These changes would focus on lifting the competence and accountability requirements for building professionals and improving consumer protection measures in the Building Act.
It would also seek to ensure regulators have the right powers to hold people to account through complaints and disciplinary processes.
Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk said the current regimes were not working as well as they could, and he had been told the current penalties for tradespeople cutting corners were not enough to stop that behaviour.
Penk also said the penalties were ‘‘not proportionate to the cost of remediating defected work for the consumer who is left out of pocket’’.
‘‘This lack of robust requirements also has an enormous flow-on effect which means councils are more likely to be overly risk-averse out of fear that their ratepayers will be liable for paying the bill as the last man standing.’’
Penk said reforms around consenting homes and removing barriers to overseas building products would ‘‘strip out delays and drive down costs so we can get more homes built at a more affordable price’’.
‘‘However, for this to succeed we must ensure that we have qualified tradespeople doing the work, standing by it and being accountable if things go wrong.’’
The government is already consulting on introducing potential fines of $50,000 for individuals and $150,000 for businesses to deter bad behaviour.
