Work begins on new NZ High Commission building in Niue

Transcript

KIRK YATES:  The current chancery building is quite old. It's a converted two bedroom house and it was built about 70 years ago. There was an assessment by our operational team in Foreign Affairs and Trade. It revealed that the building was past its used by date if you like. It had had a useful life but it was no longer fit for purpose so it was somewhat rundown and the building's configuration no longer fits our needs - it doesn't have suitable meeting rooms. It was decided that a construction of a new site, or new chancery [would] provide a better space. The new chancery will highlight New Zealand's commitment to its presence in Niue.

TIM GLASGOW: Tell me a bit about the new design. What sort of facilities will it include?

KY: So it will have a better space for interacting with the public. So we do a lot of visa passport renewals. We also have students coming down, so do citizenship ceremonies, so there's a lot of interaction are for public space if you like. So there are two meeting rooms that are open for us to use with the public. At the moment we don't have a meeting room - my office is the only suitable room to have a meeting in. Apart from that it's quite progressive in that it's an open plan office for the staff/ So this one of the smallest posts we have - two seconded staff and three local staff. There will be, obviously, another small meeting room there other than the spaces for the utilities - shared utilities for the public and ourselves. It's been designed by Slade Architects in Wellington to withstand a category five cyclone.

TG: Do you know a figure of what the construction of the new building is going to cost?

KY: It is around $3.3 million New Zealand dollars plus or minus. The contractor is Arrow International and they've actually begun the work, they started in this last month, so they're just clearing the site at the moment ready to start the actual construction itself for completion sometime early next year.