Question Time

STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING CALCULATIONS

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:26): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Urban Development and Planning a question about a topic in which I have some interest: structural engineering calculations.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I, and a number of other members of the chamber, received a copy of a letter which was sent to the minister by the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors. I want to read a reasonable portion of this letter, albeit as quickly as I can. The letter was written by the South Australian President and National Director of the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors. He states:

I have to state from the outset that I am disappointed and dismayed at the various inferences by you [the minister] in Parliament that a section of the building surveying profession, that is private certifiers, is putting the safety of the community at risk by not undertaking appropriate and proper assessments of buildings for compliance within the building rules.

Our profession, both in the public and private sector, assesses and approves tens of thousands of applications for building rules consent each year and to highlight in Parliament four recent 'complaints' by Local Councils about alleged, and so far unsubstantiated, cases with consents issued, is of great concern to our profession.

Alleged complaints about the actions of Building Surveyors and/or Private Certifiers can be made by individuals or Local Government (through the provisions of the Development Act and Regulations 1993). By your statements, only one of the matters referred to in the Legislative Council has been lodged as a complaint which, you would agree, is unsubstantiated until it is properly and duly investigated and a determination made. The other three matters have had no proper third party investigation nor have they undergone the appropriate scrutiny that the Government has declared to be appropriate by regulation.

The persons involved therefore are entitled to fair play and natural justice and as such must be considered innocent until proven guilty. At the same time, the conduct of our members cannot be questioned until proven otherwise. Whilst you have indicated that all the complaints are alleged, I believe the manner by which these matters were raised in the Legislative Council, when they have not been investigated by a third party, implied that there is a presumption of guilt simply because the complainant was a Council. This is uncalled for and most disturbing as it casts aspersions on and taints a substantial and key sector of our profession.

By way of an observation, I must point out I was somewhat surprised at your explanation that the reason behind the development of the Building Advisory Committee discussion paper was that you had received '... several complaints from councils...' regarding the professional conduct of some private certifiers.

The PRESIDENT: Is there much more?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: It is about 20 words, Mr President. He continues:

The reason for my surprise is that it appears all four examples referred to in Legislative Council, of the so-called complaints, were either received by your office or dated after the date the discussion paper was released for public comment in April 2008.

My question to the minister is: having asked him to table his documents, when he has not, can he confirm that the documents that he has referred to are, in fact, dated after the release of the Building Advisory Committee's discussion paper in April 2008?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Small Business) (14:30): The Leader of the Opposition asked me for some examples from councils about the problems facing them, and I tabled a number of current examples. We went back and looked at the most current examples we had, and the Leader of the Opposition has suggested that the examples I tabled is the complete list. I am sure that, if we went back far enough, there would be a number of complaints. But whether or not they are relevant to the issues raised is another matter. The Leader of the Opposition cannot have it both ways. On the one hand, he cannot come into this place and say, 'Table some examples,' and I table four examples—

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: They might not exist.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: I have tabled them.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: No, you haven't. You tabled only one.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: There have been cases provided in relation to these matters. The honourable member wanted examples, and I have provided them. Because there is an investigation in respect of at least one case, in providing those examples I was careful not to provide details about the individuals concerned or even information that would identify them. That is why I removed that information from the original letter I tabled. That is why I think it is a bit rich for the Institute of Building Surveyors to complain about that when, in fact, I went to a great deal of trouble to remove any identifying information. I am well aware of the fact that one should not provide identifying information.

This came about originally because of the collapse of the Riverside Golf Club, where several people were killed and, as a result of that, the Coroner made a number of recommendations. It all began when the Coroner talked about the safety of trusses and engineering calculations.

In relation to the profession of building surveyors, there are those who have engineering qualifications and there are those who do not. The issue before all of us here in parliament is whether building surveyors who do not have—

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: Assistant building surveyors, building surveying technicians and a number of unrestricted building surveyors do not have full engineering qualifications, and the question is whether those people should be able to certify engineering calculations. It is a bit like having someone certify a medical opinion when they do not have medical qualifications. It is one thing—

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! I understand why the Hon. Mr Ridgway gets confused about what is and is not tabled in this place: it is because he does not listen to the answers. If the Leader of the Opposition asks a question, he might want to listen to the answer.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: There is an important issue here—it was raised initially by the Coroner as a result of the collapse of the Riverside Golf Club—and it is about the quality of the auditing of engineering calculations. If one has an engineer designing particular structural trusses and the like and they are to be certified, whether or not the person certifying them has the appropriate qualifications is the issue.

As I understand it, within the AIBS there are members who have engineering qualifications and there are those who do not. I point out that the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors essentially has a monopoly on determining whether or not someone can be accredited as a building surveyor. Effectively, the person has to be a member of the institute. Unless I use my powers under the Development Act to give someone accreditation as a certifier, the AIBS effectively has a monopoly, and I have referred to this issue in previous answers.

A New South Wales parliamentary committee looked into this matter some years ago, and it determined that it was appropriate that the government should effectively take that role. I think that is an issue that perhaps this parliament needs to consider. In fact, yesterday the Hon. Mr Darley asked a very reasonable question in relation to swimming pools and how one audits and checks that the law is being enforced, because you can give development approval but who, in effect, is responsible for auditing it and what qualifications and the like should be held by those people who are conducting the audit?

These are very important questions, as I said, in relation to the swimming pool matter that the Hon. Mr Darley raised yesterday. Here, where we have people who act as private certifiers, the institute has a monopoly, effectively—apart from the regulation that provides the minister with the power—on determining who is qualified and who is not.

In New South Wales, the parliamentary committee there said that, in fact, there should be a more open, broader method by which private certifiers are assessed and held accountable. In meetings with me, the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors has indicated that, whereas it has the power to issue accreditations, there is nothing in the system that makes it aware of any criticism or even any charges laid against an individual, so there is no feedback mechanism for them to take action against an individual.

That is a deficiency in the system. There are deficiencies in the system, but it does not help in turn to resolve these things in the public interest when the institute has this monopoly—and maybe it is fighting to keep it: that might well have something to do with it, given what has happened in other states. However, it does not help that these important public interest issues are debated in the way of letters back and forth with the IBS.

I have given this matter some consideration and I will be making a statement fairly soon about how we can have some proper consideration of these very important public interest issues. They deserve better than this sort of treatment that we have seen here by raising issues in parliament about letters.

Since I first raised this issue there have been a number of cases where councils have raised very important issues—yes, they have not been proven yet—but one of the issues that we have there (and it was raised in the honourable member's question) is that councils are most reluctant to make formal complaints because of the expense of doing so, because they have to get statutory declarations. In the letters that I have referred to there are quite serious allegations, but in many cases the councils decide they will not pursue it because of the enormous legal costs involved and, in any case, there are deficiencies in the penalties that could be applied.

Part of the problem here is that, if somebody does make some error, what penalties can apply? There are the two extremes: they can either do nothing or remove the registration and therefore the right to practise. Therefore, I think this whole area does need some serious scrutiny.

Those letters that I have referred to, I think, illustrate the reasons why I would be concerned, and I think every member of parliament ought to be concerned if there are four letters from councils in the recent past that are saying there might be a deficiency. Now, that does not necessarily mean that there are individuals in there who have committed offences, but I think it does raise the issue of the whole question of how we go about building certification.

In any case, the development review saw an increased role for private certifiers. It did, however, as one of its recommendations, suggest that before that role should come about thought should be given to a proper auditing of people who perform the role, and that again is very much related to the matter that the Hon. Mr Darley raised yesterday in relation to swimming pools.

They are issues that the government is considering, and I hope to have a response to that general issue fairly soon. I think that all members of parliament should consider these issues in their totality rather than doing it by way of some sniping through correspondence from one particular organisation.