Latest / The SME Stream / Chris Penk: Proposed reform of the building consent system

Transcript

Chris Penk: Proposed reform of the building consent system · The SME Stream

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The government has just announced a planned significant shake up
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: to building and construction with the reform of the building
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: consent system. They've proposed a number of potential changes, including
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: establishing consenting authorities to replace the sixty seven building consent
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: authorities New Zealand currently has, allowing councils to team up
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: on building consents, creating a single point of contact for
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: building plans and hopefully saving time and money. Minister for
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Building in Construction Chris Pink is with us now, good afternoon,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Good afternoon, So just what is the purpose of the
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: building consent system?
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Well, that's a really good question if you look at
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: it at first principles, we want buildings to be safe,
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: good quality, also sustainable chuck that in there as well,
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: But basically we want a good quality, but we also
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: want a system that is going to allow things to
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: be built and a reasonable period of time and a
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: reasonable cost. And the balance isn't quite right at the moment,
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: but we have building contents so that we've got a
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: system of saying does the proposed work meet the code
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: and if it does, you go ahead and you do
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: it in accordance with that you get signed off. At
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: the other end of what's called the CCC Code Compliance Certificate,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: and that's also really straightforward as far as it goes.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: But the reality is that, like any systems, could be improved,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: and we're looking at doing that in a number of
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: different ways that we've been talking about.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: How I guess is it time and money? How much
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: do you think it's going to reduce the cost of building?
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Honestly, it's hard to know because I think most of
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: the reduced costs associated won't be that you've got a
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: fee that's X number of dollars here, or you know,
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: another sort of definable cost over there. It's all about
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: the constraint on the system around productivity and economies of scale.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: And what I mean by that is, at the moment
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: you've got, as you quite rightly said in your intro,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: more than sixty different councils around New Zealand, each doing
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: your own thing interpreting the building code. So what it
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: means is we don't have builders doing work at scale
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: across regional bound boundaries or council boundaries, even without the
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: fear that's in the real world experience that we're seeing
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: at the moment that different ones have different interpretations. So
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: you can't use the same set of plans, you can't
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: use the same practices because you get second guests depending
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: on which side of a line on a map be drawing.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: So that's a bit of what we're going to try
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: and take away from the system as it currently stands.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Is it also a question of just examining where liability rests,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: because you know, you get a dodgy builder, you get
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: somebody makes a mistake and the consents and it ends
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: up being the counsels as the last man's standing, so
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: to speak. Is that a major problem for this and.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, look, w you're absolutely right, this is the
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: main problem. Suddenly, if you talk to the councils I've
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: got a lot of sympathy actually when they say things like,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: you know, they've got to be really careful and risk
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: averse and take their time and double check everything because
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: in the event this something gets cocked up, as you
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: rightly say, actually they can be liable for the whole amount.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: And the reason they'd be liable as well, they signed
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: off the content and they gave it a ticket at
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: the end, and they would pin inspections throughout. So in
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: the event that the builder is nowhere to be seen,
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: you know, or the trade or the developer because they've
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: run into financial troubles, or they simply disappear into the distance,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: so to speak, but then pop up elsewhere under a
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: different name. You know, these these stories are sadly all
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: too familiar. And that said, an indistial building site actually
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: level before you then can't think about you know, wide
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: scale stuff around earthquakes and floods and there I say
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: that leaky buildings. So we do need a system that
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: actually recognizes that risk that councils are techno at the moment,
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: ask if it's their for them to not have to
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: be so intimately involved in a way that puts their
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: rate payers in the gun for you know, the risk
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: of something going wrong.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Well, if you're looking at shifting that a bit, and
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there'll be every right power would sort of say, hello, Elulia,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: maybe where are you going to put that burden of
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: liability when things do go wrong?
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Well, that's a really good question. I mean the starting
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: point usually, you know, it's just bear with me philosophically,
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: is that the person's who's you know, buying the good,
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: So the services takes a bit of a risk. It's
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: called buyer be where you do your due diligence, and
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: usually that's okay. Some consumer protection, you know, sort of
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: normally exists in the event that someone are ethically or
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: you know this frankly ripoff situation. The reason we've got
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: to be really careful in building is because it's such
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: an expense of air set for people. You know, usually
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: the most valuable thing that a person will own will
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: be your home. And often it's the case that if
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: you're having a building where it's done for you, or
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: you're moving into an existing place, as the case may be,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: you just simply don't have visibility on where things have
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: been done well or not. So to answer your question
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: about where else that might lie, insurances and obvious possibility
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: although that's actually not a silver bullet when you think
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: about that. Had experience in Australia where they have more
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: reliance on insurance, but the private insurance market isn't keen
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: to fill all the gaps, so you end up with
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: a state or a government in base insurer doing that.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: So if we'll just pass past the buck in terms
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: of where the risk lines, I actually think in terms
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: of mitigating the bigger prize is saying well, if they're
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: a others who are reputable and experienced and don't have
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: any issues historically, then maybe if we spend less resource
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: double chipney their work and actually get a lot harder
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: on the cowboys or those who are less experienced and
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: doing stuff at less great scale, then that's a better
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: place for the resources. So we have fear a problem.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Is there potentially I know you guys are about less government,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: but is there a role for government centrally when it
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: comes to underwriting horrendous mistakes?
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean again a really good question, and of
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: course you're right about the centralization. It's generally speaking we'd
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: rather have things more local than central, but you do
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: weigh out against the question of whether you can do
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: things more efficiently at a large scale. And in the
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: case of the building code, because there is only one
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: that exists across New Zealand, we're not talking about regional
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: plans for resource management, we're not talking about local assets
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: per three waters. So actually there's an argument, because it's
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: meant to be a single consistent system anyway, that actually
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: it should be administered in a way that's much more
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: certain and consistent across the country. So potentially, yes, in
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: just going back to that liability. The funny thing is well,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: not funny at all really, But the interesting thing is
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: that oftentimes the New Zealand's taxpayer at Ladde ends up
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: footing the bill for building failure anyway, be it earthquakes,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: I think Canterbury, I think, you know, flooding through last
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: year in the North Island, think leaky buildings of course,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: which also was a local government issue, but at central
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: government as well. So you know, the textpayer has stepped
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: in plenty of times actually, even without some sort of
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: control and being emphasized by central government. So it's time
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: to rethink that.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: I guess that the gut reaction of people who when
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: something is streamlined and made simpler as the problem is
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: just reassuring people that this won't see a backward step
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: when it comes to protecting consumers against shoddy building practices.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, again, entirely fear in reasonable question in point to raise,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: we're really conscious that we don't want to lower standards.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: We're not amending a word of the Building Code in
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: terms of lowering any standards or raising them for that matter,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: by proposing that the building content Authority structure change what
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: we want to say is that the existing stands are
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: actually performed to at a way that makes sense across
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: the country. And if you think about saying in conjunction
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: with that point I'm made earlier that builders who are
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: frankly less reliable, less experienced should actually have more scrucinally,
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: not less, and we can free up the resources of
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: the system to focus more on them, to get the
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: specialization associated with councils banding together a bit more. Then
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: actually we should have higher quality standards, if anything, not
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: lot of ones.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course there's an announcement that you're going to
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: be changing things. How long are you expecting the whole
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: process to take toll when we've got some legislation in
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: front of us.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Well, I think it depends a little bit which options taken.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: Whether we're going along the lines of allowing councils that
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: already want to bend together and have done some work
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: along those lines and are frankly just begging to be
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: allowed to get on and do it, that would be
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: relatively short. That would be you know, that could be
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: as early as the start of next year. That there
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: could be something you know that well well gripped up
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: in that space but if you were going to more
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: of a single point of contact across the country, potentially
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: setting up a new enterity to doing that, maybe that's
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: going to be a bit longer. But either way, you know,
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: we want to move really quickly. We've been having conversations
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: all year about it. It's not like this as the
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: start line. We're sort of, you know, quite well advanced.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Even though we're saying now formally that we want to
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: engage and get some sorts on those particular pre options
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: that we've narrowed down to.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: What's the biggest concrete idea you're starting with, then, the.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Biggest idea, I suppose that the shortest route to a
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: better system is that where you can have a regional
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: structure or councils that are close to each other voluntarily
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: consolidating their resources. If you could let them go on
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: and do that, then they don't need to be reinventing
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: the wheel, each in their own rights and getting a
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: credit at every two years, going to all that cost
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: and tie each individually. There'd be an immediate safe thing
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: for rate payers. So I suppose that's the big prize
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: is how we can do that more efficiently, again without
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: sacrificing quality.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: From what you've said, actually, this sounds like you might
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: actually be able to work with counsels and they might
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: actually be supporting you on this one.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well that's and I really hope so instantly. It's
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: been a very constructive conversation on this in the last
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: little while when I've given them their heads up because
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: I want local government to know that we're working collaboratively
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: on them with us. Partly it's that communication thing and
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: it's security, but actually saying well, look, there's something in
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: this for you, and if anything, aren't just adopting the
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: idea that they've come to me with. So I can't
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: take any credit for saying, here's this idea, why don't
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: you do it. I'm literally just saying, well, look, if
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: you guys want to do it this way, and if
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: you can deliver at least as good outcomes, if not
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: better than Faber for me to stand in your.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Way, excellent. Oh, Chris, I really appreciate your time this afternoon.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: There we go. That's Chris Pink, Minister for Building and Construction. Look,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: it sounds pretty common sense to me to be reforming
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: this process and you know, what given the relationship. There's
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: a little bit of tension between central government and local government.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Might be something Chris Luxan can celebrate next time he's
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: at the local government conference, and he might get a
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: round of applause for that run, rather than the sort
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: of I don't know passive aggression