Queensland's cladding reforms
Lawyers Scott Watson and Aisling Scott from King & Wood Mallesons discuss the Queensland Government's planned combustible cladding ban on new builds, including a summary of other key cladding reforms already in force in Queensland. What follows was originally published here and has been republished with permission.
The Minister for Housing and Public Works has recently announced that the Queensland Government intends to implement a combustible cladding ban in the State for new builds. The ban is proposed to extend to all aluminium composite panels with a PE core of greater than 30 per cent, restricting usage across all buildings in Queensland.
The Minister also announced proposals in relation to certifiers, including:
- Requiring certifiers to declare that combustible cladding has not been used, and that there has not been any product substitution during the construction process.
- Allowing certifiers to remain licensed while holding PI insurance featuring cladding related exclusions.
Draft legislation in relation to these reforms is yet to go before the parliament.
At the Commonwealth level, the Customs Amendment (Safer Cladding) Bill 2017 (Cth) lapsed on 1 July 2019. That Bill was introduced by Nick Xenophon in September 2017 to amend the Customs Act 1901 (Cth) to prohibit “the importation into Australia of polyethylene core aluminium composite panels”. It will be interesting to see if the Commonwealth Government will introduce fresh legislation, or if it will continue to leave cladding reform largely in the hands of the State governments going forward.
The other key cladding related reforms already in force in Queensland are summarised below.
|
Legislation |
Date in force |
Key takeaways |
|
Building and Other Legislation (Cladding) Amendment Regulation 2018 (Qld) |
1 October 2018 |
The amendments introduced a three stage assessment regime to identify affected buildings in Queensland. Owners of buildings must (noting the dates for compliance with certain steps has been revised):
There are escalating penalties in relation to compliance with each of the above steps (up to 165 penalty units). See our KWM insight here for more details of who needs to register their buildings and complete the combustible cladding checklist. |
|
Building and Construction Legislation (Non-conforming Building Products – Chain of Responsibility and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2017 (Qld) |
1 November 2017 |
The amendments broadened the objectives of the QBCC Act to include regulation of building products (including cladding). The Act applies to building products that:
By way of summary, the amendments:
|
Originally published here.
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