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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-10-15 Daily Xml
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Aluminium Composite Cladding

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (14:50): My question is to the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure. Can the minister assure the house that in his audit all the buildings deemed 'acceptable risk or lower' have core samples taken of their aluminium cladding?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:50): That is not the way that the audit process works, but can I say that where cladding isn't tested that cladding is actually just rated as being the worst kind of cladding. Essentially, we dial up the risk to 10 out of 10 and assume the worst for the purposes of undertaking this assessment.

Again, I think there is a simplicity to saying, 'Well, if you just test every building, then they will be safe.' That is not correct. You would actually have to rip off every panel and test every panel and then replace it, and there is a difficulty with understanding whether the stuff you are replacing it with is any better than the stuff that was on there before. So, this needs to be more complex in the way that we provide an answer, and that is that, as we go through the rectification process, the updated design of these buildings will make sure that these buildings are safe.

However, again, when it comes to the buildings that are of lower risk there is a very wide set of circumstances that provides a complete risk profile: some things to do with the design and structure of the building, some things to do with the in-built fire safety protections of the building and some things to do with the risk profile or the vulnerability profile of the people who are in the building and their times of occupancy. It is quite a detailed assessment, hence the reason why it has taken a good couple of years to be able to work through phase 2 of the audit.

Again, this is a tool, a tool that has been certified and verified by building fire safety experts, and, again, a tool that is being used nationally around the country to come to grips with this issue, and one that, as we move forward working together with other jurisdictions to grapple with it, we are confident that we are using a rigorous evidence-based process to undertake these assessments.

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