Speech: Peters - NZ needs to be careful to avoid a Grenfell
Speech for opening BuildNZ 2017 Trade
Show,
ASB
Showgrounds,
Auckland.
Sunday,
June 25, 8.45am.
NZ needs to be
careful to avoid a Grenfell Tower
disaster
It’s is a
pleasure to open this prestigious trade show – New
Zealand’s premier trade show for the building,
construction and design industries.
A special thank you
to David Kelly, the chief executive of the Registered Master
Builders’ Association.
To Astrid Anderson, general
manager of Architectural Designers NZ.
To Brent Spillane,
managing director of XPO Exhibitions Ltd.
And to all the
professional industry bodies supporting BuildNZ.
More
than 6000 builders, architects and other industry
professionals will be here over the three days - to meet and
network, to learn of innovations, to update on health and
safety - and address the problems and challenges facing your
industry.
Proud history
Before
touching on these challenges, however, we must remember that
this country has a wonderful history of
construction.
Much of that history has, unfortunately,
become blurred in the public memory.
Past governments
built dams, bridges, tunnels, motorways, office blocks and
hundreds of thousands of houses.
When tens of thousands
of soldiers returned from the Second World War, the
government of the day set up a Rehabilitation Board and
trained many of them into building trades.
When we had a
much smaller population, around two million people, they
built 10,000 state houses a year, laid out suburbs and
erected amenities and landscaped open spaces.
We had
enterprise and initiative – and we didn’t look for
outside help to solve our problems.
Auckland
housing crisis
Compare that to today.
Last
year only 7200 houses were completed in Auckland.
This
for a city with a shortage of 40,000 houses and with more
than net 73,000 immigrants taking up permanent residency in
New Zealand every year with most heading for
Auckland.
Yet we have a government in denial over the
housing crisis in Auckland and they are looking the other
way on the challenges your industry is facing with labour
and material shortages.
The fault for these shortages and
the way in which your industry has been caught flat-footed,
even after the Canterbury earthquakes which should have been
a warning, lies firmly with government.
The problems have
been there for years.
Now, with out of control
immigration, these problems have gone through the roof to
use a building term.
It has been disturbing to learn
several months ago, for example, New Zealand’s biggest
builder, Fletcher Building Ltd, had a $110 million profit
downgrade.
There must be a great temptation in your
industry to cut corners and employ unskilled labour to meet
tight market demands.
One hopes that this trade show is a
barrier to this happening.
Ticking time bomb of substandard
construction and political oversight
On page A29 of the NZ Herald on Friday a
managing director of an Auckland real estate firm issued a
warning which every-one of you must see and pass on.
He
was talking about today’s new buildings of substandard
design and construction and the low quality of the materials
being used.
He said New Zealanders were in for a harsh
wake up (within the next 10 to 15 years).
When these
buildings started to disintegrate, exposing non-compliant
electrical wiring, shonky plumbing, cladding or roofing
products and walls out of plumb.
The steel mesh in
concrete foundation slabs and driveways won’t last. Nor
will some of the steel beams and girders.
Poor quality
product is just flooding in and being dumped here.
He
painted a nightmare scenario, much worse than the rotten
homes that started being built in NZ in the 1990s.
And
the personal and familial tragedy that will rise from this
will be dreadful to witness.
Ask Parliamentarians what
their roll is in this, and they’ll cough and splutter and
look the other way, and try to move on to a new
subject.
New Zealand has to be very careful – we do not
want a Grenfell Tower disaster in our country.
Skilled workers
The government’s
run-down of trades training has now come home to bite
us.
The projection is we need 38,000 more skilled workers
through to 2020.
The Ministry of Business Innovation and
Employment said the demand for construction workers over the
next five years will be as high as 65,000 with about half
needing to be trade qualified.
We would have planned for
these needs.
We would have training schemes and
programmes and incentives to get young people into training
and jobs.
Previous governments would not have seen the
solution in overseas recruitment.
They would have seen
the 90,000 plus young New Zealanders aged from 15 to 24 who
don’t have jobs and are not in training – and got many
of them into the construction industry.
Conclusion
But there are positive
signs for your industry.
Past generations have shown us
the way with their ingenuity and ability to adapt to the
demands they faced.
We can do it again.
New Zealand
First congratulates the organisers of this show challenging
employers to pledge 1000 new apprentices.
That is a sign
some of you are taking the bull by the
horns.
Congratulations.
Enjoy your great show.
ENDS