And another apartment disaster of a different kind.
A structural engineer who designed 200 defective apartments in the NT has had his registration suspended.
Too little. too late for the unfortunate apartment owners.
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Australia has long been owned and operated by the developers and their supporters who receive often substantial political donations. All the parties are happy to take donations from whomever, wherever, and respond to maintain that âgood willâ. If they stall until all these buildings tumble, burn, and are remediated it will die down with only the aggrieved owners still aggrieved.
It is the most common treatment from this government for most anything. Suck it up folks, business is important, you are not as most governmental actions reinforce.
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The Buildersâ Collective has joined the petition. They have their own petition, which seems to have attracted little support.
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The laws seem to still be light handed. NSW and Qld have essentially said that developers can do what they want and their customers have to bear the consequences. Profits matter.
Vic is being more proactive but has been faced with reality of how developers do their business planning and in spite of absolute thumbing of noses, the law is the law.
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The court transcript is amazing - deliberately lit fires, stonewalling, unlawful demolition without any assessment for asbestos (later confirmed) or neighbour safety, defiance of stop work order, illegal dumping - how are they not in prison?
They should enforce it being a public park in perpetuity, with these gentlemen responsible for its upkeep to the highest standard.
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Just what are the responsible politicians thinking?
Who has the winning team, no less! 
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Hereâs a great article on Building Oversight and building to quality and longevity NOT:
Even Govtâs own oversight fails on their own projects, what hope do ordinary citizens have of getting good governance of building projects.
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The Mascot Towers fiasco continues to go from bad to worse.
As does the flammable cladding disaster.
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The ABCâs 7.30 program is running a series of reports on the building industry.
This is Mondayâs:
and last nightâs:
[edit]
The final installment:
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Same problem, different cladding:
And an article from closer to home:
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It may also be worth considering many low rise buildings and residential properties may also have flammable cladding materials.
Vinyl faced sheeting has been a popular external option for fixing over old weatherboard homes. There are also modern foam backed panel materials. Eg Kool-Wall.
https://www.activebuildingsystems.com.au/products/koolwall/
The fire risks of the use of such products are considered low because occupants can supposedly readily escape a burning one or two story property.
Some such cladding include added fire retardant chemicals. While effective retardants only slow a fire, that they are added points to the inherent flammability of the untreated materials.
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I do not know if or how this contributes, but many âplasticsâ do not burn, they smoulder and compared to burning that is good. But whether they burn or smoulder some apparently give off chemical concentrations that range from poisonous to âjustâ lung damaging. The fire might not kill one, but.
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It all depends on the circumstances (installation details/design) and formulation of each product.
Unfortunately it is difficult to generalise and say all plastic based claddings are low risk or to suggest they are all a hazard.
Currently the plastic cladding industry has been very careful in how it promotes itâs products. Some manufacturers are more transparent in their marketing than others.
There are modern VCP products with a bush fire attack level assessment (BAL).
Or a more marketed approach with some interesting generalisations on the older products.
Other manufacturers appear to make more general statements concerning fire retardant properties.
Or
https://www.austech.com.au/images/PDF/duratuff_Fire_rating_and_performance.pdf
For older cladding manufactured and installed some time ago, who knows.
For anyone who is concerned and has a property clad in a plastic based product perhaps the best advice is to first identify the exact product. And to follow that up by seeking out the respective manufacturers fire assessment for the product.
Products backed with polystyrene foam may be at greatest risk, if the foam does not incorporate a fire retardent.
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Also as the domestic home buildings are mostly 1 or 2 storeys in height the chimney effect that is apparent in high rise cladding fires is much less of a factor. Most houses if they catch on fire it is more internal than external (discounting bush fires and their ilk). Thus while the cladding may be dangerous the greatest risk in most house fires is not exiting fast enough to beat the internal conflagration and why fire/smoke alarms are now insisted on.
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How do dodgy buildings get built? With governmental help through various forms of what can arguably be called negligence, or minimally incompetence.
The VBA has confirmed the sanctions against Mr Nadinic in Queensland are unlikely to have any bearing on his Victorian licences.
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The Opal Tower saga rolls on.
And the combustible cladding fiasco gets bigger.
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And an absolute shocker.
The fallout continues.
Another case of market failure. If we want the industry to continue, then government will need to step in. Have we reached the end of private sector insurance?
