Building material costs

The Government announced:

The Government is proposing increased transparency, simplified compliance, changes to anti-dumping duties and tariff concessions to bring down the cost of home building materials, Housing Minister Dr Nick Smith and Commerce Minister Craig Foss announced today.

“Building materials costs are too high and can be as much as 30 per cent more in New Zealand than in Australia according to the Productivity Commission. The industry needs a shake-up through increased competition and greater transparency to ensure kiwi families can get access to more fairly priced building materials and homes,” Dr Smith says

“Our market study has flushed out some very real issues in the building materials industry. I worry that high duties on some imported building products, combined with limited competition in New Zealand is allowing excessive margins by building product manufacturers. I also have concerns over a lack of transparency for consumers over what benefits builders are getting from using certain products,” Dr Smith says.

The options paper is here. Some of the options include:

• Reform of BRANZ governance
• Prevent specification of “no substitutes”
• Require disclosure of financial and other benefits
• Limit continuation of anti-dumping duties

I’m all for disclosure and lower tariffs.