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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
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PRIVATE CERTIFIERS

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. M.J. Atkinson:

That this house establish a select committee to inquire into the functions and duties of private certifiers in the state of South Australia with the following terms of reference—

1. The operation of part 12—Private Certification of the Development Act 1993, and in particular—

(a) the framework under the Development Act 1993 to handle complaints made against private certifiers;

(b) the current process for accrediting private certifiers in the state of South Australia;

(c) whether current methods of accreditation for private certifiers are appropriate and/or whether other streams of accreditation should be considered;

(d) the appropriate qualifications required by private certifiers to undertake tasks related to the structural integrity of buildings;

(e) the system of auditing approvals provided by private certifiers and adequacy of the current processes of enforcement in the event of a breach to the Development Act 1993; and

(f) any other matters directly relevant to this part of the Development Act 1993.

2. Whether the Building Advisory Committee or any of its members have been placed under any undue influence in the performance of their statutory duties.

(Continued from 30 April 2009. Page 2566.)

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (11:02): As the lead speaker for the opposition on this matter I indicate upfront that the opposition opposes the setting up of this select committee. In doing so, I say that the opposition believes it is an abuse of the house to bring this motion into this place. Both the minister and the shadow minister responsible for this matter work in the other place. The two members who know more about these matters than anyone in parliament are in the other place. Why would the government bring this matter to the attention of this house when there has been an ongoing debate on it for the best part of the last 12 months in the other place? That is the first question the opposition pondered as it addressed its reaction to this motion. Interestingly, the minister, when he spoke to the motion on the last day of sitting, said:

The Development Act 1993 appears silent on the limitations of building surveyors in exercising their responsibilities under the act. Under the current legislative framework it appears that building surveyors as a profession are entitled to self-assess their own professional limitations.

He goes on to repeat that as if to say, 'Shock, horror! Why would you have a profession self-assessed? Why would you have a profession as the controlling body to assess the credentials of another member to join that profession?' The minister seemed to suggest that there was obviously some conflict of interest. It might surprise the minister and members of the government that I consult members of the medical profession, as I am sure most members of the house do from time to time. It is not some committee of non-medically qualified people who test, assess and register people who practise medicine. That work is done by professionally qualified people. To my knowledge, it is not some committee of non-qualified people who do the work and set up the regime to test and provide the qualification in any profession.

In any profession, the best and most qualified people to recognise who is able to operate in a professional capacity is the peer group within that profession. That is exactly what happens in regard to building surveyors, yet the government would have us believe—shock, horror—that there is something intrinsically wrong with that principle. The reality is that there is everything intrinsically right with that principle. Who other than qualified building surveyors, those who have the relevant theoretical and practical knowledge, would be more qualified to determine whether somebody should be certified to act within that profession?

Mr Pengilly interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: Yes. The opposition has asked itself: what is going on here and what is behind the call for this select committee? It is quite revealing. I do not have any intimate knowledge of the people involved or the games that have been played, other than I know that games have been played. However, as I said, it is in the other place and, if this matter were being debated in the other place, I am sure that a lot more would be revealed than I am in a position to reveal because I have not been following this issue for the best part of the past 12 months.

It appears that a discussion paper was issued by the Building Advisory Committee (a committee appointed by the minister) entitled 'Checking of structural engineering calculations.' I understand that this paper was as a result of the Coroner's inquiry into the collapse of the roof at the Riverside Golf Club where, from memory, there were several fatalities. It was a very serious matter, and there was a Coronial inquiry. In speaking to the motion on the last sitting day, the minister quoted part of the Coroner's recommendations, as follows:

I recommend that the Minister for Local Government conduct an assessment to ascertain the extent to which Local Government is not enforcing conditions imposed on grants of development approval, not enforcing the laws in relation to Certificates of Occupancy, not conducting an independent appraisal of the structural engineering aspects of the roof of proposed buildings…

The committee's proposed terms of reference are all about private certifiers, and there is nothing about investigating the role or the lack of the role of local government in these matters, which was the very recommendation the minister read to the house only a fortnight ago. So, why are we proposing to set up a select committee to look into the conduct of private certifiers when the Coroner has suggested that the Minister for Local Government should look at the role of local government in this matter? What has happened to that recommendation?

In any case, the minister distributed the paper (Checking of Structural Engineering Calculations) and, interestingly, said at the time that the paper was a response to complaints from a number of councils. I have done a little bit of reading about what has been happening in the other place. The minister has read into Hansard some excerpts from one of those complaining letters but, unfortunately for the minister, he let slip the date of the letter which happens to be not only after he released his paper but after the closing date for comment on the paper. Yet, the minister would now have us believe that that is the reason why we have this matter before us now; that it was initiated by complaints from local councils.

It becomes even more involved. It seems that the chair of the Building Advisory Committee, who issued the discussion paper (one Demetrius Populous) supposedly in response to complaints from the councils, was previously a life member of the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors, and he, obviously, was appointed by the minister as the chairman of the Building Advisory Committee. It seems that the board of the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors recently stripped Mr Populous of his life membership and his fellow status in that institute.

That is an interesting thing; that a particular building surveyor, who was a life member of the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors and was the minister's appointed chairman of the Building Advisory Committee, put out a paper supposedly in response to some complaints from four councils, which is what I think the minister said in the other place, and yet the letters that the minister has so far exposed in the house were dated after the closing date for submissions. Furthermore, it seems that Mr Populous was, indeed, a consultant to each of those councils.

I have said several times that I am not intimately aware of what has been going on here but I am certainly aware of enough that raises considerable suspicion as to the motives of the government in this matter—considerable suspicion. The opposition would not oppose a select committee to look into the broader matters which came out of the coronial inquest into the failure of the roof structure at the Riverside Golf Club and other matters—and there are other matters, as I am aware, that have been raised from time to time by people within the industry, whether it be from local government or various building associations. I understand there have been discussions on some of these matters over time.

However, what the opposition does not accept is that this house should be used for some frolic because there has been an internal spat within the Institute of Building Surveyors; an internal spat which, it seems, the minister has firmly taken sides on. I do not believe, and the opposition does not believe, that that is the role of this parliament. We think this whole exercise raises some serious matters about the probity of the minister. It seems that the minister does not want this debated in his chamber with a shadow minister who has intimate knowledge of these matters and who could probably put a much more cogent argument than I am presenting.

In any case, the two key pieces of evidence the minister has put in support of this motion are, first, the coronial inquiry's recommendations, which are not addressed in the terms of reference in this motion, and, secondly, the fact that the peers within a professional organisation are not the best people to assess whether other people are suitable to enter that profession, which is an absolute nonsense. I challenge the government to name one other profession which is under the control of the statutes of this state where you would use a group other than the peers within that profession as the assessing panel.

Mr Rau: Politicians.

Mr WILLIAMS: I don't think that would be right in the case of the Labor Party. I do not think anyone gets into this place via the Labor Party without being assessed by their peers within the Labor Party. So, I think the member for Enfield has actually backed up my argument, and I thank him for that. Whilst the opposition can count and whilst it understands that the government is committed to this, we oppose the motion for the reasons I have just outlined.

Mr RAU (Enfield) (11:17): I want to quickly say a couple of things about this motion. The first is that I take serious issue with the honourable member's remarks to the effect that he would not be able to adequately deal with this matter in the same way as his colleagues in the upper house. I think he is hiding his light under a bushel. He always does that, and he is doing it again. I do not think anyone in this place was fooled: we know that he is perfectly capable of dealing with this matter.

The Hon. R.B. Such interjecting:

Mr RAU: Well, I think he is genuinely a modest person, and it is not false in that sense. It is not contrived; he just likes to be like that. I think his deference to his colleagues elsewhere is admirable but completely unnecessary.

The Hon. S.W. Key interjecting:

Mr RAU: Yes. Well, we know about his relations with the Chinese submarine as well, but we don't have to go back into that. What I want to say quickly is that, if you look at the terms of reference, they itemise a number of things and, really, the interesting one and the one that I think the member for Finniss should have a look at is paragraph (f)—

Mr Pengilly: What's that one? Tell me quickly.

Mr RAU: It's really good. It states, 'any other matter directly relevant to this part of the Development Act'. The honourable member made the point that it did not specifically refer to local government, therefore it is outside the purview of the review. Well, if it has something to do with the act, it has something to do with the proposed select committee's activities. Likewise, the question about the committee's recommendations coming out of coronial inquiries—that is the same thing, and that could presumably be part of it as well.

Since I have been in this house—and the honourable member has been here longer than me—we have been going through an exercise where we have been reviewing all of the professional standards for a whole range of people, whether it be architects or psychologists, or whoever it is, and a lot of this was driven by the former Liberal government in Canberra, which came up with this evil thing called national competition policy and which then inflicted it on all of us. So, we had to go through the process of disbanding perfectly good things, such as the Barley Board, because otherwise we would have been fined, and part of that was to go through a whole lot of professional reviews.

The honourable member might know something about this that I do not, and that is quite possible. However, it looks to me, from reading this, that all we are doing is basically reviewing whether the present circumstances applying to this type of activity constitute the best model. I have no idea what the answer to that is. I do not even know what the evidence might be that would be received by the committee if it were to be established. It will be sort of an adventure, I guess, if we take this thing forward. The honourable member could go on the committee and people would find out whatever they find out. We should not be frightened or worried about this: the facts will speak for themselves: either something needs to be done or it does not.

Speaking for myself and I am sure most members here, I have no predetermined view on whether that would be good or bad or what should or should not happen. It is a matter of hearing the evidence and seeing what comes of it. I am not worried about this. The last point I make to the honourable member and those who might oppose this is that a select committee is, after all, a committee of the parliament. The function of the select committee is to go out and ascertain facts and information in the sort of—

Mr Pengilly interjecting:

Mr RAU: I will come to your point in a minute. In fact, if it makes you happier, I will come to it right now. Why are there so many select committees in the upper house? It is because members of the upper house cannot wait to get their teeth into finding out facts about things. In fact, they are finding out facts about so many things that most of them are rushing from one committee to the next every day. There are not enough hours in a day to do the burdensome work of being a legislative councillor in South Australia. When I first came here I was told that they had a reasonably easy run, but when I look at the list of select committees they are working on, my goodness, they are ornaments to the parliamentary system—every one of them. Why should we be shoving all the burden on those poor devils? Do they not deserve a little bit of respite?

We should try to do a bit of the heavy lifting ourselves. Remember, the parliament is only asking the committee to go away and find out some facts in detail that the parliament itself has no time to do, and report back. Then the parliament will do what the parliament will do. Interestingly enough, that report ultimately will have to become a matter considered by the upper house if any legislative change comes from this.

I know that the member for MacKillop was quite anxious that this might be a sinister thing or something about which he should be concerned. Quite frankly, I think he can relax. This is not the one he needs to be losing sleep about: it will only be an overview, if this motion is carried. Presumably this chamber will establish a committee, which will go off and ascertain the facts and make its recommendations. The executive arm of government will or will not do what it recommends, and there will or will not be a bill that would have to go through two chambers. The people the honourable member is talking about, such as the opposition spokesman on the subject, are in the upper house and will get to see it anyway. I am quite relaxed about all of this. The member for MacKillop can relax and feel comfortable: nothing disturbing will happen, and he need not worry.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (11:24): This is an unusual proposal from the government, in that governments do not normally put forward select committee proposals. I am a fan of select committees, having chaired at least two: they can be very productive and useful. I am somewhat puzzled as to the government's real motive, but I will take it at face value as expressed here and trust that it is committed to some reform in this area.

Shortly I will read a letter from a constituent involved in the industry, but I raise some points first. Currently people having houses built privately have big deficiencies in the certification and standard imposed or enforced, including the inspections relating to those houses. Some councils do certain things and others do very little, but there are concerns, relating more to local government than to the private certifier area, that need to be addressed in terms of whether or not someone having a house built is getting what they think they are getting, and whether the standard of construction is what it should be.

One of the best things that has happened in this state is the establishment of the Construction Industry Training Fund, which goes back to the time of minister Lenehan; I was her opposite number. We brought in that fund and, as a result, we have upskilled a lot of people in the construction industry. Without that fund we would have few apprentices.

One way of tackling the quality issue—which, ultimately, leads to certification—is to improve the quality of people who are building things; and that is happening to some extent through the role of the Construction Industry Training Fund. Currently, a lot of people who are building houses and other properties are qualified trades people, but there are a lot who are not; and that is one of the reasons why we need to be concerned about the end product that they construct. In relation to this motion, I would like to read a letter from a constituent. I will not use his full name but, rather, call him Mr R. The letter states:

I have a professional issue that I am seeking your assistance with, and as a voting member of your electorate I seek your support in achieving a fair outcome for our profession and the building industry.

I note in the Notice of Motion for Parliament…that private certifiers under the Development Act 1993 are again under scrutiny by some people in the public arena with a chip on their shoulder.

I have been suggesting for years that there should be an auditing system in place; however, I believe any system must be equitable and include natural justice provisions and therefore must audit all people under the Development Act including local government and government employees who undertake similar functions. To audit private building surveyors and not public building surveyors is discriminatory, and to audit building surveyors and not planners is also discriminatory.

I suggest that if the minister uses scare tactics such as the Riverside Golf Club roof truss collapse he should be reminded that this failure was in a project under the public building surveyor process not a private certifier.

The disappointing part is that it is the minister who is responsible holding up the introduction of the auditing, and to waste taxpayers' money on a select committee on what appears to be a witch-hunt seems ludicrous given his own inaction on this matter.

One good result that may come out of a select committee investigation is that the committee may see how the current system is being manipulated by the minister and his advisers and that these manipulations are not in the best interests of the industry in general but self-serving personal opinions.

I will be pleased to meet and discuss this matter further and our professional association, the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors, will also be pleased to discuss their opinion on this matter.

The letter has been signed with the writer's full name and his position, although I have referred to him as Mr R. It is most unusual for a government to introduce a motion for a select committee. The government has not been keen to support select committees on education or speed detection devices but, nevertheless, the select committee process is a good one, and if this select committee does bring about reform which is equitable and fair to all involved I think it is a worthwhile thing to do.

The Hon. P.L. WHITE (Taylor) (11:29): I rise to support the motion. Like the member for Enfield, I disagree with the member for MacKillop's assertion that there is some sinister motive behind this motion. The member for MacKillop said that he is not aware of the circumstances behind this motion, and he referred to the coronial report that came out subsequent to the Riverside Golf Club roof collapse. As he rightly said, that event resulted in death and injury.

I want to pick up on one point made by the honourable member; that is, he sees this select committee as an attempt to deny a professional association the right to accredit its own members. I take a totally different point of view when looking at this. The key part of the select committee motion for me is: 'the current process for accrediting private certifiers in the state of South Australia'.

In making his statement, the member for MacKillop assumes that the process that is in place leads to the best qualified people being accredited. That is not necessarily the case. He says that he is not fully aware of how these things work: I say to him that one of the purposes of this select committee is to establish that. As most members would know, I am an engineer. I am not a structural engineer, but I can guarantee that I probably have more training in these matters than many members in this house.

Ms Breuer: Hear, hear! Excellent member.

The Hon. P.L. WHITE: Thank you, member for Giles.

Mr Venning: And you're going back to it. We're sad; we are sad, indeed.

The Hon. P.L. WHITE: Thank you; thank you for your devastation. The point is that these things really matter. Checking structural engineering calculations is so important, as we saw from the coronial inquiry and report from the Riverside example. Part of the training of an engineer and many of the associated professions is an understanding that, if you do your job improperly, if you get things wrong, people's lives can be put at risk. Many engineers wear a special ring, particularly structural engineers, made from material from fallen bridges around the world. It is something which the structural professionals know is a very important thing to bear in mind when doing their daily work—people's lives are at risk if you do not do the job well. Accreditation of professionals, the certifiers who check this work, is very important.

Rather than being suspicious (which is all that the lead speaker for the opposition has mustered to date), I say to members: let us have a good look at the processes that operate under part 12 of the Private Certification of the Development Act 1993. Do note, as the member for Enfield pointed out, that paragraph (f) of this motion is fairly broad. It does say 'any other matters directly relevant to this part of the Development Act'. I say: do not be suspicious—do probe what the system is and whether it can be made to work more effectively in the interests of the customers of these sorts of services, the very same customers who walk under roofs and structures and who are reliant on the professional skills of these people.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (11:34): This is an unusual proposal for the government to be setting up a select committee. I do not think I can recall it in my time in this place. I note the point that the previous speaker is an engineer. I certainly would not stand up and question any of the matters which she raised in relation to the craft of an engineer. My son is an engineer; and, yes, lives do depend on their skills, especially in relation to structural engineering.

The building surveying industry has been the topic of much questioning and ongoing debate, particularly in the other place, since the discussion paper was put out by the ministerially appointed Building Advisory Committee last year, which was entitled 'Checking of structural engineering calculations'. The minister has said that the paper was a response to several letters of complaint from councils—and I am aware of some as well.

I find it strange that the government's proposal to establish a select committee is in this house (as if we do not have enough work) rather than the place where detailed debate on the matter has occurred and where the minister and shadow minister both reside. It makes me wonder what the government's motives really are.

The minister has repeatedly indicated that a select committee to undertake a review with respect to private certifiers is necessary because of the Coroner's findings on the Riverside Golf Club building collapse, which occurred a few years ago and, tragically, claimed lives. However, there is nothing in the proposed committee's terms of reference that relate to that, apart from that one loose clause to which the member for Taylor just alluded.

The original Building Advisory Committee dealt with issues relating to building surveyors but, for some reason, the government has now placed the emphasis on private certifiers only. The issue of auditing has been around for at least 10 years. Every report and review to date has concluded that any form of auditing must apply to all building surveying professionals. We are now confining it to private certifiers. Why only private certifiers? Is this Big Brother government seeking to put public servants in these positions? That is the question and that is the bottom line, and no-one has asked that question yet. Is this an even wider spread of the footprint of the Public Service? I think that, if the minister is serious about public safety, all building surveyors should be the subject of the same review.

We on this side of the house are opposed to the formation of a select committee to investigate only private certifiers. However, I am sure that we would consider an expanded investigation to look at all professionals who assess the accuracy of building work. The question is: why do we need to do this?

I believe that most private certifiers are honourable, professional and honest people and are responsible in what they do. As the member for Taylor just said, they know that lives depend on their design. However, as with everything, we need to put in place checks and balances and, in particular, an overriding inspectorate to check the checkers. I believe that none of us in life should have carte blanche on anything, particularly something such as this.

The question is: do we need a select committee to do this? I very much doubt it. No two engineers will come up with the same specifications and plans. The bottom line is that the design has to be safe and has to be able to withstand storms and tempest. Also to be considered are the owner's requirements and the appearance. All those things come into it. The bottom line is that it has to be safe and it has to meet specifications. It is an extremely wide gamut.

I have just designed a house, and it is strange what engineers come up with when you talk to them. You end up with a mix of what the engineer wants and what you want. I am sure that, like most bureaucrats, they will deliberately change it to put their stamp on it just so they can send you the bill. That is fair enough. As a home-taught engineer, I can understand building in strength and safety, but architectural engineers put these matters into design strength using regulations established by the industry.

We will oppose a select committee into the broader matters that came out of this coronial inquiry, and we express caution on this issue. Are we looking for a scapegoat for the Riverside incident, where lives were lost? I think it is a pretty poor attempt if that is the case. If we have to have a select committee, we will put competent people on that committee. I am happy to listen to others with respect to this debate, and I appreciate the contributions of the members for Taylor and Enfield, because it is an issue that not a lot of us know much about. However, in this instance, I support the shadow minister, who has said, 'We certainly feel very sorry for those people who lost their lives, and there does need to be an investigation. However, we oppose a select committee.'

Mr PICCOLO (Light) (11:40): I will support this motion and I will briefly outline why. I want to consider two issues. The first is that I think it is appropriate to have a select committee of this house. It makes good sense if you review something to have it reviewed by one body and then to have the implementation, if you like, done by the other place (the minister and the shadow minister in the upper house). So, it makes sense to keep the two decision-makers at arm's length, to some extent, so you get a freer review. I think it is worthwhile having the inquiry in this house.

The second and more substantial issue is that the inquiry is important and, therefore, the inquiry's terms of reference are important. I will give a case study to show why it is important that we have this inquiry. A constituent of mine came to see me regarding a veranda he had built on a house. This veranda was in excess of $40,000, so it was a substantial veranda. In fact, after building that veranda, they had more water under it than they did on top of it—it was leaking, the water went into the house—the whole thing was just bad engineering. But this had been approved.

Mr Griffiths: Poor construction is not necessarily engineering, is it?

Mr PICCOLO: If you listen for a moment, I will get to that point; that is the point I want to make. We must look at the whole process from design to installation and identify the weaknesses in the process. The weakness in the process in this case was that this matter—

Mr Venning: It rained.

Mr PICCOLO: If the member for Schubert would listen for once, it would help. In this case, the contractor who installed the veranda lodged the private certifier's engineering specifications with the council. In this case, though, the contractor had obtained a standard certification which he used for every veranda, irrespective of what the design was, and he lodged that. As a result, this person got a substandard veranda. The council, quite rightly, said that it had certification from the engineer and approved it.

We talked to the council. How could the council allow this to happen? They said that the documentation was there. The documentation was not quite all there, and this veranda had not been built for the purpose of that house but rather with the specifications that were based on a standard veranda which had been certified.

There is a very basic and important flaw in the process at the moment. It is not just about safety; it is about basic consumer law, too, to ensure that the consumer gets what they are buying. In this case, the law is tied up in this process of certification. So, because of those sorts of examples—and I am sure there are many of those examples which I have highlighted—this review is important, and I think the opposition is just being silly in opposing it.

Secondly, this is an appropriate house to have that review. I am not sure how the member for Schubert can stand up and oppose this review. I am sure this happens in his electorate, and I hope he has supported his consumers in his electorate because it does not sound like he is. That is not to say that all contractors are shonky; they are not, but there are people who are. This is a weakness in the process which needs to be rectified. Hopefully, this review will highlight that weakness and make some recommendations.

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (11:43): I wish to make a brief contribution to this motion. I will preface my comments by saying that my career prior to coming in here when working in local government allowed me to have some level of contact with private certifiers. On the Yorke Peninsula council, where I previously worked, a vast number of applications, collectively worth millions of dollars, were being considered every month.

There was a variety of applications, including some small ones such as verandas (as referred to by the member for Light), small homes, significant homes, commercial developments and some light industrial, too. So, there was a variety of areas in which private certifiers had some involvement. Local government, as I understand it, would prefer applications to be considered solely by councils so that it can refer any calculations relating to any such development to its consultant building engineer who would then check it, sign off on it, submit a report back to the council, and then the council, in the course of things, would consider it against the development plan and then issue the appropriate approval or conditions that might be attached.

However, it is rather interesting that the example the member for Light gave is really the fault of the person doing the work. I do not wish to lay any allegations about that. It may have been an innocent presumption by the contractor that one certified specification might apply to multiple levels of construction, but that seems to me to be a rather naive position to have taken. I would be disappointed if the council responsible for this did not ensure that the calculations signed off by a consulting engineer were relevant to the specific application that they were considering. In some that I have seen before, yes, I understand that calculations can relate to multiple applications where the same construction is occurring each time; but, where it is a different structure, surely there is a reference at the start of the report as to what type of structure it relates to. I think some questions could be asked within local government about the capacity and how diligently they refer to that application for consideration.

I am all for a review of the appropriate qualifications of any person no matter what field they work in. However, I believe that any such review needs to be carried out by peers who have expertise and knowledge, cannot be conned easily, ask insightful questions, and who know what they are talking about when it comes to determining the capacity of a person to perform that work. That is why, along with my colleagues on this side of the house who have also spoken against the motion, I do not support the proposal for a select committee to be established.

It is important that the South Australian community has great confidence in the capacity of our structural engineers and private certifiers to ensure that developments that occur all around our state are safe. That is a basic philosophy in life. Any person who is spending good money for construction does so with the expectation that it is certainly built in line with approved plans and, therefore, built in line with the engineers' calculations, that it uses quality materials (certainly, everybody pays for quality materials), and that it has a guarantee that it is fit for its purpose.

Therefore, where there is fault there is great concern. The tragedy at the Riverside Golf Club should never have been allowed to happen. I do not think any of us would disagree with that. I am advised that it was approved via a different process with a different level of qualification involved in ensuring that that was considered. However, I do have some great concerns as it appears that only one level of the industry is to be considered. If I am wrong about that, I apologise to the house, but, from the information that I have read and from listening to the arguments today, it appears that not all levels involved in the consideration of development applications are being involved in the proposed review. For that primary reason the opposition wishes to ensure that when a review is undertaken it encapsulates all levels and does not just single out a certain specification.

We do not support this motion. I listened to the member for Light's debate about the fact that it is appropriate to have a select committee in this house because it then allows lower house members, who are removed from the minister and the shadow minister (who both sit in the upper house), to consider it. I can see some minor concessions in that, and I acknowledge that. However, I do have some great concerns that there is a vast number of projects out there. We need to make sure that they are approved in order to ensure the safety of those projects, but I still believe in the basic philosophy that the best qualified people to undertake a review are the people who work within the industry, especially people who hold senior roles within any management team, advisory bodies, or controlling board and who have been involved in the industry for many years.

The professional experience and qualifications they build up in that time allows them to ensure, with the greatest possible certainty, that the approval process is as diligent as possible and that the calculations are always performed as best as humanly achievable to ensure that the safety of South Australians is the paramount objective, and that has to be the primary focus. I am not interested in anything that allows a reduction of costs to occur; I am interested in safety, which has to be the primary focus. For a variety of reasons espoused by the opposition we do not support the proposal, and we hope that it is not supported by the house.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE (Wright—Minister for Families and Communities, Minister for Northern Suburbs, Minister for Housing, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Disability) (11:49): I thank members for their contribution. We have heard from the member for MacKillop about games purportedly being played. Well, let me just say that we have seen games played in this house this morning. I cannot believe the opposition would oppose the establishment of this committee.

This is a committee that will look at circumstances around private certifiers, the framework under which complaints are handled, the current process for accrediting them, the current methods of accreditation and the streams of accreditation, the appropriate qualifications, the auditing system and, as members have pointed out, any other matters directly relevant to that particular part of the Development Act.

This came about—and the opposition glossed over this—as a result of a recommendation from the Building Advisory Committee. They are concerned that the current self-assessment may lead to poorer assessment of buildings and put our community at risk.

There is no doubt that the Riverside Golf Club building collapse was an enormous tragedy, and I am sure there are many people still living with the consequences of that. This is not about Big Brother government, as the member for Schubert asserted; this is about responsible government, and you would think that the opposition would be pleased to be part of a committee that will ensure we have appropriate processes in place to ensure, as best we can, the safety of our community.

Motion carried.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The house appointed a select committee consisting of the Hon I.F. Evans, Messrs Kenyon and Rau, the Hon. P.L. White and Mr Williams; the committee to have power to send for persons, papers and records, and to adjourn from place to place; and the committee to report on 16 July 2009.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE (Wright—Minister for Families and Communities, Minister for Northern Suburbs, Minister for Housing, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Disability) (11:51): I move:

That standing order 339 be and remain so far suspended as to enable the select committee to authorise the disclosure or publication as it thinks fit of any evidence presented to the committee prior to such evidence being reported to the house.

The SPEAKER: I have counted the house and, as an absolute majority of the whole number of members of the house is not present, ring the bells.

An absolute majority of the whole number of members being present:

Motion carried.

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