also want to acknowledge that plumbers and drainlayers can already self-certify work in relationship to existing buildings. We respect the oversight of the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board, but note the concerns of some submitters—which were part of the select committee, which I personally did not have the privilege to be part of, and I acknowledge the work of members and that select committee that scrutinised this bill. The board having explicit authority to audit and endorse plumbers or drainlayers against the eligibility criteria throughout the life of the endorsement rather than just the application at the time is an improvement in the original bill. The board may prescribe minimum standards that plumbers and drainlayers must meet in order to be endorsed to self-certify work, including minimum standards relating to their ability to meet any potential civil liability. However, as legislators we know what the minimum standards will be.
We also want to note that the Minister has indicated that they will be bringing amendments to the committee of the whole House and that this will significantly expand the scope of the bill, and we’re sceptical about the expansion to commercial buildings. I know my colleagues, who are leading the work on this bill, will be scrutinising it at the committee of the whole House stage.
One of the things that we want to also note our concerns on is the fact that a lot of the details—and critical details particularly—were being left out to future regulations rather than the bill itself. We’re not satisfied that secondary legislation is where these issues should be laid out. This does also seem to be an ongoing trend under this Government where a lot of critical details that we believe should be in primary legislation have been left out to secondary legislation. For example, it’s stuff around setting out exactly what work could be self-certified. More clarity in primary legislation would have been particularly useful.
We’re also concerned that if solar water heating and more sustainable water use, such as rainwater for toilet flushing, required building inspections, but simpler but less sustainable mechanisms can be self-certified, fewer sustainable options will, inevitably, be chosen. We don’t want to streamline the most energy and water intensive forms of construction, particularly at a time where we’ve already been told that compared to other OECD countries, our water usage remains quite high. The recommendation that a consent can include both certified and non-certified work, maybe less, is encouraging for sustainable work.
Just mindful of the time, I want finally to note that there will always be a significant data management role for keeping photographs and other records for work that is self-certified—potentially unfunded. This is in relation to the inspections by the Building Consent Authorities. We also wish to ensure the accessibility of this information is readily available for house buyers.
We will be scrutinising this bill further in the committee of the whole House stage, with my colleagues who have been leading on this bill. I also want to acknowledge organisations like Simplicity Living who have shown us that a better way is absolutely possible. We want to continue scrutinising this bill, and right now, unfortunately, as it stands, we will not be commending this bill to the House, and we look forward to further scrutiny of it in the weeks to come.
DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) (15:10): It was a pleasure to be part of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee that helped shepherd this bill to this stage. My wife likes to remind me that politicians talk too much—so, with that, I commend this bill to the House.
TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) (15:11): It’s a pleasure also, as a member of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, to rise and take a call, which I can assure the House will be much lengthier than that of the member who’s just resumed his seat.
This is the Building and Construction Sector (Self-certification by Plumbers and Drainlayers) Amendment Bill, and it’s called that because, effectively, it’s an omnibus bill that seeks to amend a couple of pieces of legislation. As my colleague Arena Williams has already articulated today, our position is that we will be looking to support this bill here at its second reading, but we do so with a number of caveats that we wish to explore when the bill does pass—and it looks as though it will—this particular stage through to the committee of the whole House stage.
The bill itself is, I think, a piece of legislation that does reflect Labour’s commitment to reforms that seek to speed up opportunities in terms of housing development but also, at the same time, maintain a level or a threshold that doesn’t compromise safety. That’s certainly something that can’t be compromised, and the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, ably chaired by Mr Foster, did actually hear from folk in this particular regard. I’ll come to those reflection and observations around the select committee’s report in due course.
When we’re looking at this ability to be able to compromise speed and efficiency, that’s find, but ensuring that safety is maintained is really, really important. If things are not done in a safe way, then things can go wrong, and they can go horribly wrong. There are many, many examples in New Zealand and other countries’ histories where building products or the way in which a particular piece of work has been undertaken effectively fails and goes completely wrong.
We respect the skill and the professionalism of those tradespeople who are licensed to undertake work in this particular space. They are hard-working, salt-of-the-earth folk in communities all around this country. When we think about our plumbers, when we think about our drainlayers, and when we think about all of those job opportunities that are even broader than that, some of these folk who have worked in these areas have been hit hard lately in terms of the up to 20,000 folk in the construction sector who, effectively, have lost their jobs. That’s an important distinction that also needs to be taken.
The select committee itself had a few submissions—we had 22 of them. Four actually fronted up and presented their oral submissions, and you might look at that and think it’s not a huge number. But when we actually reflect on who they were that came and gave oral submissions, they were representative of the industry; they were industry bodies that represented a number of folk for whom this bill will make a huge difference in terms of the work that they do. I think it’s also worth pointing out that this is by no certainty a bill that received the overwhelming support of industry participants. They like the direction that this is seeking to head in.
But they do have—and they did express with the committee—some concerns about some aspects, in many regards, the view that in some instances this bill perhaps doesn’t go far enough. That when we’re talking about small-scale works, when we’re talking about routine pieces of work that, actually, there are things that are captured in the bill currently—that’s fine. But many of these industry participants actually shared with the committee, through their representative organisations, that there are many pieces of work—a lot of them actually in the rural community sector, and I’ll come to that in a moment—where they’d like to see this bill actually applied to the work that’s undertaken in that particular space.
When we think about the opportunities of simple work and what’s narrow, there was a very strong push—and I know my colleague Ms Williams touched on this—that what’s included in the provision is pumped, and onsite systems like pumped water supply, irrigation, and circulating systems actually are standard all around the country. So there’s no difference here; there’s no regional variation in terms of what the expectations or the specs are in terms of whether they’re compliant or not, but these are often the case in rural communities, in rural households on farms and elsewhere where this would make a huge difference. In actual fact, you know, the Master Plumbers themselves said, “Well, if you look at every single rural building basically in New Zealand, you will find that there is a pumped water system.”
What we’re really interested in, as a party, is exploring where the Minister’s thinking is at when it comes to the committee of the whole House stage, because this is what was heard, this is what’s been reflected in the Transport and Infrastructure Committee’s report. While the Minister had indicated to the committee, and again today, that there seems to be an openness to explore some of these options, and obviously there was a conversation that needed to be had with, well, his now Cabinet colleagues around where he was going to land with that. We do hope that when we progress this through the committee of the whole House stage that those are the sorts of things that the Minister and the Government have actually turned their mind to.
When we think about greywater reuse systems, whether they should be included, they are often seen as low-risk opportunities that are governed by standards that are already in existence, they already are at play, yet they’re not included in the bill in terms of whether that’s been captured or not. So it’s important that we do consider what the majority of rural properties actually have. This is not saying it’s trying to make it easier, because, at the end of the day, we don’t want a system in place where safety or quality is compromised but there is a sensible middle line and threshold where these sorts of things can be worked through. So we look forward to lending our support to that conversation, with the view of making a difference for the community.
The select committee, as I said, in its report, identifies a number of the changes that have been made. One of the places where the majority of the committee did land—and I think it’s a sensible one; certainly the position that the Labour Party supported—was where you have an approach to a building consent authority (BCA), generally a council, to undertake a piece of work in circumstances where you have self-certified work that would be a permissible option under this bill, and when you have non-self-certified work, i.e., the BCA is required to basically follow through their normal process.
The bill was introduced to mean that, actually, there was a discrepancy between what work could be covered and what work couldn’t be covered in terms of the overarching need for what you needed to do to get your building consent. What the committee, in response to submissions, has said and where it’s landed is, actually, it accepts that in many circumstances when people go and engage with a drainlayer, and plumber, and architect-others who do fantastic work in this space—there needs to be an understanding and an acceptance that in many circumstances there will be hybrid opportunities where a suite of work will be undertaken that will include non-self-certifiable work, but also self-certifiable work. What the committee has done is it’s made a change to the bill to allow there to be that hybrid nature and to be that flexibility.
One of the other changes that the committee did initiate was not just saying, actually, we’ll wait for these self-certified work tradespeople to, basically, when they lodge the application, when the work is done, lodge that with their professional body organisation. What’s really at the heart of this issue is a desire to ensure that as members of a professional body and a professional sector, there are opportunities for those organisations who often provide a bit of an umbrella around this to be able to undertake audits, basically, as they’re able to, through the process.
Now, this is going to save people a lot of money as well, because, if you are a homeowner in a rural community or urban community, and you undertake a piece of work or you wish to have a piece of work undertaken, if there are any issues, wouldn’t it be much better that you are informed of that earlier in the process, rather than having to wait until the end of the process to realise that there are some issues that need to be rectified, and the costs associated with that. So this is not uncommon to other parts, if we think of teachers’ registration and licensing, if we think of other opportunities in terms of the medical profession and elsewhere, we think that this is a very credible step and a sensible step to make that change.
So there are a couple of other matters that the select committee did report back on. We look forward to the committee of the whole House stage because, as I say, there are still a number of issues that do need to be addressed before wholesale support at the end of the day. But at this stage we will support this past second reading.
Dr CARLOS CHEUNG (National—Mt Roskill) (15:21): One of the issues repeatedly raised by the building sector is that the consent takes too long. There are long waits for inspectors and an excessive number of inspections required for plumbing and drainlaying work. These delays are not just frustrating; they drive up the costs of building and slow down much-needed development. This bill addresses those challenges in a practical way. It introduces an open self-certification scheme, allowing qualified plumbers and drainlayers to sign off their own work. Importantly, this is backed by strong safeguards, including new monitoring, auditing, and disciplinary functions for the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board. This is a sensible reform. It will streamline the building process, reduce unnecessary delay, and help lower construction costs. It will deliver real benefits for both the sector and New Zealanders.
DAN ROSEWARNE (Labour) (15:22): It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call on the Building and Construction Sector (Self-certification by Plumbers and Drainlayers) Amendment Bill. Now, we recognise those very real pressures in the building and construction sector: things like delays, bottlenecks, and the cost. That all adds up when you come to build a house in New Zealand. So it’s important that we do get that balance right, because, at the crux of it, everyone here wants faster, more affordable building, but speed cannot come at the cost of safety, quality, or consumer protection. Cutting costs is one thing, but cutting corners is another.
I want to speak from a slightly different perspective than some of the members of this House. Having been from a tradie background myself, I’ve spent a significant amount of time on the tools. I’ve done my own plumbing and I’ve done my own drainlaying over the years. I haven’t tried gasfitting, but definitely the plumbing and the drainlaying. I have the old adage: never pay anyone to do something that you can do yourself. It’s one of my mantras in life. Doing your DIY on your own place, it’s a way that you can definitely get ahead. I suppose the same comes to Government, for that matter. Prisons, healthcare system, schools—never get anyone to do something that you can do yourself, because we’ve all seen examples where that has gone very bad, when you sell off assets, and it always ends up with the New Zealand public getting a raw deal.
But I recall starting out, doing work experience as a drainlayer at school, and you learn quickly about soil conditions, fall gradients. I recently did some plumbing at home too—well, I actually got my 15-year-old boy to do a lot of the work while I provided direction. I took him down to the hardware store and we bought the PVC piping. That’s actually getting quite expensive at the moment—all types of piping, fittings: all those things that are wrapped up with the use of oil and things like that and the high cost. But anyway, we went to the hardware store and we actually bought a toilet cistern as well. So we got that fixed up, because, if any of you know, one of the biggest hits to my ego is if my wife says to me, “Well, if you’re not going to do it, I’m going to go pay somebody to do it.” That really spurs me on to get down there and get the hardware myself and get it all fixed up.
Having said all of that, with all that DIY, compliance is very important. There are very real consequences if something does go wrong. Let me tell this House, when plumbing and drainage fails, it doesn’t fail quietly. It usually gets very expensive and it can be quite hard to find a plumber when you need one outside of normal trading hours. But then also, it affects peoples’ homes, their health, and their wallets. That’s why people who do this work carry such a heavy professional burden and responsibility already. Plumbers and drainlayers are not cowboys; they are trained, they are regulated professionals who take pride in getting it right the first time.
In fact, for those in this House who don’t know, the plumbing apprenticeship actually takes five years—it’s one of the longest apprenticeships that you can do in New Zealand. It’s a great profession. It’s skilled, it’s essential, it’s future-proof. Sometimes, every now and then in this House, someone will yell out, “Oh, the ChatGPT thing!” But there is evidence that people that yell that out for starters are from professions that are probably most at threat from taking on that ChatGPT creep. However, being a plumber, a gasfitter, and a drainlayer, you’re pretty well protected from AI. There’s going to be huge opportunities over the coming years, particularly for young people, to take up those jobs. So a little bit of a plug for the trades there. If you’re thinking of a career, plumbing and gasfitting is definitely the way to go.
But with that pride and professionalism within that trade, after you do your five years, there is still a little bit of risk. This bill proposes to shift more of that risk on to those very tradespeople through that self-certification regime. Now, in principle, self-certification is not a radical idea, but we can see versions of it overseas where it’s working very well. So that is why it’s a really good move that we’re taking and I commend this bill to the House.
SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga) (15:27): Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to rise and talk in support of the second reading of this bill. It will make the system more efficient, giving plumbers and drainlayers the ability to sign off on their own work, which puts them on an equal footing with electricians and gasfitters. This is going to make it easier and more affordable to open the door to homeownership for more Kiwis and supports the growth and job creation in this sector. This is a very positive step from a Minister that has made a number of positive steps in the building and construction space and is doing a great job. I commend this bill to the House.
Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour) (15:27): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I too, as the previous speaker Sam Uffindell just said, would like to take a call to tell a few anecdotes and discuss a little bit about the submissions in the select committee process about the Building and Construction Sector (Self-certification by Plumbers and Drainlayers) Amendment Bill. One of the good things about plying your wares in this House is that you get to have a variety of topics come before you in select committee. As someone that’s never had much to do with the trades—as my colleague Dan Rosewarne just pointed out—a fantastic career path for a lot of people and a bunch of people who do sometimes very under-celebrated work in our society because it’s not until things go wrong that you commend the sheer skill and all of the expertise involved in getting it right.
So it was an interesting bill for us to work on on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. I would like to acknowledge the Transport and Infrastructure Committee—very ably led by Andy Foster—for looking at this bill. I think my colleague Tangi Utikere said there were four people that came and gave submissions, but the breadth of submissions was a very high standard, very informative, made us take notice, made us make some changes, because clearly this was something that the people that submitted on this bill were very passionate about and very knowledgeable about. So it’s one of those bills that you felt much more armed with expert knowledge at the end of the process than you did at the beginning.
So Labour will support this bill at second reading. We supported it at the first reading. We acknowledge, as I said, all of the submissions. But I want to be very clear, as other colleagues have done to date, that our support is not unconditional. It depends on the Government getting some of those remaining settings right, and we understand that there’s intention to do that during the committee of the whole House stage, because I think that we were largely on the same page with most things, but there are some things that we want to be very clear that we still have some concern about. They are around insurance, and I’ll go into that in a little bit more detail, but certainly around insurance, around scope, and around basic consumer protections, which I think are really, really important, and it’s incumbent upon us to get that right.
While everybody in this House, I think—and that’s evidenced through the contributions that have been made today—shares the goal of faster and certainly more affordable building, speed can never come at the price of safety, quality, and fairness. In this country, we have had our fair share of examples of that over the years: when corners have been cut, when decisions have been made that allowed or afforded certain practices to happen that weren’t good practice, and when consumers and homeowners and other people bore the brunt of that. We don’t want to see that happen again.
At its core, this bill introduces, as people have said, an opt-in self-certification scheme for qualified plumbers and qualified drainlayers. It’s important to note that that very much is an opt-in. It allows endorsed practitioners to certify their own work as compliant with the building consent without requiring a council inspection for that work. It amends the Building Act 2004 and the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act 2006.
Like anything where changes are made that involve risk, this reform moves the risk. It doesn’t take risk away; it simply shifts the risk away from councils who would have been going through that process, and on to the individuals and the consumers. When risk shifts, responsibility and accountability shifts as well—it follows—so we have a couple of things that we want to point out.
But before I get to that, I do want to acknowledge that the select committee did make meaningful improvements, and many of them were driven by issues that were either raised via submissions or raised by Labour during that first reading. Just to give you three or four examples—stronger audit powers: the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board can now audit practitioners throughout the life of their endorsement and not just at the start. That does actually, practically, close a real gap. As my colleague Tangi Utikere said, there should be the ability to have mixed consents so that it avoids that, sort of, all-or-nothing approach that submitters absolutely warned us against, and we took that on board.
The third thing was the broader information signatory so that architects, so that engineers and design Licensed Building Practitioners can now provide declarations at the consent stage because that actually reflects how projects work in practice. As you can imagine, some of the work that’s done by plumbers is done at a stage where the other work essentially comes up and covers that up. So that’s got to be done sometimes at more that design stage. So it’s only fitting that there should be some other signatories to be able to do those declarations. And a public register, because I think if you’re allowing any profession, any trade to check itself, in essence, there needs to be a requisite amount of transparency on the other end of the scale so that a public register so that home owners and future buyers would be able to check certificates of compliance. And that just provides that level of transparency. That’s really important, and a good safeguard.
Finally, just also the mandatory monitoring by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). We think that that’s really critical. If the scheme has any unintended consequences that haven’t been thought of throughout this process, then we need to know that sooner rather than later so that acting in good faith, changes can be made to up those protections. So they’re all sensible changes that were made during the select committee process. And as I said, we look forward, we believe, to the Minister bringing some amendments to the committee stage to add a couple more as well.
So the outstanding concerns, though, that I did preface at the beginning, were the fact that—well, the first one concerns the issue of insurance. We think this is the biggest gap. We’re being asked, essentially, to support a system that places more liability on individual tradespeople without confirming as yet that there’s some sort of insurance product in place for them. And MBIE said that one is expected, and that’s all very well, and the board will set minimum standards, but expected isn’t obviously the same thing as available now. So we look forward to some more information on that.
The second one was about the scope expansion because the Minister did signal an intention to expand the scheme. And as my colleague Tangi Utikere said during the submission process, we heard examples of how that might be good, but potentially to cover work and buildings that are up to three stories high—that sort of pricked our ears a little bit because that’s a significant step up in risk. So we are being told that that could happen at the committee of the whole House stage. We’re not a fan of that. So expanding that scope expands consequences, I think, quite obviously. It must be properly scrutinised, not rushed through at the last minute. It would be remiss of me not to express some sort of disappointment that if that’s the order of things, it should have happened sooner.
The third thing is some consumer protection. So when councils step back from inspection, homeowners lose that layer of protection. So the question becomes, what happens if something does go wrong? What if a practitioner is no longer trading in the mean time? What if defects only emerge years later? And right now we don’t believe that those pathways are as clear as they need to be for the policy that directly affects people’s homes, which is, you know, as we can all appreciate, often someone’s biggest asset and that does matter, therefore.
In regard to the regulatory uncertainty, we did feel that too much of the detail, including what counts as self-certifiable work is going to be left to regulation. We often see that happen, but it’s incumbent upon us to be able to sometimes push a little bit harder to make sure that the primary legislation reflects that. We’ll be looking to lock in as much of that clarity as possible into the primary legislation.
The unintended incentives are the final thing I want to raise because there’s a real risk that a simpler, cheaper plumbing option becomes easier to approve, while more sustainable systems still face those higher regulatory hurdles. But apart from that, we look forward to the next stage of this process and answering some of those questions. But at this stage, we commend the bill to the House.
Hon MELISSA LEE (National) (15:38): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise to take a short call as a last speaker. This is actually about opt-in scheme to allow qualified plumbers and drainlayers to self certify. But it actually limits the self certification to low risk plumbing and drainlaying jobs by eligible professionals. I think that’s a great thing. Giving qualified plumbers and drainlayers the ability to self certify their work puts them on equal footing with electricians and gas fitters who have actually had this flexibility for years. I think it is actually something that the industry has actually been wanting.
It’s a common-sense change and it is something that the National Party committed on our manifesto back in the 2023 election, and we are delivering on that promise. So I commend the bill to the House.
ANDY FOSTER (NZ First) (15:38): It’s been an interesting process in that we’ve changed the batting order in terms of which bits of legislation were up. That’s interesting, but thank you for allowing me to make some comment on behalf of both New Zealand First and as chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.
First of all, I just wanted to say thank you to all of the committee members for working through this very, very collaboratively and collegially, as we always do. I also want to thank all the officials who worked very hard on this, but also the submitters. And what was really, really good—we didn’t have many submitters, but the submitters that we did have were really good quality. They were really focused, and particularly the two that I wanted to thank were Master Plumbers and the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board. We didn’t just hear from them, but we also engaged with them further and we said to officials, “Actually, we want you to engage with them further.” And I know that the Minister also engaged with them further, and we engaged with the Minister, too. So it was a very collaborative process where everybody was trying to make sure we got the best possible result that we could get.
We had some suggestions that we should have got more into this report back and maybe less reliance on the committee of the whole House.
Clearly, in our report back, you can see the expectation. It’s not often that we would do this, but the expectation from the Minister is that there will be further changes in the committee of the whole House. The reason that we went down that path was both advice from the Minister but also from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to say, actually, they don’t have the time, in the time frame that we have to report back, to be able to give justice to that and get it right in the select committee report-back. So we’re relying on the committee of the whole House to do some of those things, but we’re very clear in our commentary that that is our expectation and that is what we want to see happen.
We talk a lot in this House about the cost of housing, but just driving down the cost of housing, the value of existing housing, probably will end up being counter-productive, because all it does is make existing housing more attractive, vis-à-vis new housing. It becomes not worth building new housing, because you can’t make the margin on it. The key is to actually make it cheaper to deliver that new housing. That’s not by reducing the quality of that housing but by delivering better value and doing more for less. There are many, many things that this Government has been doing, and this is one of those things, to try and push down the actual cost of delivering housing, because that’s the way that you drive down the cost to the people who are purchasing it.
Look, it’s possible. Just look at the work that’s been done in the area of building new classrooms. We were effectively getting three for the price of two. Look at the difference in the way that Kāinga Ora is delivering housing, where it’s doing it a lot better than it was doing it before. It is possible to get more for less if you’re doing it the right way. This bill is one of many initiatives that this Government is taking to reduce the cost of delivering needed new housing.
There’s been a lot of talk about risk, and, yes, there are risks in buildings. Things go wrong, and that’s one of the reasons, at the moment, we see the cost of building inspection being so high. Why? Because councils are risk averse. Why are they risk averse? Because they’ve been bitten before. We all know about the leaky homes crisis. As a then city councillor, it cost Wellington City something like $150 million—$150 million. Where does that land? It lands on the ratepayer. I don’t know what Auckland’s bill was, but I think it was probably closer to a billion. Those are huge costs, and councils logically are going to be risk averse. In fact, we got to the stage of saying—it was me in particular; that was both as a councillor and as a mayor—“I want to hand back our licence. I don’t want us to be in the business of doing building consent.” Why? Because it’s just a liability.
It got worse because not only was it leaky buildings but also people started saying, “We’re going to have a go at you on seismic issues as well.” When you think about that, in places which are seismically risky, why would a council want to be anywhere near it? There is risk there. We’re not avoiding risk, but, at the moment, that risk has been lying on the ratepayer, and that is a problem, and that needs to change.
A house is, for most of us, the most important and valuable asset that most of us will ever own. For most of the things we buy, we’ve got protections under the Consumer Guarantees Act. You can go and get a repair, you can get a replacement, and you get a refund—whatever it might be. That’s really a lot harder with a house. It’s very complicated. Often when something goes wrong, it might not turn up for 10, 20, 30, or even 40 years. Something may go wrong a long way down the track. That’s why we’ve had this issue of councils being, effectively, the insurer through the ratepayers, which is, as I said, not very attractive. This is about changing that. We’ve already heard about the proportionate liability rather than the joint and several liability that we’ve got at the moment.
The safeguards in this bill: there’s the reliance on the skill and experience required to be an approved self-certifying plumber—I’ll come back to that because not every plumber is approved to do that, not by any stretch of the imagination—there’s the work and support of the board of plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers; there’s the disciplinary process they’ve got. They can impose the requirement to hold insurance. They also hold certificates of compliance, so there’s a lot that is done there to back up the self-certifying plumbers. I also note that I don’t know about the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board, but certainly Master Builders hold a very significant amount of money to be able to back up their master builders if something goes wrong there with their master builders. Of course, they can discipline them as well.
The bill, as introduced, was to allow for approved professional, skilled plumbers and drainlayers opting in. It wasn’t compulsory to self-certify their work. Now, we have the plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers with the power of self-certification for certain work. It already exists for the gasfitters and for electricians, but not for the plumbers and drainlayers, so it’s a bit interesting in that area.
The two main submissions, as I said, we heard from were from Master Plumbers and from the board. Master Plumbers have been advocating for this element of self-certification for many, many years. I noted earlier in the debate, before lunch, Celia Wade-Brown’s quote from Christchurch that not all plumbers’ work is of acceptable quality, but not all plumbers are self-certifying plumbers. They have to do at least seven years to get to that point, and they have to meet all those other standards. That is really, really important. That’s a lot of time they have to do that training, and it’s very, very, very, very rigorous. Only plumbers and drainlayers who are licensed and in good standing with the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board and have done that seven years - plus will be eligible for an endorsement to self-certify. It’s a relatively small number of people, but it’s important. The board’s going to oversee standards, compliance, and enforcement to protect that public health and safety while the building consent authorities still do the really high-risk stuff.
Just to wrap up, the idea is that self-certification will be for simple plumbing issues. I’ve already talked about who’s able to be self-certified. We made a lot of changes as a committee. We expect some further changes in the committee of the whole House. In fact, we want those further changes at the committee of the whole House. I think I will leave it there but just say, again, thanks to all the committee for the great work that’s been done. But thanks also to the Master Plumbers, the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board, and to the Minister for the way he’s engaged with us in this. I commend the bill to the House.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the Building and Construction Sector (Self-certification by Plumbers and Drainlayers) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.
Ayes 102
New Zealand National 49; New Zealand Labour 34; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Noes 21
Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 5; Ferris.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a second time.