Page 801 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 9 April 2014
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they are both meeting the needs of the Canberra community and also operating in a way that is practical and useful for industry. That has been going on for some time now; it is very complex. Personally, I would like it to go faster, and I have conveyed that view to TAMS, but their feedback to me is that the process of working with industry is taking more time because people have a significant level of feedback. Those sorts of areas are being addressed as we speak.
When it comes to the impact of rogue builders and phoenix companies, the issue of dodgy builders has been in the public domain for years now. Members will remember that both my former colleague Ms Le Couteur and former Canberra Liberal Mr Zed Seselja both tabled motions to establish an inquiry into these issues. As a result of this pressure, the Building Quality Forum was established in 2010 to look into what could be done. This is a complex issue which has had ongoing work from relevant stakeholders. There are actions in place stemming from the Building Quality Forum and the review which is currently in progress.
I think we all agree that the issue of rogue builders is one of great significance and one of concern to the Canberra community. We have seen recent reports in the press of the impact of that for communities and individuals across our city. Just yesterday—and Mr Corbell has already made some reference to this—we passed a law giving consumers access to information about construction licences, including conditions, suspensions, cancellations, and other disciplinary actions that may apply to builders. That will allow consumers to make better choices between companies that have a good record and those that have been shown to do the wrong thing. As Mr Corbell touched on—and I agree—it is exceptionally ironic that in the debate on the bill yesterday Mr Coe moved to prevent this register of companies which have had disciplinary action taken against them by the Construction Occupations Registrar from being made public. I thought this was the very thing that we needed to stop rogue builders—to ensure that consumers, home owners and prospective home owners are able to look into the credentials of these companies and builders to see whether they are reliable or known to be problematic. For consumers to have that basic information is surely an important step in tackling this issue.
The Auditor-General is currently undertaking a review of the development certification and application assessment processes, which includes looking at the private certification of developments and assessment approvals for non-compliant developments. This is a major issue of concern, yet it is not one which Mr Coe raised in his motion. I expect that we will see the Auditor-General’s report on this very soon. Again, this will provide specific feedback on whether work needs to be done in this area to make improvements. I am pretty sure there will need to be improvements, and I am keenly awaiting the Auditor-General’s report.
In any case, I do not think it is the impact of rogue and phoenix companies that we need to examine so much as the solutions. It is very clear what the impact is. It is the solutions that we need to look at—which we expect to see later this year through the major response to the Building Quality Forum which I spoke of earlier. I believe that we are expecting a tranche of construction occupations licensing legislation later this year as a result of the work over the past four years that has been taking place through the Building Quality Forum.
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