Leaky buildings - what is the problem and who is to blame? Urgent debate speech Jeanette Fitzsimons
Mr Speaker
As more and more people find their homes rotting around them and their health at risk from toxic fungi it is inevitable
that the search is on for someone to blame.
And those who feel personally challenged by the Green movement have latched on with alacrity to the bizarre claim by the
Act Party that it is all the fault of the Greens. It has become somewhat of an urban myth, perpetuated by the likes of
Frank Haden and several members of this House, despite the total lack of evidence.
The Minister has now put that total lack of evidence on record in reply to my earlier question. In fact the Greens never
lobbied to allow the use of untreated timber for structural purposes and that is now on record as a fact.
Who, then, did lobby for the change? The answer is, the timber industry itself, and for all the reasons that are
constantly pushed at us as reasons for slackening our own standards - whether it be in food safety, genetic engineering,
or labelling of consumer products. New Zealand timber producers in general and Carter Holt Harvey in particular were
increasingly selling into the Australian market and the standard in that country was for kiln-dried, untreated timber.
They saw a commercial advantage in producing just one product for both New Zealand and Australian markets.
Then, to sell the idea to New Zealanders who were used to boric treated timber for internal use, they came up with some
greenwash - 'chemical free' timber. Like so many businesses today they climbed on the back of consumer concern about the
environment and misled them with 'greenwash' to promote their own commercial interest.
Chemical free. Sounds a good idea to most people to minimise the use of toxic chemicals, unless you know the
consequences.
But in fact boric treatment is not particularly toxic, except to insects. It does not create the environmental hazards
of tanalising - the copper chrome arsenic treatment used for exterior timber which is in contact with the ground and the
weather. That is why Greens have never had any particular reason to oppose its use.
The change was in fact driven by closer economic relations with Australia, and is part of a general move to common
standards and 'harmonisation' across many regulatory functions without asking whether the same standards are appropriate
here.
This is a warning for the common standard approach currently being relentlessly pursued for products like dietary
supplements.
However, another urban myth doing the rounds, promoted by the same statement from Deborah Coddington, is that if only we
had kept to our previous use of boric treated timber there wouldn't have been a problem. Yeah, right, as they say.
There's no doubt at all that using untreated timber for balconies and decks is lunacy and anyone who has ever worked
with wood should know they won't last two years. In fact boric treated timber won't last outside for all that long
either. But the same is not true for internal construction.
We can't get away from the fact that kiln-dried, untreated timber framing has always been used in the United States, in
a climate that is often as wet as ours and generally without problems. Much of that timber is from pine species.
Australia, too, uses untreated, kiln-dried timber because it doesn't warp like green timber, and it doesn't reduce the
insulation value of the walls. So it is not a given that untreated, kiln-dried timber will rot. But it is not intended
for use outside in the weather, any more than boric treated timber is.
Advice from helpful people at FRI is that boric treatment was designed to resist insects, which kiln-dried, planed wood
does well too. Boric treatment has a side effect of resisting fungus attack but the chemical leaches out quickly if it
is exposed to running water and is constantly wet. So the claim that boric treated timber would not have rotted in the
situation we are dealing with here, where walls are saturated much of the time because there are no eaves, joints leak
and there is no drainage space between the cladding and the timber framing shows a woeful lack of understanding and
should not be taken seriously.
A number of builders have contacted me with this information. You cannot expect timber designed for internal use to
resist outdoor weather.
This has led to the call for all internal timber to be tanalised - treated with highly toxic and persistent chemicals to
save face for a building industry that can't make a house that is even mostly weather tight.
What an outrage that would be. We have lived in this country for nearly 200 years with timber houses that were built
correctly and did not rot. To start now to greatly expand the use of highly toxic CCA into internal timber just so that
the industry can continue its sloppy and greedy habits is not on.