20 years ago:
• Thirty-two presidents and vice-presidents attended a two-day seminar in Wellington where they learned the importance of working as a team and maintaining regular contact and good relationships with the news media.
RMBF chief executive Trevor Allsebrook said RMBs had to continue to promote themselves in the community, and contact with the media played a major role in that.
“We have come a long way in terms of improving our public profile in the past few years, but there is certainly scope to go further. With that in mind, we engaged professional media consultants to brush up our presidents’ skills in dealing with the media, putting them through the hoops with interviews about newsy matters, with the media experts then appraising their performance,” Mr Allsebrook said.
15 years ago:
• More than 1500 engineers and scientists from around the world were to assemble in Auckland to attend the 12th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering.
Conference organising committee chairman, deputy vice-chancellor Bob Park of Canterbury University, said the emphasis in conference proceedings would be placed on earthquake risk reduction in developing countries, international issues and earthquake engineering in practice.
Social and economic issues, lessons from recent earthquakes, lifeline systems and design criteria and methods were also being covered.
10 years ago:
• The Department of Building and Housing was established on November 30, 2004, absorbing the functions of the Building Industry Authority and having primary responsibility for the regulation of building practitioners.
It was envisaged that the new department would provide a one-stop shop for building and housing policy and regulation.
The Building Act also established a new Building Practitioners Board which had responsibility for ensuring the accountability of Licensed Building Practitioners (LBPs).
5 years ago:
• After being hard hit by the global economic downturn, the country’s construction industry can look forward to improved performance and expansion in 2010, according to Department of Labour head of labour market Monique Dawson.
“Key to ensuring the industry’s long-term development will be the avilability of skilled staff, with the retention of apprentices, in particular, being vital,” Ms Dawson said.
She was commenting on Construction Sector Outlook, a report from the Department of Labour that charted the growth of the industry since the turn of the century, and how it had responded to the downturn over the past two years.
“The Construction Sector Outlook report investigates the relationships between construction industry activity and indicators that have historically led its growth,” Ms Dawson said.
“The analysis shows that a recovery in residential construction activity can be expected to commence before the end of the year, while employment may fall slightly further before stabilising.”
