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Speaker 1: Jack Team, and as part of its housing push, the

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Speaker 1: government has announced plans to make councils do building inspections remotely.

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Speaker 1: Minister for Building and Construction Chris Pinks is the building

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Speaker 1: process takes way too long and this will make things

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Speaker 1: easier and cheaper. Some councils already use remote inspections, but

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Speaker 1: uptake at the moment is low and practice is vary.

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Speaker 1: Malcolm Fleming is the CEO of New Zealand Certified Builders

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Speaker 1: and is with us this evening. Good a Malcolm good evening, Jack,

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Speaker 1: So talk to us a little bit about how a

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Speaker 1: remote inspection actually works.

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Speaker 2: So remote inspection works like this, so a builder is

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Speaker 2: ready for their inspection and it could work just as

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Speaker 2: well in a very remote location and we've been trying

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Speaker 2: the McKenzie country, or could be work in a very

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Speaker 2: traffic congested place like Auckland. And so it would work

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Speaker 2: like this that the builder would have a video, have

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Speaker 2: the camera and be directed by a building a council

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Speaker 2: inspector back at their base and asking to show particular

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Speaker 2: parts of the building that they wanted to check.

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Speaker 1: Right, okay, So and when you say a camera, is

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Speaker 1: it just their phone?

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Speaker 2: The phone? Yes, the phone would do.

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Speaker 1: Right, So you basically just do like a zoom call

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Speaker 1: or a FaceTime call, just a video call between the

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Speaker 1: inspector back in the office, the builder and the building.

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Speaker 1: And how many things would they be inspecting during one

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Speaker 1: of these digital inspections.

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Speaker 2: What depends on what the building inspection was for. Some

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Speaker 2: of those building inspections are for specific items, for example,

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Speaker 2: some structural steel that's been put in place, some tanking

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Speaker 2: that's gone on going on underneath, some some tiling, some

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Speaker 2: specifics like that. Or it could be for a pre

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Speaker 2: line inspection which is quite a significant miles, or a

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Speaker 2: final inspection had been to the projects.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, right, So say like for a typical house, what

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Speaker 1: would be the inspection that at the moment takes the

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Speaker 1: longest period of time.

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Speaker 2: That would likely be pre line inspection. My sort of

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Speaker 2: view of NDCB that remote inspections wouldn't be for those

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Speaker 2: big milestone inspections. It would work very well in tandem

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Speaker 2: with some other tools that are available for some of

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Speaker 2: the smaller aspects, which can be quite time consuming and

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Speaker 2: builders are often waiting on site for building inspectors to

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Speaker 2: be able to arrive on site, and so the whole

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Speaker 2: projects that a standstill.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that kind of makes sense. So what when you

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Speaker 1: say there'd be small projects, what kind of inspections do

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Speaker 1: you mean?

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Speaker 2: Well, sort of talking about so if you worked it

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Speaker 2: in tandem with other things like say producer statements for example,

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Speaker 2: which engedcvs are quite keen on. So what I'm talking

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Speaker 2: about there. So if we look at the tanking example previously,

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Speaker 2: if you allowed the applicator provide a producer statement, who

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Speaker 2: reflect that it's been applied in accordance with the manufacturer's requirements,

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Speaker 2: that creates a level of certainty it's a paper trail,

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Speaker 2: and then all what we required. Then rather than a

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Speaker 2: physical inspection, a video inspection, the remote inspection would be

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Speaker 2: the tick box required to give the confidence to the

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Speaker 2: building consent authority.

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Speaker 1: That just seems incredibly sensible to me. What is the downside?

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Speaker 1: You know there must be some downsides to not having

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Speaker 1: inspectors there in person.

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Speaker 2: Well, I've seen some of the commentary around and I

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Speaker 2: think it's accurate that there could be mis representation by

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Speaker 2: some builders in terms of their control on the camera.

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Speaker 2: Where it goes our view NZCB that this should only

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Speaker 2: be available to LBP builders and also LBP builders who

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Speaker 2: have got a proven track record with the council.

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Speaker 1: Right, Okay, so councils that already have so builders that

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Speaker 1: already have a relationship with council but have also been

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Speaker 1: shown to produce high quality building that meet standards over

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Speaker 1: a period of time.

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Speaker 2: That and also for building inspections, are well prepared and

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Speaker 2: that they don't have rework that needs a re inspection

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Speaker 2: because that takes takes time. Those builders who don't use

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Speaker 2: the council as a building a control system and a

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Speaker 2: review and sort of having to teach them what does

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Speaker 2: and what cannot happen. So I need if they restrict

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Speaker 2: it to lvps and those with track records, that will

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Speaker 2: provide the conference plow.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, right, So I'm just just trying to play things

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Speaker 1: out in my mind here. If there were a scenario

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Speaker 1: whereby a builder was having a remote inspection, the inspector

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Speaker 1: wasn't totally happy with something and needed to inspect it

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Speaker 1: in person, that would require not only the digital inspection, right,

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Speaker 1: but also an on site visit in order to sort

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Speaker 1: out exactly what was wrong.

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Speaker 2: What you're describing, I think would require a physical inspection

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Speaker 2: to follow up. And we're sort of advocating that physical

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Speaker 2: inspections should not be done away from entirely for the

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Speaker 2: milestone one that we talked about earlier, they should still

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Speaker 2: be in place.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, in the final I just wonder how it's kind

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Speaker 1: quite hard to know given we only have limited use

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Speaker 1: of remote inspections at the moment, but from the councils

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Speaker 1: that are using them in the moment at the moment,

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Speaker 1: do you have any idea how often a building inspector

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Speaker 1: would end up doing both the video inspection and then

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Speaker 1: having to go out on site as well.

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Speaker 2: That's a good question. I don't have an answer to that,

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Speaker 2: but what it suggest that right now there is not

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Speaker 2: buildings because of the lower volume of building consents. They're

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Speaker 2: well down all with that work. Yeah, right, eighteen months ago, Jack,

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Speaker 2: this is a really great opportunity to start sort of

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Speaker 2: rolling some of these initiatives out. And if I said

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Speaker 2: on its own, I don't think it's a fantasy, but

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Speaker 2: in use with conjunction with other tools that are available

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Speaker 2: to the building content authorities, I think together they could

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Speaker 2: create some efficiencies. It's not going to reduce the material

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Speaker 2: cost to build, but it will help reduce time and

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Speaker 2: project time is money, yeah.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, so how much time could they say? What

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Speaker 1: are the potential upsides if this new system works well.

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Speaker 2: Well in a busy building content environment. So we were

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Speaker 2: eighteen months ago waiting around for projects for building inspections

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Speaker 2: that could add weeks to a project. If you're thinking

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Speaker 2: about the finance holding costs to the property owner associated

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Speaker 2: with that, each week that goes by is a is

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Speaker 2: a cost, and it's also additional days and weeks that

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Speaker 2: contractors are on site. Yeah, right, okay, it comes to

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Speaker 2: the cost.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean the thing that I'm sure many of

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Speaker 1: our listeners will immediately think about it as something like

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Speaker 1: the leaky homes saga and worry that any relaxation of

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Speaker 1: oversight in the building and construction sector will ultimately lead

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Speaker 1: to a degradation and quality and we could find ourselves

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Speaker 1: with the FIASCA that we have in the past. What

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Speaker 1: would be your message to those people?

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Speaker 2: So my message to those people is to mitigate risk,

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Speaker 2: and you can do that by ensuring that you're building

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Speaker 2: a trade qualified and aligned with the trade association. That

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Speaker 2: in combination with those suggestions that remote inspections not be

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Speaker 2: available to everybody as a discretion of the Council, LBPS

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Speaker 2: and those with a good track record that should mitigate

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Speaker 2: risk for the homeowner.

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Speaker 1: And Malcolm, as you mentioned, construction consents are well down

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Speaker 1: on where they were even just twelve months ago. So

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Speaker 1: how long will it take before this is standardized across

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Speaker 1: the country do you think?

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Speaker 2: Well, the government is going at pace with the whole

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Speaker 2: range of building consenting changes and proposals. This is the

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Speaker 2: second one this week, for example, So they've certainly got

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Speaker 2: the bit between the teeth and I ad them their

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Speaker 2: main driver is to reduce the cost of building in

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Speaker 2: this country and there'd be no argument from Promistry that

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Speaker 2: we do have high building costs or anything that can

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Speaker 2: do lead towards reducing that is to be apport So

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Speaker 2: they're on the right track. They've got to start getting

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Speaker 2: coordinated with some of these ideas and bring start bringing

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Speaker 2: them together and work with industry on them. Well.

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Speaker 1: See, thanks Malcolm, appreciate your time. That is Malcolm Fleming,

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Speaker 1: the CEO of New Zealand Certified Builders. For more from

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Speaker 1: Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to news talks it'd

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