10 September 2004

Private Certifiers Not The Only Ones To Blame

New Zealand First housing spokesperson Brent Catchpole says private certifiers are being made scapegoats by the Building Industry Authority in an effort to sweep aside problems of poor quality housing construction overseen by territorial authorities.

“The underlying problem is not addressed in the Building Bill, and there is no point attacking private certifiers when the simple fact is there are insufficient resources to keep pace with the number of housing consents being agreed to by councils,” said Mr Catchpole.

“The BIA, which will be disbanded in November by the new Building Bill, is still currently responsible for monitoring and auditing both territorial authorities and private certifiers, and it has been very quick to place the blame for shoddy housing on private certifiers.

“The deregistration of Approved Building Certifiers this week demonstrates just how willing the BIA is to deregister private certifiers for inadequacies in building certification procedures, yet is unable to provide records of audits for territorial authorities.

“It is evident that territorial authorities don’t have a sufficient number of building inspectors to do the work, yet no interim arrangements have been established to allow private building certifiers to continue operating under the Building Act.

“The problem is that both territorial authorities and private certifiers are unable to keep pace with housing construction and as a result corners are being cut.

“There is no point blaming one group when the essential problem is that the industry doesn’t have enough skilled workers or inspectors to keep up with demand,” concluded Mr Catchpole.

ENDS

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>