Hon Nick Smith
National Party Building and Construction Spokesman

27 July 2006

Bill tackles delays in building consents

National Building and Construction spokesman Nick Smith is delighted that his Building (Late Consent is a Free Consent) Amendment Bill has been drawn from the Members’ Bill ballot.

“This bill tackles the problem faced by thousands of builders and homeowners of months of delay in getting building consents.

“The law requires that building consents are processed within 20 working days but there are numerous examples of it taking months longer than this. The result is land sitting vacant and builders being idle. The cost of delays just make houses more expensive for families.

“The time constraints on building consent processing are meaningless when there is no penalty or consequence of it being ignored. Citizens face penalties when they do not comply with statutory timeframes for things like filing tax returns, and the same should apply to statutory bodies.

“This bill will focus the minds of those processing building consents to do so in a timely way. This will reduce the bureaucratic frustrations of builders and homeowners and improve the productivity of the $10 billion-a-year building industry,” says Dr Smith.

ENDS

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