Chris Penk: Building Minister on the changes to the earthquake-prone building system

The Building and Construction Minister says new earthquake building rules are more nuanced.

Changes to the rules will remove Auckland, Northland, and the Chatham Islands from the regime. 

Coastal Otago, including Dunedin, will be classified as a medium seismic hazard area, and will remain within the earthquake-prone building system 

Building Minister Chris Penk says the rules are ultimately designed to protect life.  

He told Mike Hosking under the current system some owners were unable to afford the upgrades.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Common sense arrived yesterday. This in the form of the
governments reorganization of the earthquake building rules. Entire cities and
regions for goodness sake have been removed, timeframes for remediation
have been extended, and a shed loaded though eight billion
plus is being saved. Chris Pink is a building construction
minister and as well as good morning morning Mite. Now
you said yesterday I watched your press conference live. You
said it was well intentioned and was it really? When

(00:21):
you can take something as large as Auckland out of it,
how well intentioned is a plan that broad.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, certainly if you think about the tragedy that was
the loss of life and Canterbury earthquakes and a period
of time when everyone was wondering what that should be
going forward, I think really understandable that they wanted to
be risk averse. But the truth is we do still
need to maintain life safety to has the system, but
there are more nuanced ways we can do that. So
that's what we've learned in the intervening der Gate.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
How literally have you assessed risk under your new calculation?

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Well, it's possible to be precise, because obviously earthquakes are
difficult to predict one year to another, but we think
if we take a risk proportionate approach that asks, first
of all, where are the parts in New Zealand that
it's least likely, And then you refine down to the
remaining areas, which is to say, not au closed North
lond at Chedham Island, and then you ask what are

(01:13):
the most dangerous types of buildings and it gets the
high and construction methods, then you can start to make
some sensible changes. I think that hopefully people will regard
its balance.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
What you what's the whole purpose of this? Is the
purpose to save some beautiful old buildings or just to
rectify people's lives who have had them shattered because they
count afford the building, can't get access to the money
to do it anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, it's a lot of the latter. The purpose of
the earthquake prone building regime, We're really clear it is
to preserve life. So if it does that, we keep it.
If it doesn't, or we can say, you know, it's
a reasonable kind of approach to say that we might
be going beyond what's reasonable, then we leave it. And look,
that might mean that there are some buildings that are

(01:57):
damaged in an earthquake and people simply need to pay
for those going forward. Well, they've got insurance options, but
that's a different matter from the government saying that people
must bring them up to a certain standard by a
certain time, and of course the consequence of that is
when they can't, the buildings can't derelict.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
The fall down anyway, Chris appreciate it. Chris Pink's the
Building and Construction Minister. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,
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