Message from the Chief Executive

Message from our Chief Executive

Advocating for the members of New Zealand Certified Builders (NZCB) has always been an important responsibility that is shared by a number of people in NZCB. Whether it is our Regional Presidents, NZCB Board, National Support Office Management team or myself, taking the opportunities to share the views of our members with our key stakeholders is always important. The range of stakeholders that we work with and that are all important to NZCB is very wide and ranges from local Councils/Building Consent Authorities (BCA’s) right through to Government Ministers, each and all are critical components of the Association’s advocacy network.

One of the more challenging situations has been since the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic into New Zealand. Our initial response was to make a commitment to inform and provide updates to our members on a regular basis. We set every two days as a benchmark for us to work to.

In the early days of March–June 2020 information was being made available by the authorities on a very ad hoc basis, which required us to urgently develop new connections with government departments that traditionally had not been on the building and construction radar. Not a simple task in a time of real uncertainty. However, this work allowed us to obtain the ‘correct information’ first-hand and also advocate on the priorities of our members.

It was satisfying to receive many positive comments and feedback from our members for this work.

COVID-19 – Delta

The Delta outbreak in recent months has again seen the team at NZCB constantly identifying the key issues for our members from the information overload being made available. The response has again been the resumption of providing regular updates to our members, via a range of methods including electronic direct mails, NZCB closed Facebook group posts, NZCB members’ only Toolshed website blogs and responding to telephone and email enquiries. Although the wider business community seemed to be better prepared on this occasion, there are still challenges.

Through our advocacy networks, we have been able to get better information and more quickly this time around.

We have also been active in building and construction sector industry groups working on such things as the reignition of building material manufacturing in Auckland during Alert Level 4, the review of Health and Safety return to work/site protocols, vaccination approaches for the sector, etc. We have also developed further advocacy links to other parties such as the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) (Small Business Unit) and Business New Zealand, etc.

An example of this work with these parties was to try and gain some clarity from the regulators of the position between a homeowner and a building contractor regarding working on-site. This was especially crucial in the situation of alterations and additions projects, where the homeowners may still be living on-site. Who could make an enquiry on the vaccination status of any party e.g. homeowners, builders, subcontractors, Council inspectors, etc. This was a relatively unique situation and one that required some real push (with the authorities) to gain some sort of clarity. If we had not invested in time, undertaking positive advocacy over the last 18–20 months this would have been a very different and more difficult task.

At the time of writing this article Auckland and parts of the Waikato regions remain in high alert and our sympathy and support is extended to those members and their families in these regions. I hope all our members and their families continue to remain safe.

Till next time.