Free Press - March 22 2016

ACT’s regular bulletin

Our Greatest Tragedy
The Canterbury Earthquakes were New Zealand’s greatest natural disaster. 185 people died, thousands were injured, and the $40 billion repair bill made it the country’s most damaging natural disaster ever in dollar terms.

The Government’s Response
One of the Responses has been the Buildings (Earthquake Strengthening) Amendment Bill. In a nutshell, it requires most buildings except residential buildings that are single storey or have fewer than three titles to be brought up to 34 per cent of the strength of a new building. The time to achieve this depends on how much risk there is in each region.

Do-Something Regulations
An unfortunate but common phenomenon in Government is do-something regulations. The logic runs: we must do something, this is something, we must do this. A horrific dog bite led to microchipping dogs. Roastbusters led to the Harmful Digital Communications Act. The Canterbury Earthquakes are leading to blanket regulations.

Risks Vary
The earthquake risk to life varies greatly according to a) where the building is and b) how often it is occupied. For example, a hostel in Wellington is a greater danger to life than a church in Northland. The hostel is occupied at least half the time and in an area of high earthquake risk. A Whangarei church faces almost no earthquake risk and is only occupied a couple of times a week. To save lives, strengthening one is much more worthwhile than the other.

Pushed Back Hard
The initial regulations imposed uniform requirements nationwide. It was pointed out that the cost of saving a life in Auckland under these regulations was 3000 times more than in Wellington. The revised version of the bill has been drastically watered down.

The Watering
The revised bill has gone some way to acknowledging that different buildings pose different risks. It doesn’t require structures such as barns to be strengthened. It acknowledges regional differences by dividing the country into three seismic risk levels and giving low risk areas such as Auckland, Northland and Dunedin 50 years to strengthen.

Wait, what?
We are now asked to believe that earthquake strengthening is very important but it can wait 50 years. It was a way of getting the costs down, they claim strengthening will be cheaper in the future. The Treasury says the costs of strengthening buildings against earthquakes across New Zealand will still be $750 million less than the benefits.

One Amendment
ACT will propose two amendments when the bill is next debated. The first aims to exempt low risk regions such as Auckland, Northland and Dunedin. This is because the chance of a severe earthquake in Auckland is one in 110,000 years in Auckland, and even then building to 34% of the National Building Standard would result in almost no improvement in public safety. It would however impose major costs on property owners forced to undertake expensive engineering assessments and retrospective strengthening, or face the stigma of being listed on the earthquake prone building register, unfairly impacting the market value of properties.

And Another
The second amendment aims to classify building risk-to-life by including the amount of time they’re occupied, rather than simply where they are – a type of methodology favoured by GNS Science. Unfortunately the current bill’s methodology is so blunt it effectively asks people to spend far more on earthquake strengthening than they would on protecting against other risks such as on the roads or in the healthcare system.

Real Empathy
The best tribute to those who lost their lives would be to make good public policy for future generations. Unfortunately the current bill is effectively asking people to spend far more on earthquake strengthening than they would on protecting against other risks such as on the roads or in the healthcare system. A bill that makes people less safe overall is a poor tribute to Canterbury Earthquake victims.

ACT’s Overall Antidote
ACT has been touting the Regulatory Responsibility Bill since 2006. It forces Governments to ask: What problem are we trying to solve? What are the options? What are the costs and benefits of each option? Who are the winners and losers from each option? What are the effects on property rights and freedom to trade. Other parties are, of course, terrified of winning power then having to answer such questions.

ends

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