Faced with many endemic challenges, our industry leading lights have recently pushed for a correction of some of the many ills linked to construction contracts. After 8 years of private sector funded contractual innovation, (some of it dark innovation), we have come up with two workable solutions;
[1] create a panel for qualifying and selecting Engineers to the Contract
[2] pursue classic stone age, pre-internet, NZ Standard’s ways of doing things, e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y s-l-o-w-l-y and at GREAT EXPENSE.
Question: Who’s paying for NZS3910 updates?
Answer: Our clients.
Our Client’s are also paying for;
[1] Variation claim processes abused by bad actors
[2] Payment claim abuse
[3] Subcontractor bashing
[4] Retention’s abuse
[5] COVID-19 delays and expenses
[6] Design coordination issues
[7] Consultants fees
[8] Tender errors
[9] Liquidations
[10] Insurance, warranties, special conditions, extra special conditions
[11] Leaky buildings and other quality issues
[12] Additional Council inspections
[13] Resource and Building Consents
[14] Building Research and fire levies
[15] Everything !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Our client’s pay for EVERYTHING we do RIGHT or WRONG.
Why are we trying to fix NZS3910 with a whip around of the hat from those who are more emotionally attached to improving our industry, and exclude those who are more focused on their own, one-eyed, myopic, pockets?
$250,000 nicked out of church donation bowls over a thousand Sundays, sparingly applied to improve our NZ Standard Contract cave paintings, is not a brilliant 21st century solution.
We profess to have the collective intellectual common sense to improve our industry deficiencies but lack the resources to do so efficiently. Dear Jacinda, assign to us, control of the existing tax from our own industry, and we will get the job done, redone, distributed freely with ongoing training, reviewed annually, and continually made better. The efficiencies gained will be a dividend paid back to our clients and our economy. Governmentally this efficiency means more school classrooms and hospital beds for the same dollar.
Until we reinvent the NZ Standards FUNDING wheel, each year, over a phone conversation, just between you and me, we will nominate another doofus, for the coming years NZS3910 Corruption Awards. Doofus, doofus, doofus, and the award goes to???
A previous blog related to this subject matter;
“Celebrating 50 years of New Zealand Building Economist 1972 to 2021”
By Matthew Ensoll
Life Member NZIQS. Reg.QS.
Editor New Zealand Building Economist.