Page 3495 - Week 08 - Thursday, 23 August 2012
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I have got some comments on the regulatory part of ESD, and those of us who read the Canberra Times today would see that building regulations featured on the front page. This is an important issue. People put their life savings into their housing, and they need to be assured that the house is properly built and is not going to fall down, is not going to leak. So I would like to see more emphasis put on enforcing building regulations. I am pleased that a couple of budgets ago more money was put into COLA. I would like to see COLA use the muscle that it has got in this regard. I still have too many complaints from people that the building that they are seeing is not of sufficient quality.
I am pleased to see that the government yesterday agreed with Ms Bresnan’s motion about safe shelters and that ESD have now agreed to work with participating churches to facilitate temporary shelter. This is the sort of thing that churches have been doing over the millennium, and I think it is a great idea that finally ESD will take this on board. It is a pity it appears that ESD saw this as an issue before they bothered inspecting the churches.
I would like to note estimates recommendation 123, which is about the ESD creating a new restricted plumbing licence for landscapers under the construction occupations act. I have spoken to the master plumbers on this subject and they seem okay with this, as long as the landscapers are adequately trained. In talking with the plumbers, they also pointed out, as I said before, there is adequate compliance checking with ESD on how people connect to the water network. I think this is important, as it has often been said that plumbers probably save more lives than doctors do.
I would really like to know how many instances the ESD actually checks on something on its own behalf and how many times it only does spot checking because people have complained. People have complained that the DA does not appear to be adhered to. People have complained that the DA does not appear to be in accordance with the territory plan. One issue where I know that there seem to be issues is waste management plans. How often are these checked? How often is all the plumbing checked?
Talking about checking, I have been very disappointed that the government has not responded to the Heritage Act review and, in particular, the recommendation that a full-time heritage compliance officer be funded. The Heritage Act review was released in September 2010. The government has had about two years to respond. There has not been any response. At the beginning of the year the Chief Minister promised the government would not only release its response but it would introduce the Heritage Amendment Bill 2012. Maybe that is going to be an early action for a returned government, if it is returned, but this is not the way that the government should be planning. These things have basically not happened. Possibly what the government is saying is that the word “heritage” means that a lot of time must pass before anything happens.
One unsatisfactory consequence of all of this is that there is now no accountability indicator for heritage performance. There used to be the indicator “assessed development applications for any heritage impact”. I am advised ACTPLA, within 15
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