The New Zealand government said Wednesday it is considering cutting import duties on home building materials in bid to help bring down the country's soaring house prices.

"Building materials costs are too high and can be as much as 30 percent more in New Zealand than in Australia according to the Productivity Commission. The industry needs a shake-up through increased competition and greater transparency to ensure kiwi families can get access to more fairly priced building materials and homes," Housing Minister Nick Smith said in a statement.

"I worry that high duties on some imported building products, combined with limited competition in New Zealand is allowing excessive margins by building product manufacturers."

Smith and Commerce Minister Craig Foss released Wednesday an options paper outlining possible measures to curb the cost of house construction.

The paper said 19 percent of the output of the home construction industry was made up of imported content.

Tariffs notionally still applied to most items used in housing construction, such as timber products, steel and aluminum joinery, particle board, plasterboard, insulation and roofing materials, but adjusted tariffs -- the duty as a percentage of the value -- were small and diminishing due to free trade agreements, said the paper.

The government has also imposed anti-dumping duties on imports of plasterboard from Thailand since 2011, some wire nails from China since 2011 and reinforcing steel bar and coil from Thailand since 2004.

Submissions to the options paper would close on Dec.18.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has warned that the country's soaring house prices are a risk to economic stability and tightened high loan-to-value mortgage lending at the beginning of October.