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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-10-15 Daily Xml
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Question Time

Aluminium Composite Cladding

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:11): My question is to the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure. Can the minister advise the house whether every resident, employee or property owner working in a high or extreme-risk building has been notified of the outcome of the state's cladding audit?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:12): As I outlined last Thursday, the second phase of the interim audit into aluminium composite cladding has been finalised, and there are some 28 private buildings and two public buildings that have been identified as having a high enough risk rating as to warrant further action. In relation to the two public buildings, one of them is an ablution block that is currently being remediated. We expect those works to be finished within weeks.

The other is a building that is under construction; it's not being occupied at the moment. The reason that it received the risk rating that it did was because the fire safety system is currently being installed and hasn't been completed, but once it is completed the expectation is that that building's risk rating will come back down to a level such that there is no increased risk to life safety.

In relation to private buildings, those audits are being conducted by councils. Under the Development Act 1993, it's actually the council and their building fire safety committee that have the power to be able to deal with defects in buildings, and that's what nonconforming cladding on buildings is: it's a defect in a building. Essentially, councils right across South Australia have been assessing their buildings and whether or not they have any buildings of an increased risk, and a number of councils have found there are 28 buildings that need further work.

Not to be partisan in any way, this was a process that was set up in 2017 before this government came to office. So from there, those building owners are being notified, and they are being notified by the people who have the power to do so, and that is councils. Those defect notices that are going to building owners will detail the issues that are at hand. They will detail the obligations that those building owners have not only to rectification but also to undertaking works with tenants or undertaking to tell tenants and those that occupy the building of the issue that exists.

Can I say first and foremost that the response that this government has put in place, and the response that we have made public, has all been, first and foremost, about what this government needs to do in the best interests of life safety of people in South Australia. That means that we need to balance the public interest and the right that the public has to know what's going on, but also to protect the public to make sure that that information doesn't—or at least of government actions—fall into the hands of those people who would otherwise do things that would create an increased risk to public safety and to life safety. It is why we have taken the decision, as has every other jurisdiction around the country, not to release the details of where these buildings are.

Can I say in terms of the timeliness of this process that, apart from Tasmania, who has by their nature very few buildings that are an issue, we are actually the jurisdiction that's furthest along in this process. Having now completed phase 2 of the audit, we move into phase 3, which is the rectification phase. We are further along and have actually released more information than other jurisdictions around the country. So for those people who own those buildings, you have now been notified of what needs to happen. For those people who live in those buildings, you will now be told, and you will be told by the building owners, and we expect that to happen—

Mr Brown interjecting:

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —expeditiously and straightaway, but where we see that doesn't happen we as a government reserve the right to step in.

The SPEAKER: The member for Playford is called to order. The leader.

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