Member Communique - March 2019
Channel 10’s The Project and the topic of external wall cladding

14 March 2019

Public debate about external cladding continues in the news media. 

On Tuesday 12th March, Channel 10’s popular evening program The Project looked at the issue of apartment owners faced with big unexpected bills to replace cladding on their homes.  

AIBS took part in the program with President Troy Olds putting forward our view that rectification costs are a shared responsibility between government and industry. Owners should not have to pay because the cladding issue, which is widespread across Australia, is the result of continued failure by governments to ensure proper regulation of the building and construction industry.
 
Currently, the compulsory Professional Indemnity insurance held by building surveyors is the only real avenue for owners to seek compensation. This is an onerous process for them and not sustainable as even more owners will be coming forward to seek compensation in the future. Government must step in to offer support. 
 
On the program, we also made it clear that building practitioners who do not act professionally will not be supported by AIBS and should not be allowed to continue to practice. 

Additional points made by Troy in the interview that did not make it into the program included the continued delays of the Building Ministers’ Forum (BMF) to implement the recommendations of the Building Confidence report by Professor Peter Shergold and Ms Bronwyn Weir. 

AIBS continues to be extremely disappointed that following their most recent meeting in Hobart on 8 February, the BMF issued a communique stating that a plan for implementation of the recommendations would be published by the end of February. It is now well into March and there has been none of the previously promised consultation with industry and no sign of a plan.

AIBS will continue to publicly advocate for building regulatory reform.

You can find the link to The Project here.