VOICES | HYWEL DAVIES Global reform Following reviews of construction in high-rise residential buildings, the construction sector is facing major change with calls for a significant update of regulations. Hywel Davies reports I n response to the outcry over failings in tall buildings, government is set to introduce a Building Commissioner with responsibility for auditing workers in the industry. There will be greater protection for homeowners and owners organisations, to help them obtain compensation if builders or engineers have been negligent. The response has been described as the biggest shake-up in building and construction laws in our history. An independent report found that the nature and extent of the problems [in the industry] are significant and concerning, and likely to undermine public trust in the health and safety of buildings if they are not addressed in a comprehensive manner. It calls for registration schemes for builders, surveyors, architects, engineers, designers, and building inspectors and new mechanisms for training and licensing. The government proposals are intended to ensure that people who work in the building and construction industry will have to take responsibility for theirwork. The proposals are likely to mean requiring designers to sign off on their designs, and builders to build their buildings in line with those designs. The proposed commissioner would have responsibility for enforcing the licensing scheme. Other measures will give builders less control over the certifiers responsible for approving their work, and a bond defects scheme will make it easier for homeowners to remedy defective work. The proposals are part of the state government of New South Wales response to a major review commissioned in August 2017 and published in April 2018 by the Building Ministers Forum, a collective of Australian state and territory ministers. Its report was the culmination of six months investigation by the chancellor of Western Sydney University, Peter Shergold, and lawyer Bronwyn Weir, who has many years experience of building regulations. Further responses will be delivered across Australia in the coming weeks. The report was commissioned in reaction to a series of problems with tall residential buildings in Australia, including a fire in the Lacrosse Building in Melbourne. Since it was published, there have been highly publicised structural failures in the 36-storey Opal Tower, at Sydney Olympic Park. Significant cracks that developed in December 2018 have been attributed to design and construction failures. In early February, there was another high-rise fire in Melbourne, in a block of flats in Spencer Street. Six days later, NSW fair trading minister Matt Kean released his response to the Shergold Weir report into compliance and enforcement in the Australian building industry. When you buy a property in NSW, you have every right to expect that [it] is safe, structurally sound, and free from major defects. And, unfortunately, that is not always the case, said Kean. He announced the state government would accept the vast majority of the 24 recommendations in the Shergold Weir report, published just three weeks before Building a Safer Future, Dame Judith Hackitts review of building regulations and fire safety in England. The two reports review building regulations in their respective countries and recommend reform. They are quite different, reflecting their respective terms of reference and context, and considerable differences between building regulations in the eight Australian jurisdictions and in England. However, the reports observations on building practices, culture and regulatory oversight are remarkably similar, and there is scope to learn from each other. Similarities include: Issues facing engineers and their associations across the world are verysimilar DR HYWEL DAVIES is technical director at CIBSE www.cibse.org Sydney buildings 16 March 2019 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE Mar19 pp16-17 Hywel Davies v2.indd 16 22/02/2019 18:20