May 27, 2025 • 16 mins
We’ve all got an anecdote or a story about a tradie who did us dirty, or an issue with a new build.
Well, now we’ve got some actual evidence around what’s happening in the construction industry.
The Building Research Association of New Zealand has launched a new a Build Insights tool to provide accurate information on everything from tradie callbacks to new apprenticeships and the cost of new builds.
Today on The Front Page, NZ Herald Head of Data Chris Knox is running us some of the key stats when it comes to tradies, then we’re joined by BRANZ senior economist Matt Curtis to talk through the broader economic picture.
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You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Sound Engineer/Producer: Richard Martin
Producer: Ethan Sills
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Chielder.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. We've all
got an anecdote or story about a trade who did
us dirty or an issue with a new build.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Well, now we've got some actual.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Evidence around what's happening in the construction industry. The Building
Research Association of New Zealand has launched a new Build
Insights tool to provide accurate information on everything from trading
callbacks to new apprenticeships and the cost of new builds. Later,
we'll be joined by Brand's senior economist Matt Curtis to
(00:46):
talk through the broader economic picture. But first on the
Front Page ends At Herald, Head of Data Chris Knox
is with us to run through some of the key
stats when it comes to tradees. Chris, let's start with
the one thing everyone wants, the answer to which trady
(01:08):
do people call back the most to fix an issue
after they've moved in.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
It turns out it's painters. Fifty percent of people of
new homeowners report that painters need to come back after
they've moved in.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
And why is that they've just done a shoddy job or.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Well, I'm not sure. This is not something I'm not
certain about. It could also be that they are impacted
by other people's work more so, like the painter might
do stuff and then you know, the electrician comes in
and cuts a new hole, and then the painter needs
to come back.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Oh right, right.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
But on top of that, a growing number of people
are unhappy with their builders as well.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Hey, yeah, I was.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Quite surprised at the level of unhappiness with a builder,
particularly for a new build, where you know, I feel
like things should be a bit more I guess defined
or controlled than they are in a renovation. But yeah,
it looks like basically one in three people wouldn't recommend
their builder after they've completed a new build.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
That's pretty concerning considering how many people are looking to
do building on their house, not even just a new build,
but just renoing the kitchen and stuff as well.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Hey, yeah, it's certainly.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I mean, I guess they were restricted by there's not
a lot of not always a lot of choice about
which builder you go to, But certainly, I think the
thing that sort of struck me from this data is
how much kind of more work I'd put into trying
to make sure that I was happy with my builder
before I got started.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
There does seem to generally be some rising dissatisfaction with
new builds as well.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Hey, yes, yeah, I again, I'm not sure kind of
what's driving this trend, but people don't seem to be
super happy after they've moved in, which you know, it
would be pretty gunning to put all that time and
money into a house and then not like it.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
What's some of the data around that seems like a
really big thing is the level of communication between the
client and the builder.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
So six only sixty two percent of people are actually
happy with the level of communication that they've had now,
which has dropped from kind of a peak of seventy
five about five years ago. And there's also people are
unhappy with completion time.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
There is some positive news around the price of houses
and buying land though.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
So it's not all bad news, is it.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
No, there's been a decrease in the cost of land.
In fact, brains reckons it's about the lowest it's been
in about three years, and the cost of land plus
a new build is about four percent down on what
it was, although on average about two hundred thousand dollars
more than buying an already existing house.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
It's all very well government saying that they're going to
pop their finger on the scale and dictate terms to
how expensive a house is going to be. But the
reality is, as soon as they declare that they're going
to develop in a particular area, land values go up
and therefore costs go up. The market is what the
market is. It costs a particular amount of money to
be able to deliver a house or particular size and
(04:09):
particular location. That is the fact. You can't have it
both ways.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
And for those people who aren't happy with their builders,
I suppose it's good news that there's more of them
joining the industry.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Yeah, there's been a really big search in the number
of people doing apprenticeships and other training related to trades.
It's nearly doubled in ten years, which I thought was
quite surprising.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, considering how.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Difficult it is to get someone out to your house,
especially on a weekend, I don't know if you lock
your key in, for example.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
This sounds like it might not be hypothetical. I guess
another thing that maybe could be something we should be
looking at in the future is how many people are
training in new Zealand and then going and working overseas.
Potentially the construction detector might suffer from some of the
same dynamics that our other training sectors do.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah, so we spend all of the time training you know,
plaster up here and then they go to Aussie and
get paid double.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
That's that same old story.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
I suspect that could be in play.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Yes, is there any other data that stood out to you, Chris?
Speaker 3 (05:17):
I was actually quite surprised by the variation and how
long it takes to get a consent done. So you've
got some councils that are getting have a medium processing
time of five days, which is essentially just a week,
and then other councils it's more like three weeks. And
then obviously it's a median, so there's a whole lot
more that are much higher than that.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yeah, where's the worst place?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
The worst place is whay Kado District Council, although Auckland
Council is the worst of kind of the large councils
and Carterendon is the place to where things happen really quickly.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Should there be some kind of regulatory framework that covers
the entire country or do we just leave it up
to the councils individually to sign off on these things.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
I mean, this is a, I guess, a politically charged question,
but I do my personal opinions. Sixty six different organizations
doing building consensus too many for a country of five million.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Thanks for joining us, Chris Norris, you are.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
For a deeper insight into the new build Insights tool
and what it means for the wider economy. We're joined
now by Brand's senior economist Matt Curtis, So Matt, can
you give us some insight into why this tool was
created in the first place.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
There's a lot of building related data out there that's
all quite disparate and it doesn't really talk to each other.
So what we thought was a good idea was to
really try and bring it all together in one source
for people to quickly reference and understand what's going on
at quite a high level. But it does bring together
a whole bunch of data from various sources that can
(07:05):
really show people at a high level what's going on
across the building and construction system.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Is there a bit of a move to limit anecdotes
and word of mouth spreading that could give people the
wrong idea of where the industry is at.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
I think it's more about just providing that single source
of truth from a trusted and reputal source where we
can stop talking about what might be happening out there
and focus on what the data's actually telling us is going.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
On on the ground.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Right, So, looking into the data, new builds continue to
be expensive, what are the factors driving those costs?
Speaker 5 (07:38):
A lot of the factors relate to how sticky some
of the pricing can be sections. For example, the purchasing
of land often has a long lag time between when
it's purchased and when it's finally brought to market, which
does mean that sections can't necessarily respond to the drivers
of the day. Then we've got factors such as labor,
(07:58):
where labor quite short supply. When demand for construction was
so high, it's really hard to then scale down label
pricing when things start to slow down. And then materials,
we had some supply chain issues, a lot of demand
for these building products and they went up at the
same time. It was almost a perfect storm there for
a little while during that sort of pandemic.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Are we seeing any improvement here, because we've been talking
about this since COVID so is there any light at
the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
Yes, So we're starting to see land prices respond to
the fact that we're just not building to the same
extent as we were. Some of the medium density stuff.
We can build that at a cheaper price per unit,
then we can standalone, so that brings some efficiencies as well,
and materials are starting to slowly come back down. It
is a global market, and what we're seeing is that
(08:48):
demand internationally is starting to slow and therefore we're seeing
some of the price implications of that slow down flow
through to New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
So the construction industry is growing according to this data
eighty one one thousand, eight hundred and ninety one businesses
in twenty twenty four, but construction business liquidations were up
thirty seven percent as well and made up thirty one
percent of all business liquidations. What's fueling this boom and
I suppose bust At the same time.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
It was a difficult time for the construction industry as
we sort of came out of the COVID pandemic. We
saw a lot of pricing that was put in pre
pandemic or pre supply chain issues that then was really
hard to meet when those price increases came through the system,
So there was a little bit of time at it
(09:38):
top of the industry to respond to those issues, and
that did pot some construction businesses in a hard spot.
What we're seeing now is that there's a bit more
pricing certainty in the system, able to better design and
build at the price points that they need to clear
these houses and buildings more generally, So we're starting to
see a system that's kind of starting to reset, rebalance,
(09:59):
come into the norm I think, and.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I guess there's a tendency for construction workers to be
more self employed. Hey, can that be difficult to maintain?
Speaker 5 (10:08):
It can be difficult to maintain profit margins when it
really depends on how much work you've got going on.
So a building system or workloads that can be quite
variable can impact someone who's a solved proprietor you know,
they work by themselves a lot more than a large
construction firm, so it will be less resilient to those
(10:30):
fluctuations in the short term.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
There's also data in this tool around trading callbacks and
how often roofers or painters are getting us to come
back and touch something up. What do you hope people
do with this information.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
I just think it's a really good way for the
industry to start measuring what they're doing, understand the size
of the problem, and then think about ways that they
can improve it. I think it's important with some of
the defect stuff to kind of contextualize it as well.
A building is a very complex system of moving parts
are going and doing work sequenced, but you're relying on
(11:03):
someone who comes in before you to do a good
job to then come and do your piece. Sometimes secuencing
doesn't work. Sometimes something can come up after you have
completed your work that means that you have to come back.
So of our classic example here being painters coming to
do touch ups because someone might have dinged the wall
when they were moving something in or something like that.
(11:23):
So there are numerous factors that can actually lead to
defects on a building site, not just the quality of
workmanship from one trade to the next.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Well that's what I was going to say. Hey, so
it's not always someone doing shoddy work or something like that,
but it does matter what the person does before you.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
Exactly, and as a system, it's good to recognize that
we all play a part towards a good quality outcome
at the end of the day, So tracking it as
a system is important, but also having those processes and
procedures in place on site that someone can take hold
of quality and be responsible for it. It's really important.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Well, do you think that we've lost that kind of
quality control aspect of building.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
Not necessarily, it's just not something that's being done in
a conscious or considered way. Often you do need someone
who's ultimately responsible for delivering to that client, and sometimes
that can be lost when we do ramp up there's
a lot of activity going on. It can be difficult
to keep control of site to site rather than looking
(12:26):
at you everything that you're trying to build.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
At the same time, there are some signs of more
apprentices coming into the industry, which is obviously a good thing.
But when you look at some of the data on
callbacks and growing dissatisfaction and businesses going under, do you
think we need to look a little bit more at
the standards or regulations or even training.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Again, it's not necessarily the case. I think it's important
that we have a strong influx of a prince's coming in,
particularly when we're sort of aware of what could be
coming out of the industry over the next few years.
We do know that we have an aging workforce, so
it's important to keep furnishing the staff so we've still
got the capability to deliver on everything that needs to
be built. It's just making sure that we're pairing our
(13:07):
apprentices with good experienced builders or trades so that they're
able to learn on the job to a satisfactory level.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And I guess from an economic perspective, it's not great
for us as a nation if we are spending a
lot more time and money on getting our houses fixed up.
The obvious example is the leaky building crisis, but more
recently we reported earlier this year on new builds in
Auckland overheating over summer just because of the way that
they're made.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
The fundamental cause of the issue is the lack of
requirement to consider overheating in the building code and how
that comes to reality is a lot of overglazing. We
focused a lot on the view and getting daylight into
homes and that is a good thing, but we tend
(13:56):
to overglaze a lot of our houses and we don't
have adequate shady.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
And from I guess an even more micro level, My
producer had to work from home, for example, for a
couple of days last week because he needed to get
his curtain rail fixed and it actually took four visits
in total for the plastering and painting to be completed.
He then had to work from home, and that affects
productivity down the line.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
Hey, exactly, there are numerous flow on effects two things
not being done right first time.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
From the data that you've collected and in creating this,
what's something that stood out to you that may have
surprised you, shocked you good or bad?
Speaker 5 (14:36):
I think that's something that I always find quite surprising
about this is just that difference between the cost of
buying existing home versus building something new, something that we
often think of as being a trade off in the system,
but that we're finding that actually that cost of frencher
can be upwards of two hundred thousand dollars at a time.
We're housing affordability is a real issue in New Zealand,
(14:57):
really trying to start light on how hardened is going
to be fixed some of these problems going forward. We
can't necessarily just build our way out of their housing
affordability issue.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
And do you think it's quite important because we obviously
need more houses.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
We've been told that for it feels like decades now
that we need to keep building houses.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
We need houses, houses, houses.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
But is there a fear that if you try to
go as quickly as possible then you end up with
shoddy work.
Speaker 5 (15:25):
It's about right sizing. I think for me, it's more
of an issue when you have these large swings and
activity rather than the share amount of houses that we
need to build. If we can consistently deliver a pipeline
of say forty thousand new houses a year, the industry
is skilled and has capability and capacity to do so.
(15:45):
What we can't do is suddenly decide that we need
to build fifty thousand houses then come down to thirty.
That's where you start to lose those skills or that
ability to get through the sharer number of houses that
we need to and that's when workmanship issues can start
to show up.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Thanks for joining us, Matt, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzdherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
our sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the front
page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
(16:31):
tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.
Chielder.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. We've all
got an anecdote or story about a trade who did
us dirty or an issue with a new build.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Well, now we've got some actual.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Evidence around what's happening in the construction industry. The Building
Research Association of New Zealand has launched a new Build
Insights tool to provide accurate information on everything from trading
callbacks to new apprenticeships and the cost of new builds. Later,
we'll be joined by Brand's senior economist Matt Curtis to
(00:46):
talk through the broader economic picture. But first on the
Front Page ends At Herald, Head of Data Chris Knox
is with us to run through some of the key
stats when it comes to tradees. Chris, let's start with
the one thing everyone wants, the answer to which trady
(01:08):
do people call back the most to fix an issue
after they've moved in.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
It turns out it's painters. Fifty percent of people of
new homeowners report that painters need to come back after
they've moved in.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
And why is that they've just done a shoddy job or.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Well, I'm not sure. This is not something I'm not
certain about. It could also be that they are impacted
by other people's work more so, like the painter might
do stuff and then you know, the electrician comes in
and cuts a new hole, and then the painter needs
to come back.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Oh right, right.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
But on top of that, a growing number of people
are unhappy with their builders as well.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Hey, yeah, I was.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Quite surprised at the level of unhappiness with a builder,
particularly for a new build, where you know, I feel
like things should be a bit more I guess defined
or controlled than they are in a renovation. But yeah,
it looks like basically one in three people wouldn't recommend
their builder after they've completed a new build.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
That's pretty concerning considering how many people are looking to
do building on their house, not even just a new build,
but just renoing the kitchen and stuff as well.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Hey, yeah, it's certainly.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I mean, I guess they were restricted by there's not
a lot of not always a lot of choice about
which builder you go to, But certainly, I think the
thing that sort of struck me from this data is
how much kind of more work I'd put into trying
to make sure that I was happy with my builder
before I got started.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
There does seem to generally be some rising dissatisfaction with
new builds as well.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Hey, yes, yeah, I again, I'm not sure kind of
what's driving this trend, but people don't seem to be
super happy after they've moved in, which you know, it
would be pretty gunning to put all that time and
money into a house and then not like it.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
What's some of the data around that seems like a
really big thing is the level of communication between the
client and the builder.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
So six only sixty two percent of people are actually
happy with the level of communication that they've had now,
which has dropped from kind of a peak of seventy
five about five years ago. And there's also people are
unhappy with completion time.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
There is some positive news around the price of houses
and buying land though.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
So it's not all bad news, is it.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
No, there's been a decrease in the cost of land.
In fact, brains reckons it's about the lowest it's been
in about three years, and the cost of land plus
a new build is about four percent down on what
it was, although on average about two hundred thousand dollars
more than buying an already existing house.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
It's all very well government saying that they're going to
pop their finger on the scale and dictate terms to
how expensive a house is going to be. But the
reality is, as soon as they declare that they're going
to develop in a particular area, land values go up
and therefore costs go up. The market is what the
market is. It costs a particular amount of money to
be able to deliver a house or particular size and
(04:09):
particular location. That is the fact. You can't have it
both ways.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
And for those people who aren't happy with their builders,
I suppose it's good news that there's more of them
joining the industry.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Yeah, there's been a really big search in the number
of people doing apprenticeships and other training related to trades.
It's nearly doubled in ten years, which I thought was
quite surprising.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, considering how.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Difficult it is to get someone out to your house,
especially on a weekend, I don't know if you lock
your key in, for example.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
This sounds like it might not be hypothetical. I guess
another thing that maybe could be something we should be
looking at in the future is how many people are
training in new Zealand and then going and working overseas.
Potentially the construction detector might suffer from some of the
same dynamics that our other training sectors do.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah, so we spend all of the time training you know,
plaster up here and then they go to Aussie and
get paid double.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
That's that same old story.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
I suspect that could be in play.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Yes, is there any other data that stood out to you, Chris?
Speaker 3 (05:17):
I was actually quite surprised by the variation and how
long it takes to get a consent done. So you've
got some councils that are getting have a medium processing
time of five days, which is essentially just a week,
and then other councils it's more like three weeks. And
then obviously it's a median, so there's a whole lot
more that are much higher than that.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yeah, where's the worst place?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
The worst place is whay Kado District Council, although Auckland
Council is the worst of kind of the large councils
and Carterendon is the place to where things happen really quickly.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Should there be some kind of regulatory framework that covers
the entire country or do we just leave it up
to the councils individually to sign off on these things.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
I mean, this is a, I guess, a politically charged question,
but I do my personal opinions. Sixty six different organizations
doing building consensus too many for a country of five million.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Thanks for joining us, Chris Norris, you are.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
For a deeper insight into the new build Insights tool
and what it means for the wider economy. We're joined
now by Brand's senior economist Matt Curtis, So Matt, can
you give us some insight into why this tool was
created in the first place.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
There's a lot of building related data out there that's
all quite disparate and it doesn't really talk to each other.
So what we thought was a good idea was to
really try and bring it all together in one source
for people to quickly reference and understand what's going on
at quite a high level. But it does bring together
a whole bunch of data from various sources that can
(07:05):
really show people at a high level what's going on
across the building and construction system.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Is there a bit of a move to limit anecdotes
and word of mouth spreading that could give people the
wrong idea of where the industry is at.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
I think it's more about just providing that single source
of truth from a trusted and reputal source where we
can stop talking about what might be happening out there
and focus on what the data's actually telling us is going.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
On on the ground.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Right, So, looking into the data, new builds continue to
be expensive, what are the factors driving those costs?
Speaker 5 (07:38):
A lot of the factors relate to how sticky some
of the pricing can be sections. For example, the purchasing
of land often has a long lag time between when
it's purchased and when it's finally brought to market, which
does mean that sections can't necessarily respond to the drivers
of the day. Then we've got factors such as labor,
(07:58):
where labor quite short supply. When demand for construction was
so high, it's really hard to then scale down label
pricing when things start to slow down. And then materials,
we had some supply chain issues, a lot of demand
for these building products and they went up at the
same time. It was almost a perfect storm there for
a little while during that sort of pandemic.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Are we seeing any improvement here, because we've been talking
about this since COVID so is there any light at
the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
Yes, So we're starting to see land prices respond to
the fact that we're just not building to the same
extent as we were. Some of the medium density stuff.
We can build that at a cheaper price per unit,
then we can standalone, so that brings some efficiencies as well,
and materials are starting to slowly come back down. It
is a global market, and what we're seeing is that
(08:48):
demand internationally is starting to slow and therefore we're seeing
some of the price implications of that slow down flow
through to New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
So the construction industry is growing according to this data
eighty one one thousand, eight hundred and ninety one businesses
in twenty twenty four, but construction business liquidations were up
thirty seven percent as well and made up thirty one
percent of all business liquidations. What's fueling this boom and
I suppose bust At the same time.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
It was a difficult time for the construction industry as
we sort of came out of the COVID pandemic. We
saw a lot of pricing that was put in pre
pandemic or pre supply chain issues that then was really
hard to meet when those price increases came through the system,
So there was a little bit of time at it
(09:38):
top of the industry to respond to those issues, and
that did pot some construction businesses in a hard spot.
What we're seeing now is that there's a bit more
pricing certainty in the system, able to better design and
build at the price points that they need to clear
these houses and buildings more generally, So we're starting to
see a system that's kind of starting to reset, rebalance,
(09:59):
come into the norm I think, and.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I guess there's a tendency for construction workers to be
more self employed. Hey, can that be difficult to maintain?
Speaker 5 (10:08):
It can be difficult to maintain profit margins when it
really depends on how much work you've got going on.
So a building system or workloads that can be quite
variable can impact someone who's a solved proprietor you know,
they work by themselves a lot more than a large
construction firm, so it will be less resilient to those
(10:30):
fluctuations in the short term.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
There's also data in this tool around trading callbacks and
how often roofers or painters are getting us to come
back and touch something up. What do you hope people
do with this information.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
I just think it's a really good way for the
industry to start measuring what they're doing, understand the size
of the problem, and then think about ways that they
can improve it. I think it's important with some of
the defect stuff to kind of contextualize it as well.
A building is a very complex system of moving parts
are going and doing work sequenced, but you're relying on
(11:03):
someone who comes in before you to do a good
job to then come and do your piece. Sometimes secuencing
doesn't work. Sometimes something can come up after you have
completed your work that means that you have to come back.
So of our classic example here being painters coming to
do touch ups because someone might have dinged the wall
when they were moving something in or something like that.
(11:23):
So there are numerous factors that can actually lead to
defects on a building site, not just the quality of
workmanship from one trade to the next.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Well that's what I was going to say. Hey, so
it's not always someone doing shoddy work or something like that,
but it does matter what the person does before you.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
Exactly, and as a system, it's good to recognize that
we all play a part towards a good quality outcome
at the end of the day, So tracking it as
a system is important, but also having those processes and
procedures in place on site that someone can take hold
of quality and be responsible for it. It's really important.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Well, do you think that we've lost that kind of
quality control aspect of building.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
Not necessarily, it's just not something that's being done in
a conscious or considered way. Often you do need someone
who's ultimately responsible for delivering to that client, and sometimes
that can be lost when we do ramp up there's
a lot of activity going on. It can be difficult
to keep control of site to site rather than looking
(12:26):
at you everything that you're trying to build.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
At the same time, there are some signs of more
apprentices coming into the industry, which is obviously a good thing.
But when you look at some of the data on
callbacks and growing dissatisfaction and businesses going under, do you
think we need to look a little bit more at
the standards or regulations or even training.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Again, it's not necessarily the case. I think it's important
that we have a strong influx of a prince's coming in,
particularly when we're sort of aware of what could be
coming out of the industry over the next few years.
We do know that we have an aging workforce, so
it's important to keep furnishing the staff so we've still
got the capability to deliver on everything that needs to
be built. It's just making sure that we're pairing our
(13:07):
apprentices with good experienced builders or trades so that they're
able to learn on the job to a satisfactory level.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And I guess from an economic perspective, it's not great
for us as a nation if we are spending a
lot more time and money on getting our houses fixed up.
The obvious example is the leaky building crisis, but more
recently we reported earlier this year on new builds in
Auckland overheating over summer just because of the way that
they're made.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
The fundamental cause of the issue is the lack of
requirement to consider overheating in the building code and how
that comes to reality is a lot of overglazing. We
focused a lot on the view and getting daylight into
homes and that is a good thing, but we tend
(13:56):
to overglaze a lot of our houses and we don't
have adequate shady.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
And from I guess an even more micro level, My
producer had to work from home, for example, for a
couple of days last week because he needed to get
his curtain rail fixed and it actually took four visits
in total for the plastering and painting to be completed.
He then had to work from home, and that affects
productivity down the line.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
Hey, exactly, there are numerous flow on effects two things
not being done right first time.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
From the data that you've collected and in creating this,
what's something that stood out to you that may have
surprised you, shocked you good or bad?
Speaker 5 (14:36):
I think that's something that I always find quite surprising
about this is just that difference between the cost of
buying existing home versus building something new, something that we
often think of as being a trade off in the system,
but that we're finding that actually that cost of frencher
can be upwards of two hundred thousand dollars at a time.
We're housing affordability is a real issue in New Zealand,
(14:57):
really trying to start light on how hardened is going
to be fixed some of these problems going forward. We
can't necessarily just build our way out of their housing
affordability issue.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
And do you think it's quite important because we obviously
need more houses.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
We've been told that for it feels like decades now
that we need to keep building houses.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
We need houses, houses, houses.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
But is there a fear that if you try to
go as quickly as possible then you end up with
shoddy work.
Speaker 5 (15:25):
It's about right sizing. I think for me, it's more
of an issue when you have these large swings and
activity rather than the share amount of houses that we
need to build. If we can consistently deliver a pipeline
of say forty thousand new houses a year, the industry
is skilled and has capability and capacity to do so.
(15:45):
What we can't do is suddenly decide that we need
to build fifty thousand houses then come down to thirty.
That's where you start to lose those skills or that
ability to get through the sharer number of houses that
we need to and that's when workmanship issues can start
to show up.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Thanks for joining us, Matt, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzdherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
our sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the front
page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
(16:31):
tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.
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