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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-10-20 Daily Xml
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Flammable Building Cladding

Mr BATTY (Bragg) (14:33): My question is to the Minister for Planning. Can the minister advise whether he will meet with my constituents to discuss their concerns about dangerous and flammable cladding? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr BATTY: The presiding officer of the Air Apartments wrote on 20 May 2022 and again on 17 August 2022 to request a meeting. He received no response from the minister for five months. The response provided just this week ignored the meeting request.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION (Taylor—Minister for Trade and Investment, Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Planning) (14:34): I have had representations made about cladding from several apartment owners or people who own apartments in blocks that have cladding issues. Indeed, this is a very longstanding issue. It arose, of course, post 2017 and has gone on until this day. Up until this date, we have had a high degree of bipartisanship in this area, and that is for very important reasons. This is a highly contentious issue. We wanted to have a coherent response to it and, as I said before, up until last week high degrees of bipartisanship have been exhibited—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: Well, just bear with me because I want to explain a few things. I am happy to meet with—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: —representatives of any apartment owners who have issues in this area. It's obviously distressing for those owners of those apartments. It's been there for a long time. A number of buildings have been remediated in the private sector and in the public sector, and we have had a movement of buildings from the extreme or high-risk category down into the moderate category.

As I understand it, last week the opposition came out with a policy of conditional loans for this area, which is interesting because they never actually undertook any of those loans when they were in government; in fact, we had four years of not doing that.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Minister, please be seated. There is a point of order under 134, which I will hear. The member for Morialta.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Sir, the question was really specific—related to a meeting request from five months ago that remains unanswered. The minister, in seeking to characterise other parties' policy—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: —is debating. It's the very definition of contravening standing order 98.

The SPEAKER: Very well. I have the point of order. Minister, I ask you to take a line close to the question.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: I will obey your instructions, Mr Speaker, and we won't talk about the previous four years of inaction in this area. Of course, I am happy to meet with anybody who wants to make representations to me—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: —but I think actually—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Florey! The member for Florey is warned.

Mr Whetstone interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Chaffey is warned. The minister has the call.

Mr Brown interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Florey is warned for a second time. Order!

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: If I might make one proviso about this, because it is a very serious issue and it involves people's safety, one of the bipartisan conventions that was observed was that you wouldn't publicly identify the buildings involved, and there is a very important reason for this.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for West Torrens!

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: It's because—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Schubert! Member for Chaffey!

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: —SAPOL, the South Australian police, advise us not to identify the buildings. It's because the Metropolitan Fire Service—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: —tells us not to identify these buildings.

Mr Batty interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Bragg!

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: It's because national security agencies tell us not to—

Mr Batty interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Bragg is warned.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: —identify the buildings. What we have had from the member for Bragg, who could have found out—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Point of order.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: —about these matters at any time—

The SPEAKER: Minister!

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: —by answering his predecessor—

The SPEAKER: Minister!

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: —or the person who sits next door to him—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Minister, order!

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: What he could have found out at any time—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Minister, please be seated.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for West Torrens!

Mr Brown interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Florey is on three warnings.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Sir, the minister is seeking to cover his shame with the debate again and by attacking another—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: —member in response to a fairly straightforward question.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.B. Malinauskas: Don't name the building.

The SPEAKER: The Premier is called to order.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: The rookie took a safe seat and made it marginal.

The SPEAKER: Member for West Torrens! It is not necessary in raising points of order to reflect on members; nevertheless, there is some force in the point of order. Has the minister concluded his answer?

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: I would only say that I think this is an important point for the parliament to consider: we should not identify the buildings involved because there is a risk to those residents. If the honourable member—

Mr Batty interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Bragg!

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: —had any issues about this, he could have asked the shadow minister for planning to raise it with me at our meeting, which happened at the—

Mr Batty interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Bragg is warned for a second time.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: —preceding sitting of parliament, so there have been many opportunities—

Mrs Hurn interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Schubert!

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: —for the opposition to raise this informally and they haven't. They shouldn't have identified this building publicly.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Schubert is warned.

The Hon. N.D. Champion interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Taylor is warned.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Flinders has the call.

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