- Hon Chris Penk
From tomorrow, thousands of additional building products including plasterboard, cladding systems, external doors, and windows will all be easier to use in construction sites across New Zealand, Mr Penk says
Our government is laser focused on economic growth, which drives more jobs and increasing wages. We want to see a construction boom, and this is an important step.
Quality overseas building products have been given the green light for New Zealand construction, ending costly monopolies on a small number of products that are currently used in New Zealand, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says.
"It is 50 per cent more expensive to build a standalone home in New Zealand than in Australia. That is frankly outrageous.
"These changes have the potential to reduce total building costs by thousands of dollars when building a home.
"For example, New Zealand has some of the most expensive plasterboard in the world. Kiwis pay around 38 per cent more than Australia for plasterboard, 47 per cent more than the UK, and 67 per cent more than the US for the same products.
"And 97 per cent of the plasterboard that we must currently use is made by one established company. You may recall that in 2022, when that company ran into difficulty, prices for plasterboard soared and some builders were reported to pay six times the normal amount so they could finish the job.
"That changes tomorrow.
"This Government is pulling every lever it has to drive economic growth and building materials is one of many areas where a good dose of competition might do the trick.
"There are thousands of well-made, high performing products that have been tested against rigorous international standards but have faced barriers for uptake here, purely because they have not been specifically tested against our own standards. From tomorrow it will be much easier to use plasterboard manufactured in New Zealand, Australia, UK, Europe and the United States.
"This Government is serious about lowering the cost of building and helping Kiwis into homes faster.
"Tomorrow we are releasing the first version of the Building Product Specifications document which lists international standards for products like plasterboard, cladding, windows and external doors.
"Later this year additional pathways will go live enabling more high-quality building products to be used including over 200,000 plumbing products through the Australian Watermark scheme.
"This is just the beginning of our work to open the door to more building products, lower the cost of homes and turbo charge the construction sector and there will be more to come."
Notes to editor:
- The Building Product Specification document will be published on Monday and will be updated over time to include more trusted international product standards: https://www.building.govt.nz/building-code-compliance/building-product-specifications
- Standards and specifications contained in the BPS have been assessed to ensure they are equivalent or better than current requirements and won't alter the level of performance set by the New Zealand Building Code.
- Two other pathways to enable greater use of overseas building products are being developed: endorsements of overseas standards by the Minister of Building and Construction, and recognition of products certified overseas as complying with New Zealand's Building Code.
