-
CTV building in ruins. - Source: ONE News -
Watch Video
-
Related
The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Canterbury earthquakes
has completed its public hearings, almost a year after they
began.
The Commission has investigated why structures such as the CTV and
PGC buildings collapsed and why others failed.
Almost 1200 documents have been submitted in the past year, hundreds of witnesses have given evidence and the live internet stream has been accessed by viewers in 118 countries.
The final hearing today began with a discussion over regulations governing the construction industry.
With many of the leading players in the design of those regulations taking part in this morning's panel, the industry's frustrations soon came to the fore.
Pieter Burghout of the Construction Industry Council (CIC) said the work of developing standards has been lost.
"My own sense is we used to develop standards in a collaborative, everyone shoulder to the wheel, let's get the job done process," Burghout said.
He said the CIC has been expressing a frustration "that we've ended up doing so much policy thinking about who should be doing this and who's funding that and worrying about this, that the actual work of getting it done has been lost".
Commissioners Richard Fenwick and Sir Ron Carter with Commission chair Justice Mark Cooper now retire to consider their findings in order to provide the answers that will impact not only Canterbury, but the length and breadth of this seismically vulnerable country.
The final report must be completed by November 12 and then handed to the Governor General.
He in turn will deliver it to Government which will decide when
the report is released.