This was in Saturdays Dominion Post.

If he can suggest it for builders what about the rest of the construction industry?

Should we lobby the minister on this?

What do you guys think?

Linkback: https://www.plumbers.nz/politics/76/building-minister-finaly-talks-some-sense/886/

Some good points there Thunder

lol busted!

There is no such thing as "free" - free means you don't pay, but someone else does.  So who should?  The user?  That's what happens now.  The Minister is so far out of touch he is dangerous.  Standards are expensive, and given that industry actually offers input into them without charging should mean they are on a cost recovery basis only. For instance Master Plumbers have always participated in NZ Standards drafting and discussions and have carried the cost of having a staff member attend many, many meetings to devise standards - at a cost to its membership. But this has ensured that there is a good technical input into standards affecting plumbers, gasfitters and drainlayers.  The process of writing standards is both complicated and arduous.  I believe the apprenticeship fee should cover a full set of standard for trainees (and it does provide many of the standards) - so this is an improvement from what had to happen.  I believe the cost of standards could come down - but they will never be free.  Either we pay for them as practitioners, or we pay for them as taxpayers, or ratepayers (given the suggestion above) - but they will be paid for one way or another.

An online subscription service will see lower costs as you can print them off yourself and carry the cost of ink and paper.  Buying a disk to be able to use for an entire company at a set rate would also be a good idea rather than individuals having to pay hundreds for them.  A full set of standards for plumbing, gasfitting and drainlaying would cost several hundred dollars, maybe up to 2 grand if you got everything available to you on any subject pertaining to our trades.  Most people can't pay for this all at once and so get only the "must haves" and add in as you need them.  I would hope that most companies would have full sets in their technical libraries for staff to freely use. Gasfitters should all have at least 5261 and now the new standard 5601 Parts 1 and 2.