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Speaker 1: Now the government has launched a review into how we

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Speaker 1: manage earthquake prone buildings. The NBS system we currently use

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Speaker 1: is run into controversy in recent years. For example, you

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Speaker 1: may remember when a block at Hut Hospital was found

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Speaker 1: a couple of years ago to be earthquake prone, so

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Speaker 1: all the patients had to move out, and then it

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Speaker 1: was apparently just the cladding panels that were earthquake prone,

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Speaker 1: and then it turned out that even the panels were

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Speaker 1: probably fine and the patient's wall allowed to move back in.

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Speaker 1: Chris pink is the Minister for Building and Construction and

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Speaker 1: joins us. Now, hey, Chris Braving, the fact that you're

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Speaker 1: doing this review says to me that you think the

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Speaker 1: law is too onerous. Is that fair?

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Speaker 2: Short answer? Yes, people have told us it's unworkable. A

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Speaker 2: lot of cases, people simply can't afford to remediate, but

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Speaker 2: not necessarily allowed to do that in the way that

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Speaker 2: they want or need. Sometimes they can't even demolish if

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Speaker 2: there's a heritaged status so complicated such a situation needs

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Speaker 2: to changeing we're keen to make it easier for people.

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Speaker 1: Is it, I mean, is it too complicated, too inflexible,

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Speaker 1: or is it too onerous or is it both?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, look, it might be both. I think the complicated

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Speaker 2: nature of it is a major piece of week that

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Speaker 2: we need to attaction. You referred to that situation of

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Speaker 2: uncertainty with the city hospital. Lots of other I get

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Speaker 2: playing out all around New Zealand, and that's when you've

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Speaker 2: got a bit of a dispute or misunderstanding about where

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Speaker 2: things lie. But even just on the terms of the

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Speaker 2: current measuring system, you've got a percentage and it's something

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Speaker 2: like it seven percent. You know, it's just barely on

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Speaker 2: that top third. But then you've got people who say, well,

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Speaker 2: that's not good enough for us to do because they're

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Speaker 2: nervous about health and safety. What does that mean to

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Speaker 2: their liability? And you've got other ones which might be

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Speaker 2: say thirty five and that's above the line. And actually

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Speaker 2: it's oftensibly okay, but doesn't sound too fless. So we

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Speaker 2: maybe need a bit of a cleaner, more straightforward system.

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Speaker 2: So we're seeing if we can come up with something

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Speaker 2: it's a bit more stateful for people to grapple with.

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Speaker 1: Okay, something straightforward, But also would you consider lowering the

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Speaker 1: standard of weaders?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, I think what we've got to approach is

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Speaker 2: the question from a cost benefit ratio perspective, which I

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Speaker 2: know will sound challenging for people who ask whether we're

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Speaker 2: going to make it less safe, But I think at

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Speaker 2: the moment we've got a scenario where we're very cautious,

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Speaker 2: very conservative, and while we all love that idea, and

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Speaker 2: the reality is what we're probably doing is protecting against

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Speaker 2: buildings from being damaged. We need to protect against lives

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Speaker 2: being lost. But below that we've got to accept that,

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Speaker 2: you know, unless we want to pay you know, the

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Speaker 2: million dollar per life saved or per building saved, then

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Speaker 2: it's simply not stacking up, you know if you think

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Speaker 2: about other things that we could spend that money on

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Speaker 2: and save more orights. So just the Narali conversation that

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Speaker 2: we've got to have, but the review set up to

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Speaker 2: take into account everyone's views who wants to contribute, you know,

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Speaker 2: along those lines, as well as getting into that detail

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Speaker 2: around the technical stuff too.

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Speaker 1: Do you think, just like on another note, but related,

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Speaker 1: do you think that you need to do something about

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Speaker 1: the empty buildings that are sitting around places like Wellington

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Speaker 1: basically abandoned because the owners just can't be faft doing

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Speaker 1: the earth quake strengthening.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a very fair question. There's an

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Speaker 2: earthquake prone element to that is also brought a question

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Speaker 2: about you know, we're heavy handed if people leave buildings

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Speaker 2: derialic because they can't be bothered sometimes overseas owners, but

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Speaker 2: not necessarily. So that's all going to be within the

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Speaker 2: scope of the review. So we're quite ambitious in terms

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Speaker 2: of asking all those kind of hard questions. So we'll

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Speaker 2: see what the review comes up with, but hopefully we

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Speaker 2: can come up with something sensible because you know, the

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Speaker 2: whole city and the whole community and the whole provincial town,

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Speaker 2: as the case may be, deserved better than just to

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Speaker 2: have these derelict buildings in xty lots and parts fromining else.

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Speaker 2: You know, an I saw in a danger in themselves.

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Speaker 2: But the irony, of course is that you have heritage protection,

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Speaker 2: end up with something that you can't do anything with

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Speaker 2: and it ends up becoming quite an I saw in

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Speaker 2: the opposite of what we're trying to achieve with them.

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Speaker 1: A very good point, actually, Chris, Thank you very much.

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Speaker 1: Chris Pink, Minister for Building and Construction in case in point.

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Speaker 1: Just what Chris was talking about was that building I

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Speaker 1: forget the name of it on Welling in Wellington that's

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Speaker 1: next to the old Ama Hotel where the reason that

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Speaker 1: that to shut is because it's earthquake prone. So what

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Speaker 1: happens Some homeless guy makes his way in and falls

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Speaker 1: down three flights of stairs and gets hurt. So even

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Speaker 1: the fact that it's just sitting there abandoned is now

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Speaker 1: a dangerous thing as well. For more from Hither Duplessy

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