Hon Clayton Cosgrove
Minister for Building and Construction

21 September 2007 Speech

Professionalism Meeting Demand - speech to the Institute of Building Surveyors Conference 2007

Venue: Napier War Memorial Conference Centre, 48 Marine Parade, Napier
Time: 8.30am, Friday, 21 September 2007

President of the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors Russell Cooney, incoming President Theo Marlow and immediate Past President Kevin Longman; Institute members; invited guests; ladies and gentlemen.

Good morning. It is a real pleasure to join you today.

I would like to congratulate the Institute for organising this event which brings together a group of highly qualified building professionals from around New Zealand. Such events as these not only strengthen connections within the sector, but are also opportunities to exchange ideas and promote best practices.

Your theme, Professionalism Meeting the Demand, is particularly appropriate at this time given that a core part of the Government’s reform programme to transform the building sector is lifting professional standards while having the capacity to meet the demand.

You have a key role in this upgrading of industry standards - and you have already shown you can play your part through weathertight homes assessments. When a building withstands your scrutiny, it has indeed passed a rigorous test.

People want better buildings and the building industry wants an environment in which it can supply them. That means buildings being designed, built and inspected right, the first time. And that really is at the heart of all the changes taking place in the building industry.

Getting there requires innovation, smart problem-solving, and co-operation across the sector to succeed.

So where are we at this moment?

Weathertightness

We are getting to grips with the weathertightness issues that have affected too many houses in this country due to the de-regulation of the industry in the 1990’s. Right from the start your members have been key players in the government’s programme to sort out this problem it inherited. Your members continue to produce almost all WHRS assessment reports and the work you do doing continues to improve on the already high quality.

One very important recent milestone in fixing this leaky homes problem has been the passing of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act 2006. This came into force in April this year and the new Weathertight Homes Tribunal is now hearing claims.

We said the new system would ensure claims are resolved more quickly. And this is exactly what is occurring, with the time from registration to resolution being just 10 weeks.

To give the bigger picture, as at 17 September 2007, the WHRS has received 5534 claims and completed 4745 assessments. Of those, 855 have been resolved through adjudication or mediation and another 2025 have been closed.

Department of Building and Housing staff are now getting into the community talking face-to-face with homeowners to ensure that claimants fully understand the services available to them. They have completed more than 150 meetings where they have provided advice.

Another very positive trend is that more than 700 claimants have elected to repair their home before entering into dispute resolution. This reflects confidence in the new system. Early repair work means not only do claimants know the true value of the claim, but also there is less damage to the house because further deterioration is prevented.

It goes without saying that the assessment reports completed by your members are key.

Examples of the methodology that has become standard include:
- Observations and diagnosis for each elevation of the building.
- More detailed breakdown in repair estimates.

These comprehensive reports are providing claimants with the high quality evidence they need to get a fair settlement and to make the right decisions about whether they should make repairs before proceeding to the resolution stage.

Armed with the full picture, they can go to the bank with much greater confidence they are making the right repairs.

I believe these high quality reports are the hallmark of a profession in high standing and I look to the members of this Institute to be the leading providers.

With speedier claims resolution, affected homeowners can get compensation from liable parties, get their homes repaired and get on with their lives.

Consumer awareness programme

While the government has put the processes in place to help owners of leaky homes get compensation from liable parties and to get their homes fixed, there is also a certain amount of personal responsibility involved in ensuring homes are warm, dry and healthy to live in. All homes, regardless of how well they have been built, will require maintenance to achieve this.

I must admit to being guilty of once thinking that my brick home with basic eaves and flashings didn’t need maintenance, but it does. Just as we regularly tune our cars or get new tyres to pass a warrant, so should we invest in keeping our greatest asset – our homes – in good working order. It just makes sense.

The Government has launched a two year consumer information programme to assist in raising awareness about such issues. We want to encourage New Zealanders to consider weathertightness issues when buying, building, renovating and maintaining their homes or investment properties.

You can help leaky home owners and potential home buyers to make informed decisions by directing them to the ConsumerBuild website that went live earlier this year. This site has independent and practical information on all aspects of buying and owning a house.

Another online resource worth directing people to is the Smarter Homes website.
The website gives clear and objective advice on how to design, build and renovate homes that create less waste, use less energy, cost less to run and are warmer, drier, and healthier to live in.

Guidance documents

The Department of Building and Housing also publishes guidance about buying, building and maintaining homes, and improving weathertightness construction practices and, again, your members have made an important contribution.

It is expected that the latest publication, External moisture – A guide to weathertightness remediation, will be available soon.

It outlines a process that consultants should follow when advising owners on weathertightness repair of buildings and when consultants such as yourselves should be engaged to assist with critical aspects in the remediation process. These include help with investigating the specific cause and extent of leaks, repair strategies and analysing decay.

The guide also provides builders and building officials with advice on the intricacies of weathertightness repair, and owners of the procedures and specialist advice needed to repair timber-framed buildings affected by water entry.

The guide has been developed in cooperation with a range of technical experts working in different areas of remediation, including building surveyors, designers, remediation contractors, building officials, building scientists and fungal decay experts.

As such, it represents a broad industry view that will provide a useful benchmark for remediation work. It is an excellent complement to External moisture – An introduction to weathertightness principles which was published by the Department a year ago to provide a basis upon which weathertight buildings can be constructed in New Zealand.

In common with the overall approach the Government has been taking to building reform, it is not prescriptive, but it does offer sound principles under which buildings can perform in accordance with the requirements of the Building Code.

LBP

So far, I have been talking about steps that go towards resolving problems for building owners that emerged due to past deficiencies in building practice.

Let me assure you that preventing them from happening again is a central component of the building reforms taking place now.

But there is also a forward-looking component which aims to build skills and promote practices within the industry that will ensure that it has the capacity, not just to meet our needs now, but our future needs as well.

The Licensed Building Practitioners Scheme is one of the measures that will promote this objective by lifting and promoting professional skills and behaviour in the building industry.

Overtime it will help provide a clear career pathway for many people in the industry who may, otherwise, have not avenue to get the skills they have formally recognised, and this will help attract and retain good people.

Licensing will start this November, initially on a voluntary phase-in basis, with applications being taken from designers, builders, site supervisors, construction managers and carpenters.

Next year, the opportunity to become licensed will be extended to external plasterers, roofers, bricklayers and blocklayers, and specialists in concrete structure, steel structure and building services.

BCA accreditation

The new Building Consent Authority accreditation scheme will also ensure Consent Authorities have proper systems and procedures in place so they can carry out their responsibilities in the building process as efficiently as possible.

Councils are showing a strong commitment to the accreditation process and the end result will be better quality consents, faster processing and quicker identification of poor quality consent applications.

Councils will benefit from greater efficiency in their building control operations, increased capability and risk management, while customers will enjoy better service and more consistent application of the Building Code.

It is encouraging to see several councils have recently put out media releases saying how their consenting processes are already seeing the benefits of these upgrades, in terms of faster turnarounds and a higher quality standard. And things are going to continue to improve.

A sustainable future

As I mentioned, these reforms aim to ensure that our homes and buildings are designed, built and inspected right, the first time. While none of us here would deny this is ideal situation, it does raise some questions.

A fair proportion of your work as building surveyors is weathertight failure investigation and damage assessments, so where to from here?

I am pleased to see that this issue is on your conference agenda in terms of planning ahead for your role in the transformed building and construction sector.

I have no doubt that you will continue to maintain your important role in building forensics, including weathertightness assessment. But I’m sure too, that your activities will be increasingly directed towards building energy and sustainable practices.
In this regard, one of the exciting things as we speak is the review of the Building Code. The Code defines the overall performance standards that buildings must meet, yet there also has to be the flexibility to allow for innovation.
The aim is not just to update the Code, but to squarely focus it so that it can provide for the buildings of the 21st century.
Sustainability is very much at the heart of what we are seeking to achieve as you will see from the proposals in the second Building Code review discussion document that was released last month.
One of the significant sections relates to the “embodied energy” in buildings. By embodied energy, it means the energy we use to create the building – the materials that go into it, and the energy used to put the actual building in place – the total amount of energy used to produce a final product from raw materials.
The second review discussion document raises the idea of factoring into the design the greenhouse gas impact of producing the building’s components, as well as the building’s lifetime operating energy use, as a requirement of the New Zealand Building Code.
This is big picture stuff, and no decisions will be made over whether we should go down this path until all the necessary in-depth analysis has been done. Housing affordability, for example, is a key consideration, because it is no use having houses that Kiwis can't afford to buy.
It is possible that embodied energy could even lower the cost of construction in New Zealand, given that manufactures would have an incentive to conserve energy and therefore reduce their production costs – which should have flow-on effects to consumers. Such a scheme would also encourage more recycling and using fewer materials more efficiently, which would minimise construction waste – all factors which could make houses cheaper to build. But as I said, it is early days.

The embodied energy concept is being studied and put into practice overseas, and New Zealand needs to be exploring these issues in-depth to ensure it is on the best possible path.

On that note, the people in the New Zealand building and construction industry – the engineers and architects, the designers, the building surveyors and tradespeople – have a longstanding reputation for innovation and I am sure they won’t shirk from this challenge.

So if you haven't already, I urge you to make a submission on the discussion document. We need the best minds to get involved in this crucial review of our Building Code. Submissions close in a week’s time on 28 September.

We live in a rapidly changing world. Nowhere is this more evident than in our environment, where the very real need to develop more sustainable ways of living is becoming starkly obvious.

Indeed, it is becoming indisputable that sustainability is not only the right thing to do, both for New Zealand and in terms of our international responsibilities, but it is also the smart thing to do.

The more we introduce sustainable practices, the more we reap the benefits of a stronger performing economy, a much better environment and the improved quality of life that comes with that.

Thank you.

ENDS

© Scoop Media