Matters of Interest

Aluminium Composite Cladding

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (15:20): There has been much interest lately in South Australian buildings that may be constructed of aluminium cladding that is supposed to be non-combustible, but there is a far bigger problem with a far more highly combustible product that the construction industry does not want to know about, and I will go into that shortly.

However, as we know and have seen from high-rise blazes in Australia, notably the Lacrosse fire in Melbourne, in Dubai at the aptly named 79-storey Torch complex, and the tragedy of the Grenfell Tower inferno, the aluminium-veneered material used as a decorative feature on exteriors is a long way short of being non-combustible. As one expert has described it to a Senate inquiry into nonconforming building products, 'It is like wrapping a building in petrol." It is so dangerous that the Victorian government has set aside $600 million to remedy the hundreds of buildings it has identified as being of high risk.

After a great deal of prodding that has taken almost two years, the South Australian government has just told us it has identified at least 30 buildings which pose a risk but is refusing to identify them for fear of arson or terror attacks—an absurd reason when owners and occupiers have every right to know if their office or apartment is not only at risk but if it will be covered by insurance.

Regardless of that, our real estate laws already demand that there must be a duty of disclosure by agents and property owners about the bona fides of a building when it is being sold. Today, the appointment of a building auditor was announced, the current Kangaroo Island Commissioner, Wendy Campana, to oversee remedial work on these buildings, a welcome appointment but as long as she is given some authority to enforce the required repairs. Interestingly, the focus is on high-rise buildings; however, fire does not discriminate.

There are countless single, double and triple-storey commercial buildings and homes that also have the suspect material on the exterior. Why are they not being subjected to the same scrutiny? Why are buildings made from expanded polystyrene, also known as EPS, not being subjected to the same scrutiny? It is the same type of crumbling material you find in the production of plastic coolers, hence the term 'esky houses' is used to describe houses made from these building blocks of polystyrene coated with a thin veneer of cement render.

After a change to the National Construction Code in 1996 to let builders use so-called alternative solutions, these foam bricks became popular because they were cheap, lightweight and an efficient insulator. However, it was a big mistake. The building industry says EPS contains a fire retardant, a chemical called hexabromocyclododecane, or HBCD, that has been banned in Europe since 2015. But it does not make EPS non-combustible. Fire experts will tell you it does not perform well in actual fire situations. It softens and melts at 100°Celsius, or if subjected to an open flame opens cavities for fires to spread quickly.

National building and property maintenance company Roscon Property Services told the Senate inquiry that, while these esky homes look like a solid brick home, you could slice them open with a knife, and within 30 or 40 years all these homes, some costing up to $2 million or $3 million, would need to be demolished.

There are countless thousands of homes and buildings in Australia made from these flimsy foam fake bricks, and people who own or live in them have no idea they are ticking time bombs or that they are extremely susceptible to leaking, particularly if they have been used on ground floor construction. Now there is an even bigger headache for those with EPS: insurance. Many insurers have ceased cover or introduced limitations on what that they will cover, and of course they have significantly increased premiums.

In the meantime, dodgy building practices continue, as we have seen with the serious problems with new apartment towers in New South Wales. It is time to review the private certification process so there is consistency between the states and territories with certifiers and building inspectors. It is way overdue that a national minimum tertiary qualification be developed and implemented for these certifiers.