Orders to fix serious defects, even up to ten years after completion, and to delay the occupation certificate developers need to sell apartments until they’re fixed, gives regulators real teeth.
The proposed law does little to give people confidence in the apartments they buy. And it utterly neglects the role of architects and on-site inspections in delivering sound buildings.
Compliance with the National Construction Code provides no guarantee that an apartment won’t leak.
Governments and regulators assume compliance with building regulations will restore public confidence. But complying with the National Construction Code won’t fix many common defects.
Government ministers responded to the construction industry crisis by announcing a national approach to implementing recommendations of a report they commissioned in 2017 and received 17 months ago.
Bianca De Marchi/AAP
The construction industry crisis didn’t happen overnight. Authorities have been on notice for years to fix the problems that now have the industry itself calling for better regulation.
The burden of regulatory failure hasn’t just hit residents of evacuated apartments like the Neo200 building in Melbourne – it affects everyone living in a building with serious defects.
Ellen Smith/AAP
Years of regulatory failure are having direct impacts on the hip pockets of the many Australians who bought defective houses or apartments. It’s turning into a multibillion-dollar disaster.
Can Australians be confident that the new National Construction Code will ensure new buildings avoid structural defects like those that led to the evacuation of the Opal Tower (left) in Sydney?
Dylan Coker/AAP
Under the new code, buildings are hardly likely to differ measurably from their fault-ridden older siblings and can still fall short of a six-star rating. It’s possible they may have no stars!
Queensland Minister for Housing and Public Works Mick de Brenni announced a $2b housing scheme he said would create more affordable housing in the state.
AAP/AARON BUNCH
Queensland Minister for Housing and Public Works Mick de Brenni made the claim while announcing a $2 billion housing investment scheme. But is the claim correct?
Australia got in first with restrictions on foreign investors in housing, but Jacinda Arden’s new government plans to go further.
Daniel Munoz/AAP
Concerns about foreign investors driving up housing prices have been growing. Australia was first to bar foreign purchases of existing residential property, but New Zealand is set to go further.
Vacant and unlit ‘ghost’ apartments are a source of public outrage in major cities around the world.
leniners/flickr
A tax on empty homes will make a modest difference to housing affordability. The sheer wastefulness of our housing system calls for something much more ambitious.
Interest rate adjustments are crude and fail to target the problems within the housing market.
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A variable special rate on new residential housing developments in selected centres could be used to create a local incentive to supply more affordable dwellings at higher density.
The vast majority of cranes are used to build apartments.
AAP Image/Paul Miller
About 84% of cranes in Australia are used on residential sites, with commercial projects making up 5% of crane activity. Health, education, infrastructure and recreation projects make up the rest.