Latest / Best of Business / Chris Penk: Minister for Building and Construction on the Government's planned review into earthquake-prone buildings

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Chris Penk: Minister for Building and Construction on the Government's planned review into earthquake-prone buildings · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks'd be follow
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  Speaker 2: Now. The government has launched a review into how we
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  Speaker 2: manage earthquake prone buildings. The NBS system we currently use
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  Speaker 2: is run into controversy in recent years. For example, you
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  Speaker 2: may remember when a block at Hut Hospital was found
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  Speaker 2: a couple of years ago to be earthquake prone, so
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  Speaker 2: all the patients had to move out, and then it
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  Speaker 2: was apparently just the cladding panels that were earthquake prone,
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  Speaker 2: and then it turned out that even the panels were
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  Speaker 2: probably fine and the patients were all allowed to move
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  Speaker 2: back in. Chris pink is the Minister for Building and
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  Speaker 2: Construction and joins us Now, Hey, Chris Braving, the fact
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  Speaker 2: that you're doing this review says to me that you
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  Speaker 2: think the law is too onerous. Is that fair?
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  Speaker 3: Short answer, Yes, people have told us it's unworkable. A
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  Speaker 3: lot of cases, people simply can't afford to remediate, not
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  Speaker 3: necessarily allowed to do that in the way that they
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  Speaker 3: want or need. Sometimes they can't even demolish if there's
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  Speaker 3: a heritage status so complicated, such a situation needs to
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  Speaker 3: changing with we're keen to make it easier for people.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, because is it too complicated, too inflexible, or
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  Speaker 2: is it too onerous or is it both?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, look, it might be both. I think the complicated
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  Speaker 3: nature of it is a major piece of week that
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  Speaker 3: we need to attaction. You referred to that situation of
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  Speaker 3: uncertainty with the City Hospital. Lots of others like that
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  Speaker 3: playing out all around New Zealand. And it's when you've
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  Speaker 3: got a bit of a dispute or misunderstanding about where
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  Speaker 3: things lie. But even just on the terms of the
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  Speaker 3: current measurance system, you've got a percentage and it's something
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  Speaker 3: like seven percent. You know, it's just barely on that
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  Speaker 3: top third. But then you've got people who say, well,
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  Speaker 3: that's not good enough for us to do because they're
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  Speaker 3: nervous about help and safety. What does that mean to
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  Speaker 3: their liability? And you've got other ones which might be
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  Speaker 3: say thirty five and it's above the line and actually
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  Speaker 3: it's thin tobly okay, but doesn't sound too flash. So
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  Speaker 3: we maybe need a bit of a cleaner, more straightforward system.
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  Speaker 3: So we're seeing if we can come up with something
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  Speaker 3: it's a bit more stateful for people to grapple.
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  Speaker 2: With Okay, something straightforward, but also would you consider lowering
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  Speaker 2: the standard of weabit?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think what we've got to approach is
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  Speaker 3: the question from a cost benefit ratio perspective, which I
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  Speaker 3: know will sound challenging for people who ask whether we're
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  Speaker 3: going to make it less safe, But I think at
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  Speaker 3: the moment we've got a scenario where we're very cautious,
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  Speaker 3: very conservative, and while we all love that idea, and
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  Speaker 3: the reality is what we're probably doing is protecting against
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  Speaker 3: buildings from being damaged. We need to protect against lives
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  Speaker 3: being lost. But below that we've got to accept that,
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  Speaker 3: you know, unless we want to pay you know, the
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  Speaker 3: million dollar per life saved or per building saved, then
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  Speaker 3: it's simply not stacking up, you know, if you think
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  Speaker 3: about other things that we could spend that money on
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  Speaker 3: and save more lives. So just the NARI conversation that
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  Speaker 3: we've got to have, but the review set up to
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  Speaker 3: take into account everyone's views who wants to contribute, you know,
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  Speaker 3: along those lines, as well as getting into that detail
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  Speaker 3: around the technical stuff too.
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  Speaker 2: Do you think, just like on another note, but related,
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  Speaker 2: do you think that you need to do something about
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  Speaker 2: the empty buildings that are sort of around places like
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  Speaker 2: Wellington basically abandoned because the owners just can't be faft
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  Speaker 2: doing the earthquake strengthening.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's a very fair question. There's an
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  Speaker 3: earthquake praying element to that is also brought a question
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  Speaker 3: about you know, we're heavy handed if people leave buildings
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  Speaker 3: deeralict because they can't be bothered sometimes overseas owners, but
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  Speaker 3: not necessarily. So that's all going to be within the
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  Speaker 3: scope of the review. So we're quite ambitious in terms
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  Speaker 3: of asking all those kind of hard questions. So we'll
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  Speaker 3: see what the review comes up with, but hopefully the
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  Speaker 3: can come up with something sensible because you know, the
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  Speaker 3: whole city and the whole community and the whole provincial town,
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  Speaker 3: as the case may be, deserved better than just to
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  Speaker 3: have these derelict buildings in empty lots and part fromentying else.
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  Speaker 3: You know, an I saw in a danger in themselves best.
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  Speaker 3: The irony, of course, is that you have heritage protection
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  Speaker 3: end up with something that you can't do anything with
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  Speaker 3: and it ends up becoming quite an I sol in
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  Speaker 3: the opposite of what we're trying to achieve.
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  Speaker 2: With a very good point, actually, Chris thank you very much,
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  Speaker 2: Chris Pink, Minister for Building and Construction. In case in point,
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  Speaker 2: just what Chris was talking about was that building I
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  Speaker 2: forget the name of it in Wellington that's next to
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  Speaker 2: the old Amora Hotel where the reason that that has
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  Speaker 2: shut is because it's earthquake prone. So what happens some
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  Speaker 2: homeless guy makes his way in and falls down three
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  Speaker 2: flights of stairs and gets hurt. So even the fact
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  Speaker 2: that it's just sitting there abandoned is now a dangerous
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  Speaker 2: thing as well.
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