Page 3108 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 10 September 1991
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MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (9.15), in reply: Mr Speaker, I am pleased to see that there is general support for this Bill. I foreshadow that in the detail stage I will be moving an amendment which has been circulated in my name and which picks up a technical error in the schedule. It makes some consequential amendments at page 5 of the draft Bill, which were picked up by the Scrutiny of Bills Committee in report No. 14 tabled on 27 August.
It is pleasing to see general support for this initiative. At first hearing, it could seem to observers of this debate that the comments of Mr Duby and Mr Jensen are generally sound and supportable and are heading in the same direction, and that we should be enthusiastic about everything that was said. However, to some extent there is an inconsistency between Mr Duby and Mr Jensen, and I must say that, on balance, I am with Mr Duby.
The point is that what we are doing here is taking the first step in a process of achieving uniformity in building codes. As Mr Duby indicated, the cost of diverse building codes in Australia runs into billions of dollars. We do not just have problems of federalism, with six States, two Territories and the Commonwealth; because local government is involved and can impose its own building codes, we do not have just nine governments, we have hundreds of governments, and consequently hundreds of different building codes.
This process will be aided dramatically when we achieve the uniform building Act. I am pleased to inform the house that at the Building Ministers conference in Canberra in August there was general agreement at Building Minister level that we move towards a uniform Act, and a uniform Act is now being drafted through the forum of the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General. So, we will have a uniform building Act on the table in the early part of next year, and there is general agreement across political parties that that should be brought into being fairly quickly.
This process towards uniformity, with dramatic cost savings, is a clearly compelling one. It will mean that a builder in Canberra can confidently plan his operations to build in Canberra or in Queanbeyan or in Yass and a builder in suburban Sydney can build in any local government area. That is a very desirable, very sensible and long overdue reform in Australian intergovernmental relations.
Mr Jensen refers to the lowest common denominator, and that is the problem with some of the proposals Mr Jensen was putting forward. Sensible though they may be and desirable though some reforms may be, in every State parliament in Australia and, worse, in every shire council, members or
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