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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-11-27 Daily Xml
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Question Time

BUILDING ADVISORY COMMITTEE

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:35): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Urban Development and Planning a question about the checking of structural engineering calculations.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I will spare the minister's adviser from any reference to him in this particular question today. In September this year, I asked the minister a question about the discussion paper that had been circulated by the Building Advisory Committee in relation to the checking of structural engineering calculations and the reason for doing so. In his opening remarks in response, the minister said:

The Building Advisory Committee has indeed been considering the issues of the checking of structural information by private certifiers who may not have engineering qualifications. The reason they are doing that is—and I will refer to several complaints that I have received from councils...I have one here, dated 3 June 2008.

That letter was from the Port Adelaide Enfield council dated 3 June 2008. He subsequently referred to complaints from the City of Onkaparinga and the City of Marion, although he has not tabled them.

It is interesting to note that the reason this discussion paper was circulated was that the minister had received several complaints. It is also interesting to note that the discussion paper was released in April 2008 and public comment closed on 1 June 2008. However, the letters were received by the minister after the discussion paper was circulated and after the time for public comment closed. Will the minister explain why letters and complaints from councils received in June are the actual reasons he instigated a discussion paper in April, some three months earlier?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Small Business) (14:38): As I indicated at the time, the principal reason why issues of structural calculations had come into question arises from the Coroner's report into the collapse at the Riverside Golf Club. Of course, that led to the ministerial taskforce on trusses, but the issue of checking was discussed as part of that report. However, I had received some correspondence from councils in relation to the issue of checking, which was the matter raised by the Coroner. When the honourable member asked the question, I referred to and tabled two letters I had subsequently received from councils.

Let me assure the honourable member that they were by no means the first. Indeed, in some cases, I will often be provided with advice before we receive the actual formal complaint. Certainly those letters that I tabled may have been received after the date referred to, but I had received almost continuing correspondence from councils in relation to the issue of checking and private certifications. I think that, when the honourable member last raised this question, I referred to two more letters that I did not propose to table because one of them concerned a matter leading to subsequent investigation.

I was rather expecting the honourable member to ask this question because, of course, he received a letter from the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors, on 18 November, when it raised this matter. Perhaps I should make some comments on that letter from the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors. I am sure that this will be of some interest to members who have been listening to the questions that the honourable member has asked, and to my responses, in relation to this whole question about private certification. The letter stated:

To state from the outset, I am disappointed and dismayed at the various inferences by you in parliament that a section of the building surveying profession, that is private certifiers, is putting the safety of the community at risk by not undertaking appropriate and proper assessment of buildings or compliance with the building rules.

All I have said is that this is an issue. Anything involving a certification does relate to building safety and obviously is a matter that we should take seriously. What I am disappointed about is that the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors should have been involved in the partisan way that it has been in supplying information to the Leader of the Opposition, including complaints about members of my staff, and then it makes totally inaccurate comments such as that. I was not given the history of it, but of course I was not the least bit surprised that when the AIBS wrote to me, with a copy sent to a number of other members of parliament, including the Hon. David Ridgway, he should choose to raise that point in this council.

I have invited the AIBS to comment on these important matters. It is important that we do make the right decisions. I have previously indicated that in these matters there is always a trade-off as between extra red tape, extra regulation and, therefore, the associated cost. With safety, it is a difficult juggling act; a decision has to be made and clearly it is one in which we need to weigh up all the facts, and that is exactly what I am going to do. I believe that it is counterproductive to have that sort of debate, but when I was asked by the honourable member to provide evidence from councils—and I have done so—I think it is a bit rich then to be criticised by the institute for doing exactly that.

Nevertheless, I will continue to deal with the AIBS and I hope that it will do the same in a thoroughly professional manner; it has an important task to undertake. It is important that we get this right, and I am prepared to listen to its reasoned arguments, but these attacks on members of my staff and other individuals—which the Leader of the Opposition has facilitated—really do nothing at all in terms of advancing what is a very serious debate. The only point that I have been trying to make is that issues of private certification are important matters, and I certainly have not suggested, necessarily, that private certifiers have acted inappropriately, although clearly in some cases that has been investigated.

Rather, the issue involving engineering calculations is complex and relates to the level of checking required on significant structural projects, and whether there should be some requirement that the person who does the checking is appropriately qualified in that subject to undertake that task.

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