KiwiSaver provider and social housing backer Simplicity has come away disappointed from a meeting with Fletcher Building over the shortage of GIB-board.
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Simplicity has been highly critical of Fletcher's dominance of plasterboard manufacturing and sales in New Zealand and has said it's been responsible for the supply crisis, which it should have forseen.
"The meeting overall was disappointing, there was too much deflection and it's clear that the company that caused the crisis is not the one to fix it," Simplicity chief executive Sam Stubbs told RNZ by text.
"Immediate steps are necessary as we think it will get worse not better, and government is now the real agent of change via ensuring a properly competitive market."
He said Simplicity would consider options over the weekend.
It's already dumped Fletcher Building as a supplier of plasterboard and has started importing a rival product from Thailand at a cheaper cost and quicker delivery times.
Simplicity Living managing director Shane Brealey told Checkpoint today's meeting with Fletcher leadership over the GIB shortage was underwhelming, with very little humility shown.
He said they should have acknowledged the problem and sought a resolution. But Brealey said Fletcher did not acknowledge the size of the crisis and their role in it.
"What we really need is a long-term solution where we're not so beholden to one monopoly. Hopefully the government can get some action around that," he said.
Although he believed the GIB supply crisis would ease by next year, Brealey said Fletcher Building had played down the damage the shortage would have on the construction sector over the coming months.
Yesterday, Fletcher Building said it had changed its local manufacturing configuration to produce more GIB and was also importing board from Australia.
However, Brealey said this was too little too late.
"That's all great but if only they'd done it six months earlier, obviously they're really late on this and if they had jumped and done these things that they're doing now six months ago they may have avoided all of this," he said.
With a government investigation into the building supplies sector underway, Brealey called for authorities to base the approval of building supplies such as plasterboard on performance specifications rather than recognised brands or the reputation of individual suppliers.
Since Simplicity had removed Fletcher Building as a supplier of plasterboard, he said they had provided 90 companies with a template to source plasterboard from alternative suppliers.
The Shareholders' Association also attended the meeting to voice its concerns about the financial and reputational risks to Fletcher Building and the associated risks to the value of shareholders' investments.
Chief executive Oliver Mander said the meeting was "frank and open" and Fletchers had explained how it and the industry had been caught by the perfect storm of record demand caused by the housing boom, Covid disruptions and hoarding of stock.
"I think there were some good messages there about the steps the company's taking to alleviate supply in the market and some steps it's taking to repair relationships with customers."
But Mander said Fletchers offered no apology and he retained concerns whether the company was aware of the risks its handling of the GIB-board crisis posed to the interests of its shareholders.
Fletcher Building declined to comment on the meeting, but yesterday said it was changing its manufacturing resources and importing more plasterboard from Australia to increase supplies as well as setting up emergency reserves to help supply board to builders urgently needing it.