Message from the Chief Executive

From the Chief Executive

Understandably uncertainty continues to surround our world, although hopefully a little less than a few weeks ago when the country was under the COVID-19 Alert Level 4 lockdown. It has been interesting to witness how our vocabulary has quickly adapted as terms such as “Level 3, COVID testing, self-isolation, social distancing and border shut down” seem to just roll off the tongue in normal conversation, regardless of whether they are with family or friends.

I am very pleased we were able to get the Building and Construction Industry back working when we moved to Alert Level 3. Various members of NZCB were involved in discussions and negotiations with Government and Government Agencies to help craft the Health and Safety Protocols that were accepted by Government leading up to their Alert Level 3 decision. This work was ably led by Chris Alderson of Construction Health and Safety New Zealand (CHASNZ) who were instrumental in the development of these protocols, and then steered and managed the engagement of the various stakeholder groups.

As an Association we made the decision early during the lockdown period to communicate regularly to you, our members. We wanted to investigate and find out the correct details so that the COVID-19 updates we provided could be relied upon.

What’s ahead of us as the Building and Construction industry is still yet to evolve? Today we see some conflict on how busy we are or will be – from what is being experienced on the ground (according to feedback from our members), to the views of a range of economic commentators. While it is obvious a number of builders have lost some future work from their pipeline due to the pandemic breakout, the large majority have confirmed work until at least the fourth quarter of 2020 or, indeed, right through to mid-December 2020. Quite rightly the economists are forecasting further into the future and are looking at factors such as the impact without tourism as a result of border closures, immigration being stopped, house price movements being unpredictable and a general lack of consumer confidence – and then interpreting that information into building consent numbers. The range varies significantly, however there is a consensus that consents will drop by around 30–35% over 2021/2022 which would take them from the pre-lockdown levels of 38,000, to the low 20,000’s. Thankfully, this is still some way off the GFC levels of 14,000 consents in 2011. During the Level 4 lockdown period, the country witnessed a barrage of information with daily announcements by Government and often the announcements were made with “further detail to follow”. Many of these initial announcements were interpreted incorrectly by the media creating further uncertainty. As an Association however, we made the decision early during the lockdown period to communicate regularly to you, our members. We wanted to investigate and find out the correct details so that the COVID-19 updates we provided (every second day) could be relied upon as being as close to the truth as possible. During the lockdown as the volume and significance of the Government announcements dropped away, we then started to provide information and ideas on using the lockdown time wisely, to “review business operations” and then moved onto “back to work in the future” type information. It was a huge task completed by my Management Team to produce this regular factual information and from the positive messages we received from our members, it was well worth the effort.

On behalf of myself and all of the staff at National Support Office we hope all our members and families remain safe and healthy and that your future work pipelines continue to fill. ‘Till next time...

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