Building Oversight Failures

Home Improvement
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As @PhilT notes the cost will mostly be borne by taxpayers/consumers. The Vic Govt in the first place allowed these products to be used, pity they didn’t review the use much earlier to reduce the remediation costs. $300 million that should have been spent on important things like education, health and others now has to be diverted to fixing the problem. A double whammy for the taxpayers as the money leaves the coffers and then the other services are underfunded.

The other half will be again levied on consumers through increased permit costs and that is a further kick in the teeth. Does this affect the Govt and bureaucrats who allowed these products to be used, I think not. As the products were approved for use I think the Govt will have a hard time in Court trying to get money back even if the approval was by a licenced certifier.

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In state and local governments progressively winding back direct expenditure (but with costs still to consumers through fees and profit to private certifiers) was there ever a net saving on building costs? The consequences in this example, of just one type of failure seem many times greater in dollars than any savings from the changes by government.

In response, there are also increased concerns within the industry that insurers are no longer interested in providing cover. Perhaps one more increased cost for consumers that will carry through to higher housing costs! This suggests more pain to come. As @grahroll suggested, there are many more flow on effects to the community arising from the failures of control by government, and business.

Agree it appears a difficult path. It might need to over turn centuries old legal precedents that protect personal wealth through trusts and company structures. Perhaps ‘Profits from Shoddy Building’ similar to the ‘Proceeds of Crime’ legislation might do the trick?

While many of the owners affected by the building failures might feel they are the victims of a crime, current laws do not support the sentiment.

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Combustible cladding just the tip of the iceberg.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the building industry will soon be telling us to be grateful as they do not simply completely collapse as they do in some other countries.

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Looks like the Commonwealth won’t be contributing to the State’s problem. In Queensland, the government has decided not to pay for the cladding replacement:

I think is possibly a positive move as it pushes the responsibility back to those who used the cladding or those responsible for the cladding which has been installed. If the Queensland Government stepped in, it could create a ‘careless’ attitude by the development industry enabling them to cut even more corners as they will think the government will step in and fix the problems they cause.

$500M in Victoria ($250M government + $250 new homeowners) is no small sum of money and with the problems they are having with some of their government services, I wonder if this money would not be better spent on the services that desperately need it.

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What are the chances those responsible can or will be held accountable under the current self regulating and developer friendly regimes? Diamond Club membership anyone? One of the interesting aspects of Victoria is that the dodgy builders and developers worked within the laws; the laws are a joke; and they might not have done anything illegal at the end of the day to be held accountable for, although the jury will be out for a while on that determination. Then we have the companies that build, dissolve, and move on as new entities - no responsibility, no assets, and no criminal or civil liability?

Is ‘every man for himself’ an Australian tradition, or is government recognising what it did wrong and helping the innocent buyers while enacting real protective laws better serve all? Otherwise our taxes can be spent on (federal) helicopter hires or (state) chauffeuring dogs across the city for self absorbed entitled pollies, at least in Vic. Spent on us, really? OK sometimes. Maybe Qld is different?

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It isn’t every man for himself. The Victorian government has decided to make a political decision to pay for the cladding removal. Why? This does beg the following.

How about all the other hundreds if not thousands of homeowners who have building defects they can’t get fixed by the developer/builder for a range of reasons…may are subject to VCAT claims. VCAT would not be needed if such defects or problems were not widespread.

Some of the issues individual homeowners are dealing with are (possibly more of a) health and safety issues but as individuals, they don’t have much of a voice like the relative well organised and potentially influential body corporates and property investors (for commercial buildings and residential investors).

Is the government planning to also remediate all property defects in recognition that it did wrong? I expect not as it is not a vote winner and the Victorian government is willing to leave ‘every man for himself’ in such cases.

The past Australian way is for Australians to take responsible for themselves and not for the government to solve all the woes of the world. Unfortunately, in the past decades (possibly since mid 1990s), individualism (what others can do for me) and deflecting responsibility seems the norm.

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Each state has made it’s own problems individually and collectively through national codes/standards. State Governments of both political franchises have had exclusive control of construction in their states and territories.

Is it OK for the Feds to hide behind the difference in state and federal constitutional responsibilities? If so the Federal Minister should not have offered to assist in solving the problem. The Federal Government has enough problems in it’s own area of responsibilities.

If there is a Federal interest it could be in the likely effects on the national economy. The expenditure on rectification will decrease productive outcomes relative to GDP, and take investment and consumer spending away from growth. The overall value of the property market will nose dive somewhat more, which is not good for the national credit rating either. The Federal Government should be concerned?

Of course the rectification is likely a very labour intensive activity, which may feed into more demand for building and construction personnel when the industry is spiralling into a downturn. Who would have thought the industry has sown some of the seeds of it’s own preservation?

Edit -added note

Not accurate in my experience dealing directly with two body corporates and reliable knowledge of a third. Owners in multi unit developments appear to have less power to act than direct owners of a property.

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If the responsibility rests with Govt inaction or because they frame laws that allow the unprotected to be abused then the responsibility does roost with them.

The fact that VCAT exists is not because there isn’t law to protect, it is there because many flout laws and others feel a decision has been unjust and it needs testing. The reason for so many defects is that sense of individualism in that an individual thinks they can do as they wish and there should be no consequence to their action or lack of action. Social behaviour requires a social conscience which we seem to be losing.

If a weakness exists that is in the law then a change that makes that law stronger may be of benefit, unless it removes certain what should be natural rights eg privacy needs protection, the right to protest needs protection, the right to freedom of speech needs protection but the right to provide shoddy or dangerous work does not have that right to protection.

Sadly, in this case the Govt inaction and the desire for cheap product has caused an issue that needs remediation and taxpayers will bear the brunt because of a Govt and industry failure to observe the greater social good. Not good enough from those elected and thus given the honour to govern for the populace, I think many may forget it should be treated as an honour and thus do not give the task the due respect it deserves.

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89

You thus may be advocating every unit buyer should hire their own engineer to assure quality construction prior to purchase, not just a defects inspection?

I understand where you come from with your opinion, but I don’t agree. Government is the only protection most of us have from dodgy whatever, and the control is through real laws which government has been negligent in enacting for a l.o.n.g time.

At some point government will need to bail ‘us’ out while it gets its act together, and that is a cost that needs to be incurred if any semblance of faith in the system is to be restored. It is not problems of the world, it is problems caused by complete faith that businesses will always do the right thing and can be trusted. Right they can.?

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Absolute agreement.

Further to this is the cost of prevention in the first place is far cheaper than the need to fix or rebuild after. As an example If a tower is found to be irreparably defective after some years and no longer protected by any sense of what may be termed insurance, then it will not just be a cost once borne but twice or thrice for the owners and occupiers of those places. Then the community may also have to bear additional costs such as legal defence of failures of Govt and assistance to those affected by the building failure.

Yet protection of shoddy industry seems to be well excelled by some in power.

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We are talking about cladding which was deemed an unacceptable risk after its installation and in response to the Grenfell fire. If Grenfell didn’t happen, it would be business as per normal.

I am not sure how the government is responsible for the installation of potentially flammable cladding. There is a remote possibly that on new government owned buildings, someone within the public service may have signed off or approved the materials to be used (and knowingly new that the cladding would not meet current or future requirements)…but for the scores of non-government owned buildings (which will be the majority, if not all the problem).

If a company decides to manufacture and sell a product which may increase the fire risk of a building, a contractor purchases the material and then installs it on a building…while the certifier checks the documentation that what has been specified has been installed…how is poor quality materials the responsibility of the government. It is possibly the government’s responsibility of they retrospectively prohibit the use of such cladding as the retrospectivity would immediate make any installed cladding illegal.

To me it is a little like the government taking responsibility for the Tataka airbags because they write the Australian Design Rules for vehicles and therefore they should be responsible for not checking the quality of the airbags installed in Australian cars. The government hasn’t taken on such liability and why should it when it is not the fault of the government or system causing the faulty airbags to be installed. Maybe if the government manufactured the cars in question it would be a different issue.

The government has a limit to what it can and can’t control. no differently to any individual. If the government decides that it needs to control everything just in case there is a risk, then ‘god help us all’.

The government does write laws to provide a minimum/acceptable standard or behaviour, but because either the laws were deficient or someone flouted the laws doesn’t mean the government is responsible. Otherwise the government would be responsible for any illegal activities carried out in Australia.

When buying any property, one should get an independent building inspection by a suitability qualified individual. Even if a property is new, one can’t assume that it has been built well.

This reminds me of…a colleague of mine in my last job was interested in buying a brand new built spec home and the builder said that a building inspection wasn’t required as it was new and all approvals were in place. Fortunately this advice was ignored and the independent building inspection showed a number of significant defects (including structural with trusses missing from the roof space). He didn’t proceed with the purchase but I expect that some unfortunate person did an may have to wear any problems which occur in the future (if the builder no longer exists or problems occur outside the statutory defect period).

See comments to @grahroll above. The government can’t be negligent because of the behaviour of others…otherwise it would be negligent for everything.

We are taking about cladding which now is deemed a unreasonable fire risk. Why should the Victorian (or other state) taxpayer pick up the cost to replace the cladding because it has gained a lot of media attention. There are many building owners which have structural, waterproofing etc problems which new/newly purchased housing …but are ignored because the government thinks it is politically correct to oil the squeaky wheel. This is not good government decision making (but possibly no different to a lot of government decisions on all levels in the past). This is something that ‘does get my goat up’.

I don’t agree that government should be picking up the pieces for the all the cladding in Victoria.

An yes, possibly things may need to reviewed and potentially changed if the community decides that all buildings in the future are to be free of potentially flammable materials, such as cladding. This may be a difficult task and may have unintended consequences.

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An article regarding a train crash in Canada in 2013 which killed 47 people, and the investigation into the causes and what, if anything, has been done to prevent a re-occurence.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/a-runaway-train-explosion-killed-47-but-deadly-cargo-still-rides-the-rails/ar-AAEqRQv?ocid=spartandhp

Somewhat reminiscent of Australia regarding the building industry and many others.

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There is a huge difference between an inspection and an engineering report as you are probably aware. One looks at the visible issues but the other would have to delve into whether the plans were correct, met standards, and the structure was built according to the plans with approved materials. I could not imagine many engineers stepping up to the latter since they would need to drill into the structure in many cases to sample what is there.

Therein lies the problem. One contracts construction to a builder who claims he is going to make a good building. Currently there is almost no repercussion if he builds a house of cards that starts falling or burning. Our insurances are sadly lacking as are the inspections in most of our jurisdictions to keep the builder ‘straight and narrow and not cutting corners’ during construction. Shall we each have to employ our own ‘deputy’ even after paying high council fees for permits and so on? If a fault is found who owns it, the owner being the employer? the ‘deputy’, or the builder who is delivering a dodgy product? And you can guess who would pay for it all under this scenario…

Some of us think the government is certainly negligent when it allows and even encourages the negligent behaviour of others through either inaction, or improper action (such as letting builders hire their own certification authorities).

We agree to disagree.

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And the alternative is?
How many owners of defective high rises across the nation will not be able to afford the repair costs?
How many will have mortgages on distressed properties that they cannot sell or only at a large loss?

The community is going to feel the impacts one way or another!

If your neighbours house looses it’s roof in a storm and yours doesn’t what would any of us say or do?
What if neither you nor your neighbour can get insurance cover for storm damage because the industry refuses future cover for your area and types of properties?

There appears to be no single response to the flammable cladding issue, or other major defects risks, that will satisfy all needs. The owners (occupiers and investors and tenants) are largely exempt from any form of cover. That is where government and the insurance industry may also need to be held to account.

I’ll simply recount that in the commercial and industrial world flammable cladding, linings etc have been recognised for decades as high risks by insurers, owners and designers. That comes from first hand experience, if now anecdotal when considered in this topic. The Grenfell disaster post dates that inside knowledge.

But for a high rise while great advice, only an ongoing inspection during construction can provide that assurance. That assumes you buy off the plan, and your Engineer (the task is beyond the average domestic certifier) is able to access the site and materials purchase records without hinderance?

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I disagree. We have government, in part, to protect society from criminal characters. Government is responsible for regulating business. That is, establishing regulations and enforcing them. A government that leaves enforcement to the regulated (as in, the self-regulating building industry), is negligent, in my opinion. In other words, that government is negligent, even before things begin to go wrong.

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The cladding was an unacceptable risk before the disaster, but it was the cheap way and so was allowed to go ahead. Grenfell made it so obvious and odious that it became something they had to act on rather than just hope it didn’t happen again.

Govt set building codes that supposedly mandate building practices, now they deregulate those practices with little Govt (local, state and federal) oversight. Mandatory insurance or warranty on these buildings is for set periods that may or may not cover all defects (obviously not all). Builders can be fly by night or easily just bankrupt and if a company who can you then get recovery of loss from.

This is where protection of people who have no ability to determine if a building has been built to proper standards other than by the reports of “independant certifiers” (who may or not be really independant as their livelihood depends on repeat business) is required. Who then protects them? Usually legislation is put in place to guard them, who produces the legislation…Governments at all levels.

If the industry cannot in good faith protect the innocent consumers from dodgy practices it behooves the Govt at whatever level then to step in and make good the issue.

Do or did I suggest draconian levels of control over all we do? Not at all, in fact many facets of life carry risk and some are choices we make to enter risk taking. But if a consumer in good faith and using what diligence they can assert makes what they think is a safe choice and instead is then given a rank substitute, who can fault them for considering the lack of oversight of an industry has been brought about by the failings of the ones who have the ability to mandate and ensure that oversight.

Why else do we have the ACL if all risk is the consumers to bear, and I feel quite strongly it isn’t theirs unless they understood a good was faulty.

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Yes they do, but would have the fireproof cladding being avoided if local government was still solely responsible for building inspections and certification, especially when the same cladding had not been banned for use on buildings?,

I think we would still have ended up with the same situation as today as the (local) government inspectors would have relied on the same information that the certifiers did to indicating that the materials met the specification for the building project (and may have been looked upon favourably due to its insulation properties to minimise energy use) and/or any fire codes etc. The only way to prevent the use of the cladding would have been for each building inspectors/certifiers arranged their own independent testing of each and every material brought onto a building site to check that it complies with every standard/code requirement and to identify if there are any problems with the use of the material. This is impracticable and verging on impossible to do.

I am not sure about the situation in Victoria, but in Queensland the problematic cladding was only banned for use after the findings of the Grefell fire were known. Before that time the material was used without question in Queensland. I suspect that the use such materials was driven by energy efficiency, where higher and higher energy efficiency standards were imposed on new and renovations builds to achieve higher energy efficiency ratings. As building codes are national, I expect the same would have applied in Victoria.

The ban in Queensland in effect left existing building owners in the lurch as they has cladding installed which was now banned/deemed non-compliant and insurance companies as a result put any policies in the two hard basket.

Should the materials have been identified earlier as posing a fire risk, possibly yes but we can’t change history and take things in hindsight as fact or could have been unavoidable (otherwise we be able to read the future).

Should the government be blamed for the cladding. No. If they are to be blamed, then they must accept responsibility for any material, individual or contractor which decides to work outside any standards, codes or laws as they would have the potential to prevent the non-compliance/illegal activity through more testing, more inspectors, more police, more surveillance etc. If one accepts this premise, we would have government officials following each of around every day to ensure that we comply with all known government requirements and policies. What a fun world this would be :confused:

There are many things which are regulated, self regulated and unregulated (inc. complaint driven). It is impossible to meet the expectations of some in the community that everything should be regulated and controlled by government. If this occurs, it would be impossible to carry out any activities without obtaining approval from the government (local, state. commonwealth). This would be a diabolical nightmare for all Australians as it would be a nanny state on steroids. This definitely would be the day I move internationally, as all our freedoms would be lost.

If I were a owner of a cladded building in Victioria which now has non-compliance cladding, I would be a very happy as the government has accepted the financial burden to clean up the ‘problem’. I just hope that when others in Victoria make financial decisions which don’t work out, the government also steps in as they have set a precedence that one doesn’t need to accept responsibility for any actions or risks taken. This is why the decision in Victoria is political.

The other point is if the government is to blame, why was similar cladding used worldwide on multistory building projects. If government is to blame, there must have either been a conspiracy with other governments to hide the problems or a massive failure of government on every level in many developed countries around the world. This seems quite a ludicrous proposition.

I am happy to disagree with others to who is responsible based on the above an many more reasons. In Australia and many other developed countries, when something goes wrong there is an expectation that the government will solve the problem or we are happy to blame the government for the problem (which at times they then take on the responsibility).

Choice have also been advocating products to be safe before being sold. Maybe this is another example of a product which should have been proven by the manufacturer as being safe before being sold…or all the risks associated with the use of the materials fully known. Maybe this approach may have picked up the problem before it arose…but such approach doesn’t yet exist in Australia.

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The cladding was originally approved for single story premises ie Class 1 but was then used on buildings of Class 2 (which are two or more dwellings in a single building) to class 9 and Type A & B see the following for the classes:

If Class 1 there is still no need to register or be inspected. “6.1 Which buildings don’t require registration? Building owners do not have to register using the online system if their building is: a private, single detached dwelling (commonly referred to and used as a single dwelling or house) used for residential purposes (a class 1 building which is not located above or below another dwelling, or another class of building other than a private garage), or one of a group of two or more private attached dwellings situated side by side to another attached dwelling (commonly class buildings referred to and used as a duplex, townhouse or row housing), or a private carport/garage or shed used in association with a dwelling (a class 10a building). More information is given in section 9.1 of this guideline.”

No conspiracy other than a drive to the cheapest option without due regard. Doesn’t take a systemic corrupt approach just a cost one and ignoring warnings.

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Perhaps because inspectors would not be beholden to the builders.

Is that ‘whatif’ documented somewhere that ‘everyone’ thought the cladding was safe?

Incorrect. Each product should have the AS stamped on it (or on its box, or be on a register).

Why? Because it might reduce profits? A weather model, unrelated, processes millions of data points. Google makes the weather model look small. Are you having trouble comprehending how simple it is for a computer system to be able to cross reference all relevant standards and the products registered to meet each?

Qld has a long and illustrious (ignoble) history about many things. For reference Russ Hinze was my local member for some years. Need more be written about that?

But we can change the future and help those damaged by history, unless “nobody is their brother’s keeper” and everyone for themselves?

There a small things where I agree, but there also also big, often expensive things, I absolutely and vigorously disagree with your point about.

For your consideration. The council inspections failed but the cladding was not on, according to this report.

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The Australian Standard 5513 for fire spread testing of cladding only came on 23 March 2016. I haven’t looked up the Australian Building Code to see if the Australian Standard needs to be labelled, but before 23 March 2016 there is unlikely to have been any such requirement as the AS5513 did not exist.

And the same would have likely occurred in Australia if government paid inspectors were used. Such inspectors are not infallible nor have the ability to determine materials on face value. They rely on information provided to them from suppliers, contractors and industry experts. If the information on balance supports its use, it will be used…even if later on there are potential problems with using it or new information leads to it being banned/taken off the market.

The cladding situation is possibly similar to the wire electrical flex sold in Masters hardware stores…where the flex is required to meet mandatory requirements in relation to durability, fire and electrical risks. The flex entered the market and it was only at a later date was the flex found to not be fit for purpose. The government could have stepped in and solved the problem for customers/retailer/wholesaler etc, but instead the retailer picked and resolved the problem (and assume their insurers). Why didn’t electrical inspectors of the various state government prevent its sale…they couldn’t, just like the now questionable cladding being installed on buildings which after its installation it has been decided to be an unsafe fire risk.

In appropriate behaviours or favouring mates is not restricted to the private sector. As inquiries and commissions in a number of states have shown, it also occurs in the public sector as well. While it can’t be prevented, it can be identified, controlled and action taken.