“Fresh off the shock $30,000 per square metre Dunedin Hospital cost, it is clear the Government is absolutely right to look at building costs, in fact it must go harder,” says ACT Housing, Building, and Construction spokesman Cameron Luxton.

“Families struggling to find a place to call home desperately need more houses, built faster, at a price that makes sense. Stats NZ data shows the cost of building a house has increased by 41 per cent since 2019. That is seriously alarming.

“ACT’s Coalition Agreement says the Government should ‘explore allowing home builders to opt out of needing a building consent provided they have long-term insurance for the building work.’ That is the basis for ambitious reform to get building costs down for Government and private projects alike.

“The proposals put up today are fantastic, it is not sensible for a country of 5.3 million people to have 67 Territorial Authorities each effectively running 67 local monopolies on consenting. Any option that consolidates them while introducing competition for inspection services is a good one.

"However, it is also true that the underlying issues of joint and several liability, that makes the Council the ‘last man standing’ when things go wrong needs to be fixed. We are the only country mad enough to apply joint and several liability, and it gets us the worst of all worlds: leaky buildings and sky high prices.

"The best option is to let builders opt out altogether with private insurance for new builds. That would get councils out of the way completely, for faster, more innovative, and ultimately more reliable building consents."

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