Removing barriers to overseas building products, one subclause at a time [updated]

BUILDING MINISTER CHRIS PENK IS surely mistaken (or misled) if he thinks he is going to see a quick remedy to high
building costs from his announcement, already signalled, that building products from overseas may now be used in New Zealand.

The problem, you see, is that regulations here around our approvals process make it prohibitively expensive to obtain official approval for any materials, local or imported, so that most would-be inexpensive imports just don't happen. (Around 90% of products used in building or building components here already are imported, but they're generally not the primary ones requiring approval by the grey ones.Why pay upwards of $250,000 to have your primary Euro-component approved here, when it's already selling like hotcakes in your Euro markets.) 

So Penk's idea is that materials or systems already approved by the grey ones in similar jurisdictions and standards environments to ours (such as Australia, Canada, UK, US and Western Europe) can be cited in documentation to the grey ones here— and then, with some fingers crossed, be approved for use in buildings here without the otherwise burdensome cost of obtaining formal approval upfront.

Cheaper materials: cheaper houses.

Nice idea. Shame if a bureaucracy somewhere were to ruin it.

The programme will be run by MoBIE. 

I attended a webinar run by MoBIE dicks recently outlining how they intend to run it. They called it 'Removing Barriers to Overseas Building Products.' Try not to laugh as I relate their intentions.

First of all, they've started a committee. And several working groups. Large ones. Large enough, I imagine, to fill at least one floor. It will be these newly-appointed bureaucrats that will decide which standards/regulation of which similar jurisdictions will be considered for approval by these bureaucrats. And this will of course take some time. 

First of all, of course, they have to meet to define regulatory criteria. And to issue new acronyms (things like BPS, BPIR, etc.)

This is how bureaucracies work.

The committee/working groups will then make recommendations to the CEO of MoBie which standards/regulations he may recognise. May. Those deemed unobjectionable are then added to something called Building Product Specifications — a "new regulatory instrument." [UPDATE: The inaugural Building Product Specifications document has just dropped today, but dn't get excited, it's simply a compilation of standards/regulations already cited in the NZ Building Code. Enjoy.]

Following which, MoBIE's dicks will then publish a "Recognition Notice" detailing which new standard/regulations have been recognised. Once a standard/regulation has been so recognised, it will then be added to the Building Product Specifications document.

They hope ("always hoping, hope is vain") to issue their first "Recognition Notice" by year's end. That will be for one regulation/standard from one jurisdiction for one building material or system. For which the Notice will be once piece of "evidence of compliance with the New Zealand Building Code."

Still, once that Notice is published, building importers may then decide to bring in a building material or system; builders and building designers may offer the imported product in plans and specifications based on it being "Recognised" as evidence it complies

Did you follow all that?

Note the process here: it's MoBIE who decides to decide. Not builders, not building designers, not building materials scientists or building materials importers — all of whom have a large interest in the process — and nor is it the building minister. No. It's MoBIE's dicks who decide to initiate the process,  and it's they who will grind slowly through all the world's standards, regulations, codes, guidelines, approval systems, benchmarks and norms, deciding which of them they might like to spend time taking through their process and (eventually) recognise.

So we can see how this is good for bureaucrats employed within MoBIE. 

But how does all this help builders, building materials importers, would-be building owners, and me as a building designer? 

Well, nothing at all will help until at least the start of next year, when the first "Recognition Notice" might (might) have been issued for the Australian Watermark Scheme — so importers et al can start taking advantage of Australian plumbing and drainage products.

And after that, the committee/working group/bunch of overpaid bureaucrats will then begin to meet and consider whether or not  the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM International) and the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) may be considered for recognition.

Don't wait up.

They may be some time.

UPDATE:

Email from MoBIE this afternoon: 

"The newly released Building Product Specifications document lists 130 [already-recognised] product standards, including US, European and other international standards alongside New Zealand equivalents for products like plasterboard, cladding and insulation. ...
    "Soon [sic] other pathways will be in place for the Minister of Building and Construction to endorse overseas standards, and for MBIE to formally recognise certain products certified overseas as complying with the Building Code. Updates about these pathways will be made soon [sic]."