BIA chairman apologises to minister

1.00pm

The Building Industry Association chairman Barry Brown has apologised for not notifying the Minister of Internal Affairs, George Hawkins, earlier about the crisis of rotting homes.

But Mr Brown says officials at the Department of Internal Affairs, who monitor the BIA, knew what the association was doing about rotting homes.

Mr Hawkins today released BIA chairman Barry Brown's response to his demand for an explanation about why he had been kept in the dark about the crisis.

The release of the letter was made at the same time as the BIA made public the third and final part of an overview group report into weather tightness. The report calls for a wider review of the Building Act and of the workings of the BIA.

In a letter dated November 21, Mr Brown told the minister that the current BIA members had been first told of a problem in August 2001 and then began work which culminated in the Hunn report which was completed in May 2002.

It had been decided to brief the minister when a preliminary report was available in April.

"Until I received your letter of October 30, I believed that I had provided you with timely and 'no surprises' advice on the weather tightness issue," Mr Brown wrote.

At no time had a decision been taken not to inform Mr Hawkins, "contrary" to the minister's suggestion such as decision had been made.

"Throughout, copies of the minutes of the authority's monthly meetings were provided to the Department of Internal Affairs in the ordinary way. The department was thus aware of the authority's intended course of action from its receipt of the minutes of the authority's August 2001 meeting onwards," Mr Brown said.

"As soon as I had firm (and not merely anecdotal) information on which to base advice to you, I wrote to you on April 30, 2002."

Mr Hawkins said he welcomed Mr Brown's apology and acknowledgement that he was remiss in not advising him earlier.

"Although I accept his view that any information he might have been able to give me sooner would have been anecdotal rather than firm, early warning of potential problems is essential if ministers are to be advised on a timely and no surprises basis," Mr Hawkins said.

The BIA has been under fire from senior ministers for failing to keep Mr Hawkins informed about the scale of the problem.

National's leader Bill English wants BIA chief executive Bill Porteous and Mr Hawkins sacked for their handling of the problem.

Prime Minister Helen Clark has defended Mr Hawkins, saying he had not been briefed well enough by the BIA.

Mr Hawkins and Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen welcomed the final Hunn report and said there were "problems" with the BIA and it would undergo "significant" changes.

"The recommendations reflected government thinking and...work on them was already in train."

BIA chief executive Bill Porteous told a press conference today it was known within the industry for some time there was a problem of indeterminate size involving leaky buildings.

But there was a risk the authority could look "silly" if it made a fuss over something that turned out to be a non-issue.

"The organisation that finally took the risk of saying 'we are going to appoint a group of independent people... to find out the size of this problem and its causes and report publicly was the BIA'."

The leaky building crisis involved many parties, which created confusion.

"The part that the various players in the industry play could be made clearer."

The power to decide what building materials were used was up to local authorities and this would be difficult to control across the country, he said.

While the future of the BIA was not in his hands, Dr Porteous expected it to be safe.

He accepted the criticism that the BIA was not active enough and also the report's recommendation its role be analysed.

He said the authority was constrained by the Building Act, which the report indicated would be addressed.

"I think we have already accepted that we have contributed to problem of weather tight building (problems), in certain inadequacies in the Building Code and the acceptable solutions (it offers) and we are here today because the Hunn part three report is making some criticisms of us."

The BIA should not take all the blame, he said.

"At times we've felt that we might be taking too much of the blame but that's really for others to decide."

Dr Porteous said the authority regretted not telling Mr Hawkins about the problem earlier.

"The minute we got a heads up from the group we advised the minister," on April 30.

In 2001 the BRA set up a weather tightness steering group but factionalism meant the BIA decided to examine the problem independently.

While the report described it as a "major crisis", this had not been confirmed.

Mediation registrations did not support that and he noted the first parts of the Hunn report estimated the extent of the problem to be between $120 million and $240 million.

"No one knows the size of this problem yet."

It might take stripping the cladding from a sample group of houses to make an accurate estimate. Doing that might affect house values.

Dr Porteous said a letter from a building adviser to the Building Research Association (BRA) a couple of years ago, saying the problem could cost $5 billion, was not corroborated by territorial authorities or the industry.

Dr Porteous said he had not been under pressure to resign and said once all the facts were out public perception of the issue may change.

But he could not guarantee that, despite recommendations being implemented, houses being built now would be weathertight.

"Houses are custom-made objects built on unique sites with unique groups of people in unique sets of climate driven by time and weather... its what makes it a risky business."

- NZPA, STAFF REPORTER

The BIA's letter to George Hawkins

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email the Herald or fax (09) 373-6421.

Herald feature: Leaky buildings

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