Mr. John McCarthy:

On the climate question, we ultimately expect social housing developments to be compliant with the ambitious performance requirements in the building regulations. Therefore, there is no issue of any significance in that way. As I mentioned, we have used social housing projects as demonstration projects. We have some social housing projects, for example, that are delivered to NZEB standard even though we are only now finalising the set of regulations that will introduce it as a requirement.

The Deputy said that some people say approval processes can take the Department two years.