Page 1574 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 12 August 1992
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PAPERS
MR BERRY (Deputy Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, for the information of members, I present the following papers:
Department of Justice and Community Services - Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June 1991.
ACT Government Law Office - Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June 1991.
BUILDING INDUSTRY
Discussion of Matter of Public Importance
MADAM SPEAKER: I have received a letter from Mr Stevenson proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Assembly for discussion, namely:
The need to support a productive and viable building industry in the ACT.
MR STEVENSON (3.12): First of all, I intend to talk about residential building, not commercial development, although both are vital to the ACT and certainly to our economy. The industry is worth between $300m and $400m a year, with tremendous potential for employment. Some 2,000 to 3,000 homes will be built in the coming year in the ACT. I raise the matter because I think we can take some steps that would reduce the cost of homes - that would benefit us all - reduce the time for building homes and increase employment in the industry.
I give some examples to explain this. There are a lot more that could be used; but time, of course, would not allow me to mention them. I mention first of all the fees for various permits in the industry. Fees are required to be paid for design and siting approval, plan approval for building and sewerage and permit approval on housing indemnity insurances. These permits are usually required from several different places. Perhaps it would be advantageous to the industry and to us all if it were possible for permits to be available from one place only, or, indeed, if only one fee were paid and then the relevant department collecting that money disbursed it to various other government organisations.
I give one example of permit costs. If you build a house for $100,000 you are required to pay X amount of dollars. If the sum goes to $200,000 the payment is 2X, and there is an additional fee, called a scaffolding fee, of over $100. That would be fine if scaffolding were involved, if a permit were required and the scaffolding had to be supervised. But that is usually not the case, because you may have no scaffolding at all. There is also a requirement to fill out a lifts and scaffolding form for residential buildings, even though it is highly unlikely that a lift will be required and very rare for scaffolding to be required. So fees may be charged when they are not necessary. Let us not have a lifts and scaffolding form unless the actual building is going to have lifts and scaffolding.
Another point, as far as costs go, is that if you build a $30,000 extension to a home the fee is the same as it would be for installing a log fire in a lounge room. There could be some differentiation there. In the old days, a builder could book an inspection by telephone. Now, the requirement is that the builder either fax the information or visit the particular building section between 8.00 am and 4.00 pm.
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