Page 3984 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 20 September 2017
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The minister for health has stressed on many occasions that the cladding is safe. Why, then, is it being removed? If it is safe, it could stay. If it has to be removed, it is probably not safe. You cannot have it both ways. If the cladding is safe, why does it have to be removed? I believe it should be removed, but the minister for health is trying to muddy the waters around this issue and has yet to provide a straight answer on the question when she keeps stressing that the cladding is safe.
The minister for health claims that it is not safe to remove the cladding without having replacement cladding at the ready. Why then has not replacement cladding been ordered? Last week we were told that replacement cladding has not yet been ordered. We know now from other jurisdictions that are moving with urgency that there is a nationwide and worldwide shortage of replacement cladding because of the demand.
I received informal reports from some engineers that aluminium cladding, where used for aesthetic purposes, must be placed on a sound structure and that the removal of that aluminium cladding would have no effect on the structural integrity of the building in the short term. Obviously, I am not a building expert, but we have yet to see reports from either minister explaining why the cladding cannot be removed in the interim. If it is so unsafe that it must be removed, why can it stay for who knows how long until replacement cladding is available?
The matters I raise today about the ACT government’s poor form on the use of aluminium cladding in construction have some intersection with federal government responsibilities. Australia’s national construction code is among the best and the strictest in the world and is determined by state, territory and commonwealth governments and by industry representatives. The states and territories then adopt the national construction code into law. The use of combustible cladding on multi-storey buildings is, to my understanding, against that code.
I have been advised by some of my federal colleagues that the matter here is a matter of non-compliance and that regulation and enforcement, of course, are the responsibility of the states and territories. What we have fallen down on here is regulation and enforcement. The commonwealth has no constitutional powers to ensure buildings are constructed according to the national construction code. I note that the Prime Minister has asked all states and territories to audit their buildings for combustible cladding to determine the extent of the problem, which the ACT government has said it is doing.
In this regard, a significant issue may be that most jurisdictions outsource their regulatory responsibilities to private certifiers. The compliance and enforcement systems may then vary. To address this, the federal government has appointed two independent experts recently to examine broader compliance and enforcement problems within the building and construction systems to determine best-practice regulation.
Mr Assistant Speaker, earlier this month the Senate economics references committee produced a draft report that recommended that the Australian government implement a total ban on the importation, sale and use of polyethylene core aluminium composite panels—what I have been referring to as aluminium cladding—as a matter of urgency.
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