Registration of all building practitioners required in NSW to lift confidence: Chris Johnson

The announcement by the NSW Government that they will register building practitioners will lift confidence in the building industry.

Most builders, developers and design consultants involved in high rise buildings in New South Wales perform at a high professional level.

But a few recent examples have shaken the communities confidence in the industry and the proposals by the NSW Government to reinforce the whole supply chain of practitioners through registration will help restore confidence.

The NSW Government has stated that it will support the majority of recommendations of the 2018 Shergold Weir Report prepared for the national Building Minister’s Forum.

The recommendations include that building practitioners be registered including builders, project managers, building surveyors (including certifiers), architects, engineers, designers, plumbers and fire safety practitioners. It is clear that the whole supply chain of those involved in building need to be of the highest skill level and undergo Continuing Professional Development.

The NSW Government also proposes appointing a Building Commissioner who will presumably require support staff.

It does seem strange that it took recent failures in high rise buildings to get the NSW Government to support these changes as the 2015 Lambert Report commissioned by the NSW Government proposed wider accreditation but the government at that time did not support this.

The Shergold Weir Report points out that the number of high rise residential buildings is growing quickly in Australia with 30,000 apartments in high rise buildings in 2007 rising to 90,000 in 2015.

It is clear that high rise living has been strongly supported by the market and by home owners and renters as part of a swing to living closer to work and to amenities.

The Urban Taskforce is keen to work with the NSW Government on how the proposed changes are implemented in a manner that lifts performance without undue increase in the cost of new homes.

CHRIS JOHNSON is the Urban Taskforce CEO