Page 874 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 2018
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For the record, I asked my directorate to check on the progress of reform initiatives and, as I do with all my directorates, I asked them to report to me on where they see areas of improvement to ensure that we are continuously improving our regulations.
If Mr Parton is going to seek to quote me, I would encourage him to reflect on attention to detail when it comes to quotes. I always prefer to be quoted accurately rather than have an inaccurate or a misleading quote used and then to receive an attack for what I have supposedly said.
The government is deeply aware of the detrimental effects on the community and on the industry of poorly designed and constructed buildings. That is why we have implemented, and we continue to implement, a series of reforms arising from the 2015-16 review of the ACT building regulatory system. The ACT government is committed to improving the quality of buildings.
Compliance with building laws is a priority for Access Canberra and substantial resources are committed in both policy and operational areas to achieve this outcome. Access Canberra has a senior executive appointed to the statutory office of the Construction Occupations Registrar and has a team of inspectors and auditors that work cooperatively with industry to ensure that buildings comply with the regulatory framework.
The construction audit team in Access Canberra has a strong focus on construction work associated with residential houses and apartment buildings. Not only do they audit these often complex buildings, they also provide a high level of engagement and education with licensees. This approach has the ability to identify poor quality work during construction and address problems at this stage, further reducing the potential of defects arising and the associated financial impacts on the purchaser.
The period 2007 to 2017 saw extensive testing of decisions by the regulator through the ACT judicial processes and this has resulted in judicial decisions that have had a deterrent effect and already eliminated some rogue industry players from the ACT market.
On 1 July last year Access Canberra introduced its new complaints management system which enables much higher quality data collection. The new system also keeps track of the government’s investigations into building quality, while enabling complainants to be better informed of the progress of complex investigations. It also serves as a repository of data to identify industry needs. As Access Canberra continues to develop the way that it records complaints and inquiries, increases in numbers may not necessarily correlate directly with increases in concerns but rather improvements in how the information is captured. We have recently been actively encouraging people to engage with the government on this issue.
By improving the quality of data collected by Access Canberra, this data can be analysed more efficiently and in greater detail. This allows Access Canberra to better target its resources to construction licensees who have either a high risk or a history of non-compliance.
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