Homeowners pay for Labour's folly

The Leaky Buildings Inquiry select committee report tabled in Parliament today simply demonstrates that the fourth Labour Government's free market chickens are coming home to roost at the expense of Kiwi homeowners, United Future's Murray Smith says.

Mr Smith, United Future's spokesman on leaky buildings and a member of the Government Administration Select Committee that wrote the report, said that the free market philosophies of the 1984-90 government were the primary cause of the leaky building crisis afflicting New Zealanders today.

Although reform was needed, New Zealand was unique among Western countries in bringing in a free market philosophy before putting adequate regulatory safeguards in place to ensure that the laissez faire environment was not abused.

"Unfortunately in the great rush, the combination of a deregulated building environment, local government reforms and the drive for even regulatory authorities to cut every conceivable cost, all contributed to a society without adequate protection against rip-off merchants," Mr Smith said.

He said that ACT's silence on the leaky buildings affair reflected the strong involvement that party's founders and current leaders had setting up the environment in which the leaky housing debacle arose.

© Scoop Media