Building cladding
Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (17:31): (313) My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Planning, and the action I seek is a meeting with my office to discuss additional government support for Victorians still affected by our flammable cladding crisis. Thousands of homes have been audited by the Victorian Building Authority, and over 1500 have been rated as a fire risk due to dangerous cladding. For many of these households the dangerous cladding is just the start of an expensive and lengthy process of rectification works. Initial quotes for cladding rectification frequently reveal multiple building defects due to substandard building work. Most of these defects need to be repaired before cladding rectification works can even begin. Fixing building defects on top of initial inspection and legal fees plus the actual cladding works means that the full cost of cladding rectification runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but only some households are eligible to receive financial assistance to cover these costs. The cladding audit gives each home a risk rating of extreme, high, moderate or low. Only the extreme and high-risk categories are eligible to receive funding from Cladding Safety Victoria. Many owners are now being given building works notices from local councils but are struggling to comply due to a lack of financial support to cover the expense of the works.
These residents are in this situation through no fault of their own; instead this is the fault of a failure of government regulation and a lack of oversight. Government reforms that effectively privatise building surveyors by allowing developers to pick their own surveyor have meant developers can easily cut corners; build things on the cheap; and use dangerous but cheap materials, like flammable cladding, that should never have been approved. The government must step up to help all residents affected by cladding, not just the most serious cases. I ask to meet with you to discuss ways to increase funding for the cladding rectification programs so that all affected owners can access support.