Page 1578 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 12 August 1992
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What was significant from discussions yesterday was that it has also been made clear that the Housing Industry Association and the Master Builders Association also support the inspectors properly exercising their powers because, again as Mr Stevenson said and as the MBA and the HIA will say, the few shonky builders put everyone at risk. The industry is quite prepared to be openly supportive of the inspection service and say, "We expect you to crack down on any shonky work. If anyone does shonky work, you make them do it again, report them and potentially take action against their licence".
I can assure the Assembly that that will continue and that the problems that had occurred were not intrinsically the fault of a random inspection system. A random inspection system that has the confidence of the industry, which I am sure it now does, and in which the inspectors are confident of government support at the highest levels, which they clearly now are, can work. I suspect that the problems occurred in recent months partly as a result of that massive upswing in building activity. Although we had increased the number of inspections by 25 per cent, the number of plans lodged for approval had jumped by 134 per cent.
When an industry is on the upswing, unfortunately some of the shadier players can get back into it. When the industry was going bad and when it was at a very low level, a lot of people were forced out of it, and people who had a reputation for quality tended to stick around. People can sneak back into the system while it is booming. The HIA and the MBA are very conscious of that and are very determined to insist that higher standards be applied. We have the matter in hand to remedy it by way of the crackdown, by getting the industry cooperating and, as Mr Stevenson suggested, by getting better training running - not at a formal level through TAFE or any of the institutions, however fine those institutions are, but by way of trade nights and cooperation, one on one, directly with the industry.
I am able to reassure the Assembly and the community that those 330 inspections that formed the basis of the audit, which showed us that there was a problem, did not reveal that it was a problem that goes to the structural integrity of houses. Ninety-five per cent of those 330 dwellings that were inspected were found to have some form of non-compliance with the regulations, but overwhelmingly they were small and of little or no structural significance. Detailed records of each inspection were not kept because it was by way of an audit. Most of them were minor problems that were able to be resolved on site with the builder. The inspector was able to tell the builder what the problem was, and it was remedied there and then; but it was still worth recording as non-compliance in order for us to see the level of compliance.
In more serious cases there were written directions to carry out remedial work, and a copy of those directions for each site has been placed on the relevant building block and section file as a permanent record. In relation to a spec-built house, that will become apparent when a person purchases that house. The solicitor or conveyancer, if the law is changed as the Labor Party would like, will check that file. Checking the building file is a standard part of conveyancing, and that will become clear because there is that record. If a person who rang the hotline was one of those, we would have let him or her know. I am advised that,
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