Mr ANOULACK CHANTHIVONG (Macquarie Fields) (12:06): I make a brief contribution to debate on the Building Products ( Safety ) Bill 2017 and support my colleague the shadow Minister for Innovation and Better Regulation and her foreshadowed amendments to this bill to impro ve public safety. Publicsafety is everyone's responsibility , f rom original manufacturers, installers , designers and on-sellers to the end user. We all have a responsibility because nothing can be more important that providing public confidence in safety standards. It is a fundamental principle and purpose of any regulatory reform.
It is somewhat ironic that a bill that was designed to improve public safety and titled as such takes out a fundamental element that would have increased the chances of detecting defective and dangerous products being used or incorrectly installed at each step of the production chain. A chain of responsibility represents more than just some written legislative clauses. It is about setting normative standards of behaviour within the building industry and the provision of a social contract between all stakeholders within the industry to look out for each other.
If there are no legislative incentives then behavioural change is unlikely to occur and the risks which were meant to be reduced as a result of this billremain the same as before. This begs the question o f the efficacy of this bill in improving public safety and installing public confidence in the building industry at a time whe n housing development and density is on an increasing ly sig nificant trajectory. An increase in housing supply and density results in an increase in the level of risk through potential ly faulty products being used. But at the same time, there is no legislative change which could reduce these risks. This seems quitean odd equation to me with potentially serious consequences both financially and for public safety. As many hands make light work, surely many responsible eyes can minimise the risk as much as possible.
It is unfair to have a situation where th ose who wear the most risks, that is, the end user or property owner or renter , has played the least role in the manufacturing, design, installation or selling of faulty products.
I believe that we cannot have a caveat emptor approach to building safety because the end user in the building production chain is not qualified, nor should they carry all the responsibilities. Asking the end user to carry all of the financial risk and personal risk when each part of the production chain has already received its financial benefit seems to be a somewhat unfair and unbalanced approach given that the Minister is trying to produce a fair trading regulatory reform.
I find it odd that the Minister who introduced this bill is the same Minister who implemented reform to prevent ticket scalping and in a sense to prevent the end users in that industry from wearing all the risk, but he does not apply the same principle in the Building Products (Safety) Bill. Surely the risk from defective faulty building products has much greater consequences for personal and public safety than a few dollars here and there on an entertainment event. If end users can be protected from ticket scalping, why can we not protect the home owner or renter living in densely populated cities? I am concerned that issues have been ignored, despite being raised by a number of industry groups. These groups have called for a collective chain of responsibility which is consistent with other jurisdictions, yet this has been omitted from the bill. When risks are not managed properly expensive litigation can result, but, more importantly, it can reduce public confidence in our regulatory reform, in our legislative processes and in the industry itself. This is not a good outcome for anybody because shared risk and responsibility is in everyone's interest.
When I look around my local community in Macquarie Fields, I see that dense city living is undoubtedly becoming more prominent and apparent as people—for a range of reasons due to either economics or lifestyle—choose that lifestyle. With the tragedies and issues we have seen overseas arising from defective building products, people in my electorate have raised legitimate concerns about how Parliament is looking after their interests and public safety. The amendments that have been moved by my colleague the shadow Minister for Regulation are sensible and based on the principle of public safety and public confidence in the building industry. I recommend the Minister take those amendments on board when finalising the bill, which should aim to share the risks and responsibilities.
