September 28, 2024 • 10 mins
The Government announces a significant shake up to building and construction with reform of the building consent system.
They have proposed a number of potential changes; including establishing consenting authorities to replace the 67 BCAs New Zealand currently has, allowing councils to team up on building consents, and creating a single point of contact for building plans.
Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk joins Tim Beveridge on The Weekend Collective to discuss further.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News talks'd be.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The government has just announced a planned significant shake up
to building and construction with the reform of the building
consent system. They've proposed a number of potential changes, including
establishing consenting authorities to replace the sixty seven building consent
authorities New Zealand currently has, allowing councils to team up
on building consents, creating a single point of contact for
(00:32):
building plans and hopefully saving time and money. Minister for
Building and Construction Chris Pink is with us now, good afternoon.
Good afternoon, So just what is the purpose of the
building consent system?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Well, that's a really good question if you look at
it at first principles, we want buildings to be safe,
good quality, also sustainable chuck that in there as well,
But basically we want a good quality, but we also
want a system that is going to allow things to
be built and a reasonable period of time and a
reasonable cost. The balance isn't quite right at the moment,
(01:07):
but we have building contents so that we've got a
system of saying does the proposed work meet the code
and if it does, you go ahead and you do
it in according to that you get signed off at
the other end of what's called a CCC Code compliance certificate,
and that's all really straightforward as far as it goes.
But the reality is that, like any system, that's could
be improved, and we're looking at doing that in a
(01:27):
number of different ways that we've been talking about.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
How I guess is it time and money? How much
do you think it's going to reduce the cost of building?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Honestly, it's hard to know, because I think most of
the reduced costs associated won't be that you've got a
fee that's X number of dollars here, or you know,
another sort of definable cost over there. It's all about
the constraint on the system around productivity and economies of scale.
And what I mean by that is at the moment
(01:56):
you've got, as you quite rightly said in your intro,
more than sixty different councils around New Zealand, each doing
your own thing interpreting the building. So what it means
is we don't have builders doing work at scale across
regional boundaries or council boundaries, even without the fear that's
in the real world experience that we're seeing at the
moment that different ones have different interpretations, So you can't
(02:19):
use the same set of plans, you can't use the
same practices because you get second guests depending on which
side of a line on a map be drawing. So
that's a bit of what we're going to try and
take away from the system as that currently stands.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Is it also a question of just examining where liability rests,
because you know, you get a dodgy builder, you get
somebody makes a mistake and the consens and it ends
up being the councils as the last man's standing, so
to speak. Is that a major problem for this And yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yeah, Governor, you're absolutely right, this is the main problem. Certainly,
if you talk to the councils, I've got a lot
of sympathy actually when they say things like, you know,
they've got to be really careful and risk averse and
take their time and double check everything because in the
event this something gets cocked up, as you rightly say,
actually they can be liable for the whole amount. And
the reason they'd be liable as well, they signed off
(03:07):
the content and they gave it a ticket at the end,
and they were conducting inspections throughout. So in the event
that the builder is nowhere to be seen, you know,
or the trade or the developer because they've run into
financial troubles, or they simply disappear into the distance, so
to speak, but then pop up elsewhere under a different name.
You know, these these stories are sadly all too familiar.
(03:28):
And that said, an individual building site's level before you
then think about you know, wide scale stuff around earthquakes
and floods and there I say that leaky buildings. So
we do need a system that actually recognizes that risk
that councils are techno at the moment, ask if it's
fair for them to not have to be so intimately
involved in a way that puts their rate payers in
(03:49):
the gun for you know, the risk of something going wrong.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Well, if you're looking at shifting that a bit, and
I'm sure there'd be every great power would sort of say, hello, Eulia,
maybe where are you going to put that burden of
liability when things do go wrong?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Well, that's a really good question. I mean the starting
point usually, you know, just bear with me philosophically, is
that the person who's you know, buying the goods or
the services takes a bit of a risk. It's called
buyer be where you do your due diligence and usually
that's okay. Some consumer protection, you know, sort of normally
exists in the event that someone are ethically or you know,
this frankly ripoff situation. The reason we've got to be
(04:24):
really careful in building is because it's such an expense
of air set for people. You know, usually the most
valuable thing that a person will own will be your home.
And often it's the case that if you're having a
building where it's done for you, or you're moving into
an existing pace, as the case may be, you just
simply don't have visibility on where things have been done
well or not. So to answer your question about where
else that might lie, insurances and obvious possibility, although that's
(04:48):
actually not a silver bullet when you think about had
experience in Australia where they have more reliance on insurance,
but the private insurance market isn't keen to fill all
the gaps, so you end up with a state or
a government impact insurer doing that. So if we'll just
pass past the buck in terms of w with the
risk lines, I actually think in terms of mitigating us.
The bigger prize is saying, well, if there are builders
(05:10):
who are reputable and experienced and don't have any issues historically,
then maybe if we spend less resource double chipney their
work and actually get a lot harder on the cowboys
or those who are less experienced and doing stuff at
less great scale, then that's a better place for the resources.
So we have fewer problem.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Is there potentially I know you guys are about less government,
but is there a role for government centrally when it
comes to underwriting horrendous mistakes?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yeah? I mean, again a really good question. And of
course you're right about the centralization. It's generally speaking, we'd
rather have things more local than central, but you do
weigh out against the question of whether you can do
things more efficiently at a large scale. And in the
case of the building code, because there is only one
that exists across New Zealand, we're not talking about regional
plans for resource management, we're not talking about local assets
(06:05):
per three waters. So actually there's an argument, because it's
meant to be a single consistent system anyway, that actually
it should be administered in a way that's much more
certain and consistent across the country. So potentially yes, in
just going back to that liability piece, the funny thing
is well, not funny at all really, But the interesting
thing is that oftentimes the New Zealand's taxpayer at large
(06:27):
ends up footing your bill for building failure anyway, be
it earthquakes, I think Canterbury, I think you know, flooding
per last year in the North Island, think leaky buildings
of course, which also was a local government issue, but
at central government as well. So you know, the text
player has stepped in plenty of times actually, even without
some sort of control and being sized by central government.
(06:49):
So it's time to rethink that.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I guess that the gut reaction of people who when
something is streamlined and made simpler as the problem is
just reassuring people that this won't see a backward step
when it comes to protecting consumers against shoddy building actices.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, again, entirely fair in reasonable question in point to raise,
we're really conscious that we don't want to lower standards.
We're not amending a word of the Building Code in
terms of lowering any standards or raising them for that matter.
By proposing that the Building Content Authority structure change. What
we want to say is that the existing are actually
(07:29):
performed to at a way that makes sense across the country.
And if you think about saying in conjunction with that
point I made earlier that builders who are frankly less reliable,
less experienced should actually have more scrucinally not less, and
we can free up the resources of the system to
focus more on them, to get the specialization associated with
(07:51):
councils banding together a bit more. Then actually we should
have higher quality standards, if anything, not not lotle ones.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah, of course there's an announcement that you're going to
be changing things. How long are you expecting the whole
process to take till when we've got some legislation in
front of us.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Well, I think it depends a little bit which options taken.
Whether we're going along the lines of allowing councils that
already want to bend together and have done some work
along those lines and are frankly just begging to be
allowed to get on and do it, that would be
relatively short. That would be you know, that could be
as early as the start of next year. That there
could be something you know, well well gripped up in
(08:25):
that space. But if you were going to more of
a single point of contact across the country, potentially setting
up a new enterity to doing that, then maybe that's
going to be a bit longer. But either way, you know,
we want to move really quickly. We've been having conversations
all year about it. It's not like this as the
start line where we're sort of, you know, quite well advanced,
even though we're saying now formally that we want to
(08:47):
engage and get some sorts on those particular pre options
that we've narrowed down to.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
What's the biggest concrete idea you're starting with?
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Then the biggest idea, I suppose that the shortest route
to a better system is that where you can have
a regional structure or councils that are close to each
other voluntarily consolidating their resources. If you could let them
go on and do that, then they don't need to
be reinventing the wheel, each in their own rights and
(09:17):
getting a credit at every two years, going to all
that cost and tie each individually, there'd be an immediate
safe thing for rate payers. So I suppose that's the
big prize is how we can do that more efficiently. Again,
without sacrificing quality.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
From what you've said, actually, this sounds like you might
actually be able to work with counsels and they might
actually be supporting you on this one.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah. Well that's and I really hope so instantly. It's
been a very constructive conversation on this in the last
little while when I've given them their heads up because
I want local government to know that we're working collaboratively
on them with us. Partly it's that communication thing and
it's security, but actually saying we'll look, there's something in
this for you, and if anything, aren't just adopting the
(09:56):
idea that they've come to me with. So I can't
take any credit for saying, here's this idea, why don't
you do it. I'm literally just saying, well, look, if
you guys want to do this way and if you
can deliver at least as good outcomes, if not better,
in fabeit for me to stand in your way.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Excellent. Oh, Chris, I really appreciate your time this afternoon.
Thanks so much.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
There we go.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
That's Chris Pink, Minister for Building and Construction. Look, it
sounds pretty common sense to me to be reforming this
process and you know what, given the relationship there's a
little bit of tension between central government and local government,
might be something Chris Luxan can celebrate next time he's
at the local government conference, and he might get a
round of applause for that run rather than the sort
of I don't know passive aggression.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
For more from the Weekend Collective, listen live to news
Talks it'd be weekends from three pm, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News talks'd be.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The government has just announced a planned significant shake up
to building and construction with the reform of the building
consent system. They've proposed a number of potential changes, including
establishing consenting authorities to replace the sixty seven building consent
authorities New Zealand currently has, allowing councils to team up
on building consents, creating a single point of contact for
(00:32):
building plans and hopefully saving time and money. Minister for
Building and Construction Chris Pink is with us now, good afternoon.
Good afternoon, So just what is the purpose of the
building consent system?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Well, that's a really good question if you look at
it at first principles, we want buildings to be safe,
good quality, also sustainable chuck that in there as well,
But basically we want a good quality, but we also
want a system that is going to allow things to
be built and a reasonable period of time and a
reasonable cost. The balance isn't quite right at the moment,
(01:07):
but we have building contents so that we've got a
system of saying does the proposed work meet the code
and if it does, you go ahead and you do
it in according to that you get signed off at
the other end of what's called a CCC Code compliance certificate,
and that's all really straightforward as far as it goes.
But the reality is that, like any system, that's could
be improved, and we're looking at doing that in a
(01:27):
number of different ways that we've been talking about.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
How I guess is it time and money? How much
do you think it's going to reduce the cost of building?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Honestly, it's hard to know, because I think most of
the reduced costs associated won't be that you've got a
fee that's X number of dollars here, or you know,
another sort of definable cost over there. It's all about
the constraint on the system around productivity and economies of scale.
And what I mean by that is at the moment
(01:56):
you've got, as you quite rightly said in your intro,
more than sixty different councils around New Zealand, each doing
your own thing interpreting the building. So what it means
is we don't have builders doing work at scale across
regional boundaries or council boundaries, even without the fear that's
in the real world experience that we're seeing at the
moment that different ones have different interpretations, So you can't
(02:19):
use the same set of plans, you can't use the
same practices because you get second guests depending on which
side of a line on a map be drawing. So
that's a bit of what we're going to try and
take away from the system as that currently stands.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Is it also a question of just examining where liability rests,
because you know, you get a dodgy builder, you get
somebody makes a mistake and the consens and it ends
up being the councils as the last man's standing, so
to speak. Is that a major problem for this And yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yeah, Governor, you're absolutely right, this is the main problem. Certainly,
if you talk to the councils, I've got a lot
of sympathy actually when they say things like, you know,
they've got to be really careful and risk averse and
take their time and double check everything because in the
event this something gets cocked up, as you rightly say,
actually they can be liable for the whole amount. And
the reason they'd be liable as well, they signed off
(03:07):
the content and they gave it a ticket at the end,
and they were conducting inspections throughout. So in the event
that the builder is nowhere to be seen, you know,
or the trade or the developer because they've run into
financial troubles, or they simply disappear into the distance, so
to speak, but then pop up elsewhere under a different name.
You know, these these stories are sadly all too familiar.
(03:28):
And that said, an individual building site's level before you
then think about you know, wide scale stuff around earthquakes
and floods and there I say that leaky buildings. So
we do need a system that actually recognizes that risk
that councils are techno at the moment, ask if it's
fair for them to not have to be so intimately
involved in a way that puts their rate payers in
(03:49):
the gun for you know, the risk of something going wrong.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Well, if you're looking at shifting that a bit, and
I'm sure there'd be every great power would sort of say, hello, Eulia,
maybe where are you going to put that burden of
liability when things do go wrong?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Well, that's a really good question. I mean the starting
point usually, you know, just bear with me philosophically, is
that the person who's you know, buying the goods or
the services takes a bit of a risk. It's called
buyer be where you do your due diligence and usually
that's okay. Some consumer protection, you know, sort of normally
exists in the event that someone are ethically or you know,
this frankly ripoff situation. The reason we've got to be
(04:24):
really careful in building is because it's such an expense
of air set for people. You know, usually the most
valuable thing that a person will own will be your home.
And often it's the case that if you're having a
building where it's done for you, or you're moving into
an existing pace, as the case may be, you just
simply don't have visibility on where things have been done
well or not. So to answer your question about where
else that might lie, insurances and obvious possibility, although that's
(04:48):
actually not a silver bullet when you think about had
experience in Australia where they have more reliance on insurance,
but the private insurance market isn't keen to fill all
the gaps, so you end up with a state or
a government impact insurer doing that. So if we'll just
pass past the buck in terms of w with the
risk lines, I actually think in terms of mitigating us.
The bigger prize is saying, well, if there are builders
(05:10):
who are reputable and experienced and don't have any issues historically,
then maybe if we spend less resource double chipney their
work and actually get a lot harder on the cowboys
or those who are less experienced and doing stuff at
less great scale, then that's a better place for the resources.
So we have fewer problem.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Is there potentially I know you guys are about less government,
but is there a role for government centrally when it
comes to underwriting horrendous mistakes?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yeah? I mean, again a really good question. And of
course you're right about the centralization. It's generally speaking, we'd
rather have things more local than central, but you do
weigh out against the question of whether you can do
things more efficiently at a large scale. And in the
case of the building code, because there is only one
that exists across New Zealand, we're not talking about regional
plans for resource management, we're not talking about local assets
(06:05):
per three waters. So actually there's an argument, because it's
meant to be a single consistent system anyway, that actually
it should be administered in a way that's much more
certain and consistent across the country. So potentially yes, in
just going back to that liability piece, the funny thing
is well, not funny at all really, But the interesting
thing is that oftentimes the New Zealand's taxpayer at large
(06:27):
ends up footing your bill for building failure anyway, be
it earthquakes, I think Canterbury, I think you know, flooding
per last year in the North Island, think leaky buildings
of course, which also was a local government issue, but
at central government as well. So you know, the text
player has stepped in plenty of times actually, even without
some sort of control and being sized by central government.
(06:49):
So it's time to rethink that.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I guess that the gut reaction of people who when
something is streamlined and made simpler as the problem is
just reassuring people that this won't see a backward step
when it comes to protecting consumers against shoddy building actices.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, again, entirely fair in reasonable question in point to raise,
we're really conscious that we don't want to lower standards.
We're not amending a word of the Building Code in
terms of lowering any standards or raising them for that matter.
By proposing that the Building Content Authority structure change. What
we want to say is that the existing are actually
(07:29):
performed to at a way that makes sense across the country.
And if you think about saying in conjunction with that
point I made earlier that builders who are frankly less reliable,
less experienced should actually have more scrucinally not less, and
we can free up the resources of the system to
focus more on them, to get the specialization associated with
(07:51):
councils banding together a bit more. Then actually we should
have higher quality standards, if anything, not not lotle ones.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah, of course there's an announcement that you're going to
be changing things. How long are you expecting the whole
process to take till when we've got some legislation in
front of us.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Well, I think it depends a little bit which options taken.
Whether we're going along the lines of allowing councils that
already want to bend together and have done some work
along those lines and are frankly just begging to be
allowed to get on and do it, that would be
relatively short. That would be you know, that could be
as early as the start of next year. That there
could be something you know, well well gripped up in
(08:25):
that space. But if you were going to more of
a single point of contact across the country, potentially setting
up a new enterity to doing that, then maybe that's
going to be a bit longer. But either way, you know,
we want to move really quickly. We've been having conversations
all year about it. It's not like this as the
start line where we're sort of, you know, quite well advanced,
even though we're saying now formally that we want to
(08:47):
engage and get some sorts on those particular pre options
that we've narrowed down to.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
What's the biggest concrete idea you're starting with?
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Then the biggest idea, I suppose that the shortest route
to a better system is that where you can have
a regional structure or councils that are close to each
other voluntarily consolidating their resources. If you could let them
go on and do that, then they don't need to
be reinventing the wheel, each in their own rights and
(09:17):
getting a credit at every two years, going to all
that cost and tie each individually, there'd be an immediate
safe thing for rate payers. So I suppose that's the
big prize is how we can do that more efficiently. Again,
without sacrificing quality.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
From what you've said, actually, this sounds like you might
actually be able to work with counsels and they might
actually be supporting you on this one.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah. Well that's and I really hope so instantly. It's
been a very constructive conversation on this in the last
little while when I've given them their heads up because
I want local government to know that we're working collaboratively
on them with us. Partly it's that communication thing and
it's security, but actually saying we'll look, there's something in
this for you, and if anything, aren't just adopting the
(09:56):
idea that they've come to me with. So I can't
take any credit for saying, here's this idea, why don't
you do it. I'm literally just saying, well, look, if
you guys want to do this way and if you
can deliver at least as good outcomes, if not better,
in fabeit for me to stand in your way.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Excellent. Oh, Chris, I really appreciate your time this afternoon.
Thanks so much.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
There we go.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
That's Chris Pink, Minister for Building and Construction. Look, it
sounds pretty common sense to me to be reforming this
process and you know what, given the relationship there's a
little bit of tension between central government and local government,
might be something Chris Luxan can celebrate next time he's
at the local government conference, and he might get a
round of applause for that run rather than the sort
of I don't know passive aggression.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
For more from the Weekend Collective, listen live to news
Talks it'd be weekends from three pm, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio.
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