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Labour 'Cautiously' Supports Tradies Signing Off Their Own Work
Anneke Smith, Political reporter
The Labour Party is 'cautiously' supportive of the government's proposal to allow tradies to sign off on their own work.
The coalition is consulting on a self-certification process for plumbers, drainlayers and builders, providing they're working on low-risk projects and have indemnity insurance.
Labour's acting building and construction spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said his party supported the move, but wanted government to proceed cautiously to avoid another 'leaky homes' disaster.
"We're cautiously supporting it. Ultimately we do need to streamline the building consent process but we're cautious because we mustn't forget why the process came in in the first place," McAnulty said.
"The leaky building saga cost the country, and cost homeowners, $11 billion and I think the concerns that have been raised by many stakeholders urging caution and urging the minister to be careful here are warranted.
"But there's no grounds to oppose it so we're going to support it but we want to see the detail and we take the minister at his word that he does take those concerns on board and we hope that that flows through as to how the regime will play out."
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said "the devil will be in the details" but on the surface, the party was reasonably supportive of the move.
Hipkins told Morning Report it could make building work cheaper for Kiwi consumers, but there needed to be safeguards in place if more trust was to be placed on tradies.
The industry needed to take responsibility for issues if they were to arise so consumers were not left "high and dry", he said.
Professor of construction management at AUT John Tookey said the government's proposal was sensible - but only if companies carried the liability for shoddy work.
"If they've got the appropriate certification, they've got the appropriate approvals to be able to do the work and self-certify fine, but they should also be carrying some level of professional indemnity insurance associated with rectifying the defects in the event that it goes wrong."
"What we need to be in is a situation where we don't end up with a leaky homes 2.0 type of scenario."
Jennian Homes chief operating officer Aiden Jury told RNZ the current building consenting system was ancient and needed to change.
"It's been digitised a bit but really it's still the same old 'put some plans, have them inspected and move on'. We believe that it's time for change, the industry's been calling for change for a long time now and we need to speed up the process."
Jury said allowing tradies to self-certify work would mean tradies could complete projects faster and actually save homeowners money in the long run.
The self-certification scheme will now go out for consultation, before the government makes detailed policy decision in the new year.
RNZ
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