5. Question No. 5—Building and ConstructionBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT) to the Minister for Building and ConstructionQuestion No. 5—Building and Construction5. BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT) to the Minister for Building and Construction: How many houses does she estimate will need repairs or rebuilding because of Cyclone Gabrielle and flooding in Auckland and has she requested that the Critical Materials Taskforce review the building and construction sector's capacity to meet demand in light of the recent weather events?Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Building and Construction): While inspections and assessments are ongoing there is not yet a final estimate of the number of homes that will need to be repaired or rebuilt. At this point in time however we know that across both the 27 January flooding event and Cyclone Gabrielle there have been 574 red placards and 2225 yellow placards issued in Auckland. Outside of Auckland across the regions impacted by Cyclone Gabrielle—including Tai Rāwhiti Hastings Central Hawke's Bay and Wairoa—103 homes have red placards and a further 951 homes have yellow placards. But I stress that in these locations the assessments are far from complete and the expectation is that these numbers will continue to rise. At this early stage engagement with the Critical Materials and Products Taskforce members has not revealed stock issues with building and construction products. Engagement with this task force has revealed that Winstone Wallboards are building a good stock base of Gib; Hawke's Bay merchants have indicated that stocks of critical materials are at good levels but that road access issues may impact supply chains and present a challenge to distributing stock to the affected regions. The next Critical Materials Taskforce meeting is set for Friday 3 March. Meanwhile the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment continues to work with individual task force members and merchants in the affected regions to keep across emerging issues. Additionally yesterday I met with the Construction Sector Accord to get their read on where things would be and what the needs of the sector would be. They indicated we need to urgently find areas to dispose of waste but did not identify any immediate supply chain constraints. As we transition towards the recovery phase the industry is keen to ensure that insurance policies enable building back better and that local and central government use standard procurement contracts and seek coordinated pipelines and efficient contracting.Brooke van Velden: Does she believe the current supply of construction materials is sufficient to meet the demands of this rebuild without construction material prices inflating further than they already have in the past two years?Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: This is an issue that we will continue to monitor. It is why since 31 January we have been engaging with the sector to assess supply chain constraints to identify where there may be blockages and what needs to be done. We do have some outages of facilities and factories at the moment. Kāinga Ora in my conversations with them to get their read on supply chains have indicated that on the east coast of the North Island there are some constraints at the moment with cement production but we are keeping across these issues. We'll continue to monitor them and of course our Government has now completed the market study into building materials and supplies.Brooke van Velden: Will she adopt ACT's policy of establishing a materials equivalence register to allow access to foreign-approved substitute materials that could be used to build and repair homes where there are supply issues?Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Of course we addressed what needed to be done around this issue in terms of plasterboard last year and what we found is that actually the equivalency register wasn't the only impediment; by far and away the biggest factor was actually the guidance to consenting authorities about how it is that they needed to implement that and to get that out to the sector as well. But of course as we continue to monitor the situation and engage heavily with the sector—which we have been doing for some weeks now—we will consider all options.Brooke van Velden: Does she agree with the Reserve Bank's Monetary Policy Statement which stated yesterday In the very near term maintenance rebuild and repair work associated with the severe storms throughout the North Island are expected to put upward pressure on building costs."; and if so why would she not advocate for increasing supply of products that are safe to use in other countries that could help Kiwis rebuild and repair and keep costs down here?Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: What our Government demonstrated last year during the shortages of plasterboard is that we were prepared to do exactly what the member is suggesting and that is to make sure that there was actually alternative products and to work to ensure that we could get those into the country for them to be used. It's not as simple as only establishing a register; if only it were. There are other important steps that need to be taken and one of those is the guidance that is required for consenting authorities. As we did in the shortage of plasterboard last year we will take a very pragmatic approach we will work with the industry and we will be solutions focused.Dr James McDowall: Has she spoken to the Minister of Immigration since Cyclone Gabrielle to advocate for a streamlined visa pathway to attract the overseas construction workers who will be needed for the post-cyclone rebuild?Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Yes. One of the things that we talked about in that conversation is the currently approximately 40 roles on the immigration shortage list in the construction sector that include roles like construction project manager carpenters and bricklayers. We also spoke about the work that we're doing to train New Zealanders—the work that the Prime Minister referenced in his statement earlier in the week the 215000 people under our Government that have taken up free apprenticeships the 54000 people that have been supported through Apprenticeship Boost—and I certainly threw into the conversation the requirement that we've put through our Kāinga Ora contracting for those build partners to be actively taking on apprentices. Because we are a Government that believes as well as making sure we've got immigration pathways we are training our young people."