Legislative Council Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2) 52 2 Parliament of South Australia Legislative Council published Bills Development (Private Certification) Amendment Bill DEVELOPMENT (PRIVATE CERTIFICATION) AMENDMENT BILL Second Reading Second Reading Adjourned debate on second reading. (Continued from 13 November 2012.) The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD Legislative Council The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (16:42): I would like to make a brief contribution to this bill. My colleagues will be pleased to know that it will be brief. The Development (Private Certification) Amendment Bill is a significant change to the existing procedures for housing approvals in South Australia. It enables private certifiers to provide both a building approval and a development approval in certain circumstances. The residential code has been amended to allow a simplified approach to approvals for new attached and semi-detached dwellings and also for residential additions and sheds. It will form a basis for private certification of standard housing applications, and the emphasis is on the word 'standard'. There are serious pressures facing the housing industry in South Australia at the present time. The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released in October this year show that the trend estimate for the number of dwelling units approved in South Australia to the end of August 2012 has fallen for the last 16 months. In September 2012, the ABS reported that for the 12 months to March 2012, apart from Tasmania, South Australia had the lowest population growth in the nation of 0.9 per cent. Adelaide has severe restrictions on land availability for future development, and all of these factors add to the difficulties faced by the housing industry at the moment. This bill is a positive development. At present, private certifiers can certify the compliance of building plans with the building code but cannot certify compliance under the development plan. It is therefore necessary either for both approvals to be done by a local council or, alternatively, the two certifications or approvals to be performed by different people, which means that the time line is governed by the slower of the two, which is not a desirable situation. Currently, a very low proportion of building applications are being lodged within the parameters of the residential code, with the percentage being somewhere between 5 and 9 per cent, depending on who you ask. There is no reason why it should not be towards 100 per cent. Hopefully this bill will increase the use of this simplified procedure. Once this bill becomes law, private certification for both building and development approval for the typical house and land package is expected to be much quicker than it currently is. At present councils do not have the ability to refer applications for approval onto others when they do not have the available manpower (personpower) to consider such applications promptly. If approvals are quicker through private certifiers, costs inherent in the delay of approvals will be avoided—something we strongly support. This is a good initiative. Family First strongly supports this initiative. I thank the government for involving me in the roundtable meeting at which this issue was discussed and I look forward to the bill passing this place. The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY Legislative Council Leader of the Opposition The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (16:45): I wish to ask one question and then I will seek leave to conclude my remarks so that I can speak on this bill when we next sit. In the other place, the member for Goyder (Mr Steven Griffiths) asked a question that the minister did not answer and that was: currently when local government are given development approvals, they are required to do an onsite physical inspection of 20 per cent of those approvals. The member for Goyder asked the minister under the private certification regime: what percentage will be required to be inspected onsite? Will it be the same as the council and will that be required by auditors? Exactly how will we be keeping a check on the private certification regime? If the minister could ask her colleague the Minister for Planning to look at that before we next speak, I think we are all very keen to see this bill passed in the next week of sitting and it would make it a little easier if we were able to get some clarification. I seek leave to conclude my remarks. Leave granted; debate adjourned.