Chris Penk: Minister for Building and Construction on the Government's plan to implement remote building inspections

The Government aims to make virtual inspections the default for building consents across the country.

Some councils have expressed reluctance around remote inspections, while others have embraced it.

Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says there are mitigations in place to avoid complications. 

"For example, there's a geolocator function in the app that says you can pinpoint the property that's being inspected."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now the government wants to force every council in this
country to allow building inspections to be done remotely. At
the moment, some councils are already doing remote inspections, but
some still require the respect inspections to be done in person,
which you know, if you've been here before, you know,
can lead to delays while builders wait around for the inspective,
sometimes for weeks to find times to fit them in.
Chris Pink is the Building in Construction minister. Who's with
us now?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey Chris, Hello, good evening.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Why are some councils resisting?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well, I mean they've all got their own practices and
policies and that's actually an issue itself. So we're trying
to provide a bit more certainty and consistency across the way.
But as far as remote inspections are concerned, I mean,
there's no good reason for them not to. And that's
borne out by the fact that some councils already on
board and embracing this new technology that we're all using
in every other aspect of our lives too.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
And they're basically using apps, are they.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, there's a couple of well, there's actually a few
sort of prominent apps, which you know, allow people to
upload videos and photos and other information in some of
it's real time, so there's no possibility that people can
sort of be gaming the system and uploading photos of
other sites. So technology exists, we've just got to be

(01:10):
bold enough to actually use it.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
I mean, would you agree that if we are not
doing in person and we are doing apps there is
a greater chance that the system is gained.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Well, theoretically that might be possible, but actually there's some
good mitigations. For example, there's a geolocator function in the
app that says you can pinpoint the property that's actually
being inspected, So you know, there'll always be people, I
suppose that a small minority who want to pull the
wall over the eyes of the authorities. But the reality
is these ways we can get around that. And if

(01:42):
we're so risk averse that we have a goldplayer system
that takes frankly, as long as it takes currently to build,
then we're going to increase the delays and the costs
even beyond that they are.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Now, how much do you regular would save on a
house build just doing this remotely?

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, it's hard to know to be honest, because it
depends how many inspections take place, and there's no consistent
data or again practices across the different councils for that. Actually,
the Building Act doesn't even require inspections, so it's sort
of really an ad hoc system that's built up with
the best of intentions. And you know, I can imagine
for a council that's trying to be risk averse because
they don't want the whole liability if if something goes

(02:18):
wrong and the builders nowhere to be seen. So it's
it's hard to know exactly how much, but I will
tell you, in a high interest rate environment, a couple
of weeks or four weeks, maybe by the time you've
had two inspections that are blown out by a fortnite Eah,
that's a huge amount of extra interest that these guys
are paying and of course then passing on to the
hapless homeowner at the end of the process.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Fair. Thank you very much, Chris, really appreciate talking to
you about that. It's Chris pank the Building and Construction Ministay.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
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