Any suggestion of streamlining building processes, whether it be to allow new building products or changes to consenting, raises fears about the leaky homes disaster, which cost billions of dollars and caused misery for many.
The shoddy materials and practices from the 1990s are still making their presence felt all these years later when homes from that era are renovated.
The government needs to convince us what it is proposing now will not lead us down that sorry path again.
Its self-certification proposals, which are not yet at a detailed stage, are described as part of the government’s commitment to increase housing supply by improving efficiency and competition in the building system, reducing barriers and driving down costs.
Remote inspections are already used, but there has been concern about a lack of consistency around them.
That consultation, which closes at the end of next month, is also seeking feedback on increasing the use of private organisations which can be accredited under existing building regulations to carry out building consent applications for local authorities.
The idea of some sort of self-certification scheme is not new.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment consulted on an option for an opt-in certification for accredited companies and approved professionals in all building trades last year which Cabinet was told showed broad support in principle from many submitters, subject to having strong safeguards in place to manage the risks.
Such risks included the potential for poor building quality to go unchecked, consumer loss and difficulties in attributing liability when things go wrong.
The proposal being suggested now would involve an opt-in self -certification scheme for "trusted building professionals and accredited businesses" for low-risk builds.
Building and construction minister Chris Penk says the single-storey basic home might go through 10 or more separate inspections, which he said was clearly too many "and the cost-benefit has become unbalanced".
He says it takes on average 569 days for a house to be built and consented and that is simply too long.
However, how much delay involves building consent tardiness has not been spelled out and there will be mixed views, even among builders, about whether there are too many inspections required.
It seems what Mr Penk has in mind will be available to individual practitioners and big companies, builders considered trusted because "they have been doing good work already with a strong track record to prove it" .
Particular mention has been made of those large builders specialising in making variations of a basic single-storey house.
As has been pointed out, however, big companies are not infallible, even if they have performed well in the past.
The proposal also relies on the tradies having indemnity insurance, guarantees and bonds.
Much will depend on the willingness of the insurance market and banks to play ball, and it is not clear whether the cost of adequate indemnity insurance might cancel out any savings from self-certifying.
Mr Penk has spoken of the need to have stronger punishment for cowboy tradies, suggesting permanent removal of the ability to work in the industry could be on the cards.
Whether any system to ensure adequate auditing and monitoring of self-certification might end up involving more red tape, albeit in a different form from existing arrangements, is unclear.
Detailed policy decisions will be made next year, following what the government says will be thorough consultation.
Thoroughness, which has not been a hallmark of much of what the coalition government has done to date, will be essential to ensure new homeowners can be confident any changes which result in short-term savings will not turn out to be expensive in the years ahead.
