Page 1610 - Week 06 - Thursday, 23 July 2020
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This is the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Tourism and, indeed, the last one for this term. On 28 March 2018 the committee agreed to inquire into and report on building quality. As the inquiry continued, various reforms were implemented or announced by the government, including this week. The committee received 103 submissions, held nine public hearings and heard from 52 witnesses and a range of stakeholders.
The report looks at previous reports proposing building quality reforms and the causes of building quality issues. The committee made 48 recommendations. I will not go through all of those—mercifully, I will spare you—but they cover a broad range of areas. This is a complex space and includes building and trades licensing, including the scope of who should be licensed and what form those licenses should take; the issue of building contracts; the enforcement of the rules and the role of the regulator; the auditing of building sites; rectification of faults; the certification process; public information on rights available to building owners on building and rectification processes; dispute resolution; quality of building plans; training and education within the building industry; and a range of other matters.
As I said, this is a complex space; there is no silver bullet. The committee hopes that the 48 recommendations we have put forward to government will assist the government, moving forward, and complement the range of reforms that have been undertaken and those we anticipate will flow on from other bodies of work that have been undertaken both locally and nationally.
It is a fair observation that, since we instigated this inquiry in 2018, there has been a flurry of activity from the government which, according to the evidence presented to the committee, followed a period of the government dragging its heels. We are encouraged that there was this flurry of activity from the government, including this week.
This is an important issue. There may be a different view about some of the nuances of the approaches taken, but all of us on the committee heard some quite harrowing stories from individuals who had not only lost a significant amount of money through building quality issues but also faced mental anguish as their home—the major investment they had made in their life, essentially—had such problems. That highlighted to the committee the importance of getting this right and the government moving forward with not just these recommendations but the other body of work it has undertaken.
I thank those witnesses that came forward with those quite traumatic stories but also all the key stakeholders—from the MBA to the CFMEU and everybody in between. I was encouraged that many of the views put forward were consistent and that there is a great desire across industry, the community and the union sector to make sure that we get reforms in this space. As I noted, the government has ramped up its efforts in recent years with regard to these matters.
I thank the other members of the committee, Mr Gupta and Mr Pettersson, for their support, and also Ms Orr, who was originally on the committee and played a
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