“ACT is thrilled to see Jenny Salesa promising to reduce regulatory burden on small detached buildings,” according to ACT Leader David Seymour.

“Salesa is one of the worst performing Ministers. It took her two years to ban kids from vaping, then introduced legislation that did more harm than good by making it harder for adults to quit smoking. She’s done nothing about the regulatory burden in building and construction, now she’s promising to change the building consent laws in 8 weeks. However, we welcome it.

“I frequently receive comments from people saying it costs more to get permission to build a shed than actually build it. So much of the Kiwi spirit is crushed by excessive and needless bureaucracy stopping people from doing harmless things.

“The principle of good regulation should be that government only regulates to prevent people harming others. It should not regulate to protect people from themselves or impose others’ tastes on them. Building a shed is not something that needs to be regulated by a building consent regime, and doing so has been enormously costly for many people for no benefit.

“Rushed legislation is seldom good legislation, and this sort of reform should have started a long time ago. However, in this instance, the need to consent building a shed cannot come soon enough.”

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