I first became personally aware of the "drips in the shower" issue  
last Thursday morning when Leighton Smith of Newstalk ZB phoned to ask  
me where and how I thought the Department of Building and Housing  
acquired the legal authority to promote regulations designed to save  
water and/or energy – topics which seemed to fall outside their  
portfolio.

I was just as puzzled, but said I would look into it. As I commuted  
the twenty metres to my office it occured to me that "sustainability"  
could be the culprit, and Googled on "Building Act and Sustainability"  
as soon as I opened my computer screen. A Beacon web page announced:

Changes to the New Zealand Building Act
The 1991 Building Act has been revamped and replaced with a revised  
Act in November 2004 (see the Building Act 2004 website). The new Act  
aims to encourage better practices in building design and  
construction, and to tighten industry controls to avoid the ‘leaky  
buildings’ syndrome in the future.

Importantly, the new Act includes a number of sustainability measures,  
which will require changes to the way we currently design and  
construct homes.

The Building Code is being reviewed to ensure that it reflects the new  
purposes and principles of the 2004 Act. These are wider than those in  
the Building Act 1991, particularly as buildings need to be designed,  
constructed, and able to be used in ways that promote sustainable  
development. This means that the Code review will address energy and  
water efficiency, the use of renewable sources of energy, the  
efficient, safe and sustainable use of materials, and construction  
waste.

Sustainability Measures in the revised Building Act (2004)

• Ensure harmful building designs, methods or products are prevented or minimised
• Ensure the building is durable for its intended use
• Consider the costs of a building – including its maintenance – over the whole of its life
• Use renewable energy sources in the building to facilitate efficient energy use and conservation
• Facilitate the efficient use of water in the building
• Reduce waste during the construction process

Changes to the Building Code are likely, with a review of the Code  
scheduled for completion by November 2007. The review is expected to  
include regulations to enforce the sustainability measures in the Act.

The Department of Building and Housing has developed the Building Act  
2004 website to inform people about the new Act and ways in which it  
affects the construction industry.

ENDS. (My emphasis)

Just as I thought. It's that curse of "sustainability" again. You can  
see why bureaucrats and politicians love the word. "Sustainable" and  
"Sustainability" are undefinable and mean everything, and nothing, and  
hence whatever any official wants them to mean. Once we  
write "sustainability" into an Act, the regulators can do whatever they  
want.

By now, we should have learned the lesson that inserting undefined  
terms into legislation is a recipe for encouraging "unbridled power".  
When an earlier Labour Government decided to require RMA, and other  
decision-makers, to "have regard to the principles of the Treaty of  
Waitangi" they left it to the courts to decide what those "principles"  
were. Life would have been much simpler if these clauses had referred  
to the "Articles of the Treaty" because at least they are written down  
and are of limited scope. It's not too late to make the change.

But promoting "sustainable development" or "sustainability", and their  
descendants, such as "sustainable urban form", "sustainable  
transport", and  and "sustainable showers" leaves no part of our lives  
untouched or out of bounds for any department which can refer to  
"sustainability" as its guiding light or beacon, or "vision".  
Remember, when politicians get visions the rest of us get nightmares.

New Zealand will not grow and develop unless this undefinable buzz- 
word is removed from all legislation, except where it actually means  
something, as in “the sustainable management of a fishery” or  
"sustainable management of a forest". The simple gramattical test is  
that "the verb must have an object".

CRMST Digest 10 Oct 2008 Item 2