KEY POINTS:
Prime Minister Helen Clark says taxpayers should not have to bail out councils from their obligations to leaky home owners.
The Herald on Sunday yesterday reported the country's two largest cities were preparing to go to the Government in a bid to convince it to accept most of the liability for the billion-dollar leaky homes crisis.
It said Auckland Mayor John Banks and Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast would put up a proposal that would see homeowners pay no more than a quarter of their leaky home repair costs.
Under the plan, the Government would meet most of the liability for the leaky homes crisis, with smaller contributions from building firms and architects.
At present, homeowners are liable, with many trapped in their rotting homes.
They have to sue local councils, architects and builders to recoup their losses.
But Helen Clark today said the Government did not have $1 billion to spend on covering councils' liability in relation to leaky home claims.
"We have no liability whatsoever as taxpayers or the Crown. The councils certainly do have liability. The homeowner is completely the innocent party in this," she said on TVNZ's Breakfast programme.
"Of course developers, builders, architects, designers, they all have liability as well; some of them can be rather hard to find."
She said the Government had set up a process to mediate leaky home disputes, but councils would have to pay if they had made mistakes.
Wanganui mayor Michael Laws yesterday attacked the proposal, saying taxpayers in towns like Wanganui, where council staff had actually done their jobs, should not have to bail out councils such as Wellington and Auckland.
An estimated 80,000 people are living in homes that have either leaked or are at high risk of leaking.
Local councils across New Zealand face an estimated total bill of between $660 million and $2.1 billion.
- NZPA
