Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at the announcement of new building standards for earthquake strengthening buildings, on Monday 29 September. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Government announcements unpicking previous policies have been coming thick and fast lately.
Last Monday, changing the rules on earthquake prone buildings (EPBs) was the latest big one - bigger perhaps than the energy reforms that seemed to underwhelm most of the media just two days later.
It means scrapping the existing seismic-strengthening regime prompted by the Canterbury quakes in 2010 and 2011 - which became law just before the Kaikōura earthquake in 2016.
The latest reforms - based on different interpretations of risk and critical weakness - will mean costly repairs or remediation for hundreds of buildings will be cheaper - or not required at all.
Also, they take into account that buildings might actually be more dangerous if left abandoned because repair under the present regime is uneconomic.
"Councils have been pretty positive about the move. For instance, Wellington [City] Council owns 44 buildings that are on the register, including the iconic Embassy Theatre," TVNZ's Mei Heron told viewers.
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown was also pleased his city's buildings would be exempted.
When the review of rules began last year, [Brown wrote https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/350236269/wellington-bureaucrats-are-true-threat-auckland-not-seismic-risks] in the Sunday Star-Times that the financial stress of seismic strengthening was "depressing many citizens."
"Wellington bureaucrats are the true threat to Auckland, not seismic risks," he said, citing GNS data showing his region was the least seismically-active in the country.
Even in regions that are known to be at risk, owners of buildings have complained the cost / benefit ratio was out of whack.
The law change slated for next year was hailed by the Taxpayers Union as a money-saver for taxpayers as well as for ratepayers.
ACT leader David Seymour said the previous law was "a triumph of emotion over logic".
"I voted one against 120 to oppose it," Seymour said in an upbeat statement.
"Every dollar wasted on bad policy takes away from fighting evils like cancer and car crashes. We can be sure that the earthquake laws cost Kiwi lives," Seymour said.
But the building and construction minister in 2016, Nick Smith, cited the same risks as a reason for toughening up.
"Just as modern cars are safer in an accident, modern buildings are safer in a quake. These new laws involve an uncomfortable and inevitable trade off between safety and cost, but will save hundreds of lives in future quakes when fully implemented," he said.
New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors President Darryl August said faster work and lower costs could end up being a win for everyone.
"But safety has to remain the top priority. We need to be careful not to overlook other critical building code requirements. The devil, as always, will be in the detail," he said.
Some commentators in the media this week have been picking and choosing their details.
The rule was heartily endorsed by Newstalk ZB hosts as "a return of common sense"
"I only wish this happened years ago, before countless Wellington buildings were abandoned and councils up and down this country wasted millions of dollars Armageddon-proofing them so they would never move in an earthquake," Heather du Plessis-Allan told the listeners of ZB Drive.
That was probably not meant to be taken literally. Nothing would really survive Armageddon - and quake-proofed buildings do move with a quake, but without collapsing.
And some EPBs have been left unoccupied for a range commercial and financial reasons, not just the cost of remediation.
Du Plessis-Allan also claimed current building rules were "ridiculously safe".
"Before they came in, in 2016, one economist forecast that for the cost of about $10b in upgrades across the county we save just seven lives in 100 years."
Auckland was even more marginal under that formula, she said. $3b spent would save a single life in 4000 years.
The figures were echoed by ZB's veteran political correspondent Barry Soper and Sarah Henry from the publisher Are Media.
"The rules in the current state are going to save something like seven lives, and cost a gazillion dollars. In the scheme of things, seven is a very small amount for the impact on such a wide-reaching situation," Henry said on the Herald Now show.
That figure came from a 2014 paper called Error Prone: A Study in Failure by Tailrisk Economics, a consultancy headed by former Reserve Bank economist Ian Harrison.
It claimed the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) estimated 15,000 to 25,000 buildings were earthquake-prone, but that the framework for this was flawed.
"Only a few percent of the buildings currently designated as 'earthquake prone' would truly be excessively risky. More than half could be effectively risk free," the report claimed.
The Tailrisk report's $10.5b cost was based on an estimate of 20,000 structures designated as earthquake prone, costing half a million dollars each to fix.
Currently there are around 5800 buildings on the register awaiting remediation or demolition under the existing system, which - according to TVNZ - has classed around 8000 structures.
Tailrisk Economics and Ian Harrison have challenged the estimated benefits of several local and central government policy changes in recent years - including EVs, urban speed limit restrictions and climate change mitigation.
On healthy home improvements, Harrison said there was no clear evidence that cold and damp houses were actually a widespread problem in New Zealand. Houses will be cold and damp if tenants don't adequately heat and ventilate the them, Harrison told Stuff in 2018.
Tailrisk Economics reports on Wellington transport plans and the Golden Mile project have been used by campaigners opposing council plans. In 2023 a Tailrisk report was cited as evidence in a judicial review of Wellington's Thorndon Quay roading plans.
"The judge noted that Harrison was not a traffic expert and gave greater weight to the council's experts, who were," The Post reported at the time.
The Cabinet paper for the new earthquake-prone building policy and the Regulatory Impact Statement don't estimate lives saved in future.
An analysis by major engineering firm Beca uses the relative measure of 'life safety risk.'
'Commonsense' opinions
Some in the media questioned whether remediation was necessary in many cases.
Newstalk ZB politics commentator Barry Soper cited the Reading Cinema complex in Wellington's central city, closed since engineers discovered defects back in 2019 and currently being strengthened.
An adjoining car park, damaged in the Kaikōura quake in 2016, was demolished.
"But Reading Cinema stood throughout it, hardly a crack. When I went to the movies there, I always felt totally safe," Soper said on ZB Drive.
Might have been a different story if he'd been to the movies during a big quake.
As he reminded his own partner on the Drive show, he experienced the effects of the 2016 quakes in the couple's own high rise apartment.
"The apartment was on the 15th floor of a building. It was shaken from side to side, furniture thrown all over the place. That's what [is] meant to happen when it is earthquake-proofed."
Soper wrote in the Herald at that time about helplessness and confusion as the building swayed - and the knowledge that it could have been much worse.
"It's waving from side to side, which is what this building is built to withstand. But when it's swaying, it's pretty bad," he said live on the air during an aftershock.
It would have been worse but for that earthquake-proofing.
But on Newstalk ZB this week, he said the rules that came into force soon after those 2016 quakes were an over-reaction.
"We react to these terrible events we encounter from time to time, rather than thinking about what it will mean," he told his partner Heather du Plessis-Allan last Tuesday.
"It's not unlike Cave Creek. We had health and safety regulations come in after that and they are now patently absurd for other areas in the country. So we tend to overreact when we see issues - like, dare I say, guns being taken off legitimate hunters after the dreadful mosque attacks."
Hunters owning legitimate guns - and storing and transporting them legitimately - have not been penalised by the post- 15 March law changes.
This week the Science Media Centre asked five seismic engineering experts about the changes that are slated for next year. They broadly agreed the new approach would prioritise high-risk EPBs - and could usher in a simpler, cost effective and practical retrofit process.
But several experts pointed out that it's still got to be paid for.
"It is likely a particularly large can of seismic worms is going to be kicked some distance down the road. If in doubt, move the goal posts," AUT's Professor John Tookey told the Science Media Centre in June.
He also said none of these new measures will ultimately change the eventual need to refit and strengthen buildings to ensure public safety.
When an extension of deadlines until 2028 was confirmed this week, Professor Tookey said incentives would be needed.
"In fairness to all players involved, the new measures of assessment for EPBs make a lot of sense," Professor Tookey said this week.
"Providing partial grants and preferential loans to undertake such works could have had a significant stimulation effect on the economy. Stimulating this sort of work has huge benefits. Firstly in the form of public safety - and secondly, in that none of it is ever going to get any cheaper for clients or government to undertake, no matter how frequently the rules are changed and how far down the road the can is kicked."
However, that warning went unamplified in the media this week - unlike the opinions of some pundits.
