Chandler army's commission possible

We have an absolute rock star podcast guest this week, in NSW Building Commission Policy Director Angus Abadee.

Angus gave us a good 20 minutes of his valuable time to explain what the recent expansion of the building commission means, as well as the significance of the new laws passed recently.

The topics touched on included how they identify and approach developers they think might be cutting corners and building defects into their blocks – with a 90 per cent hit rate in that regard.

How they are helping low-rise developers who want to move up in the world, literally, by building medium-rise developments but lack the skills and experience to make the transition efficiently and effectively.

He spoke about how they and their counterparts in other states confer on key issues, and he confirmed that there are fewer reports of apartment building defects in Victoria simply because they are a couple of years behind NSW in identifying the problems – not because the problems don’t exist.

And he addresses the next challenge for the Building Commission – dealing with defects in older buildings that are outside their warranty periods.

We should note that this podcast came with its own construction problems. It was recorded using a hand-held device next to a computer speaker because Zoom had decided to remove or hide its “record” button.  It was edited on a laptop on our flight to Fiji then compiled into this post and uploaded to the internet from inside our holiday “bure” on Malolo Island.

All of which is to explain the less-than-perfect audio as well as to hope you think it was worth the effort when you hear it.

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Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

Transcript

Jimmy

Well, we'll hope for the best. Angus, how are you? 

Hi, I'm good, how are you, Jimmy?

I'm good. So, just to introduce you, this is Angus Abadie. Now, what is your position in the Building Commission and what is your role?

Angus

So, I'm the Director of Policy within Building Commission New South Wales and my responsibility is to design and coordinate the implementation of the regulatory framework in New South Wales for building. So, that involves everything from the Design and Building Practitioners Act, where we're conceiving the design of buildings through the installation and to the certification process. So, everything from the development consent to handing it over to the property space.

Sue

Right. That sounds a huge job.

Angus

Yeah, it's no small task, particularly in the current environment where it is quite a broad consensus that we need to kind of update the framework and so a lot of interest. From that interest comes a lot of work, but what a great time to be working in this space.

Jimmy

Oh, absolutely. So, and I should introduce, of course, we've got Sue Williams here as well, my usual co-host on the podcast. Angus, there's been this huge increase in the number of inspectors in the Building Commission. So, talk us through that.

Angus

So, the government went to the election with probably two really big commitments in the building space. Firstly, they wanted to create a whole sector building act and we can talk about that in a moment, but probably the key thing is that they identified the need for a specialist regulator to oversight the construction industry. And so, from the 1st of December, we have Building Commission New South Wales headed up by the Building Commissioner, David Chandler.

And part of that was that at the time the government was elected, there was fair trading combined with safe work combined with the Building Commission. And there are a lot of benefits of putting the regulators together, but then there are also oftentimes where you need to have that specialised focus. And so, Building Commission New South Wales brings that dedicated focus with specialised inspectors, intelligence officers who are looking only at the construction sector to kind of identify risks, investigations, data, digital, everyone focused on one thing, which is ensuring that we can have compliant, safe and trustworthy buildings in New South Wales.

Jimmy

Right. Now, but the bringing in, I mean, it's gone from 40 inspectors to 400, according to the media. How do you even do that?

Angus

So, the numbers that were quoted really show the size of the commission. There will be an uplift in the number of inspectors in the field. And I think everyone agreed that that's something we can all get on board with.

It's important to know, though, that the inspectors in the field are only able to do their job when they have all the enabling functions around them. And so that involves really good data and intelligence to go, where should we spend our time? Where are the high-risk players and the high-risk practices that we need to focus on?

How can we leverage digital infrastructure to make sure we're collecting the best amount of information to inform those decisions, as well as facilitating a really good relationship with the industry? And that involves things like making sure we have design, that you declare designs before we go out and that they're easily accessible, that we can process licence applications effectively, and that we've got good oversight of those licences. So, when we talk about the 400-odd staff members in the Building Commission New South Wales, it's not just the inspectors, even though they are the tip of the spear, where they are going out onto site and identifying the problems in the industry and working with the industry to make sure that they're fixed.

A lot of what the Building Commission New South Wales will be doing, though, is also generally lifting the capability and capacity within the sector. So, investing in the future of skills and training to make sure that we have enough builders and tradespeople and engineers and designers and the like to meet the housing targets that the government is committed to. So, when you look at those numbers, you will see a lot of inspectors and that's what we need, but it's also all those other people who are working to kind of deliver on the vision of the Building Commission.

Jimmy

And what prompts an inspector to go into a building? Is it somebody on the building site or is it the history, perhaps, of the builder or the developer?

Angus

So, there's no one thing. We have the benefit of billions of lines of data that are collected from a range of different sources. A lot of that's informed by previous compliance operations, the planning system, collaborations with other regulators, including SafeWork New South Wales and New South Wales Police.

And what that all goes into is a risk assessment by our dedicated data and intelligence team who have a sophisticated way of identifying who the risky players are. And so, we then use that data to inform which sites we undertake design audits on and which sites we undertake building work audits on. Our hit rate is very good.

We will usually find a problem on the sites we identify for inspection around 80 to 90% of the time. And what that's saying is that the investment up front of that, as we were talking about, those enabling staff members and functions within the building commission are about making sure that when we send this inspector out onto the field, that we're pretty confident that we're gonna find what we need to find and have the tools that are necessary to make sure that those issues are rectified.

Jimmy

And when you talk about these sophisticated tools, is it something like, we know that this builder and this architect and this style of building in this area, all of them individually have had problems. So when you put them together, there's a higher risk that there could be something going wrong. Is it that kind of analysis?

Angus

Absolutely, absolutely, Jimmy. So we will see a lot of that. And those are probably even the easier circumstances where someone's track record and previous work will be an indicator of future work.

Now that's obviously not to say that people can't come good and that's what we're very much focused on, but it's a really good starting point. It could also be that SafeWork New South Wales has attended the site and identified safety concerns. And that's usually a very good indicator that there are gonna be build quality issues.

But it could also be something like a low rise specialist builder moving into medium density housing. The transition from low rise construction in class one to class two is not an easy jump. And a lot of people are taking that jump without actually understanding the skills base that they need to do.

And this is something that David Chandler is absolutely focused on, is building the capability so that that transition is more seamless so they actually understand what's required. When you go from low rise to medium rise, it's not only the complexity of the building that becomes significantly higher, things like fire separation becomes a lot more comprehensive. You've got to deal with facade, you've got to deal with mechanical services and all of those things.

It's just the sheer number of practitioners that are gonna be onsite at any one point in time. And how do you make sure that you're managing and oversighting that so that the end, all of those discrete parts come into a compliant hole. So we're not just looking at previous history, we're also looking at people who are taking that shift into types of work, the types of building that they're taking on that they might not have previously done so that we can get in there early and work with them to make sure that if they're taking on these buildings, that they actually know how to build it.

And I think that's really one of the benefits of having a dedicated building regulator is that we have the capacity and the capability to support industry to make that journey.

Sue

So is there an educative role as well? I mean, will you be kind of helping upskill people and pointing out the new skills that they need to tackle these projects as well?

Angus

Absolutely. Yeah, so that's one of the pillars of the Construct NSW reforms that David Chandler and the government have been pushing over the past few years is that capability uplift. And we see the building regulator as having to work hand in glove with industry associations and community organisations for that matter to identify where we're seeing the deficiencies in capability.

And so things like we've just recently pushed out continuing professional development modules on two really key parts, which is how do you effectively bid for work? So making sure that you're accurately assessing how much it's gonna cost you so that you're not incentivised to cut corners, that you're charging what it takes to construct a compliant building. And the other piece that we've pushed out is supervision.

What we need to do is we need to make sure that licence holders are taking their responsibility to supervise the people who are working underneath them properly. We issue licences because it indicates to the market this person is competent to do the work and that they can do it in a compliant way. That's not really worth it if that person's not invested in the work that's been done on site by unlicensed people.

It's fully appropriate that we have labourers and people who are learning the trade working under these licensed professionals, but we need to make sure that they're taking responsibility for running these sites and that they have the ability to run larger sites where you're gonna have a lot more trades on site at any one point in time. So we have a dedicated programme on capability development and it's gonna be a big part of the Building Commission New South Wales.

Sue

Fantastic. That sounds a really positive thing as well, because sometimes I guess we always think of it as a bit of a negative going in and telling people off and stopping work and stuff, but actually kind of improving the situation sounds a really positive, uplifting thing really.

Angus

That's the hope. And I think that's, you can't just regulate in one way. You've gotta be able to pull multiple levers at any one point in time that respond to the risk that you're trying to deal with and that you're not just trying to regulate in one specific moment, but you take that long-term vision.

And I think a lot of what the Building Commission New South Wales is gonna be pushing is that long-term vision, is how do we make sure that over the next decade that we're able to meet the housing demands of New South Wales? And it can't just be that we are pushing people out of the industry. That's gotta be a big part of it.

People who are not up to scratch, people who are producing non-compliant buildings, they can't have a future where they're leading these projects. But we also need to make sure that we have a pipeline of talent coming through. And that's why we're investing so heavily in that capability uplift piece.

Sue

Oh, fantastic. And if you go onto building sites and you're in 80 to 90% of cases, you actually do find problems, are people really keen to solve those problems? I mean, have you had any instances where developers have said, no, no, it's gonna be too expensive for me to fix that.

And then they try and walk away from their responsibilities?

Angus

I think the cache that the building commission has built up over the past few years has really kind of been that lightning rod moment for industry that culture of, no, we're not gonna fix that problem, is slowly going away. Right. Or maybe not even that slowly, it's increasingly becoming a response of the past.

When we go out onto site and we find issues, a lot of the times we're having to deal with having very productive collaborative conversations with the builders, the developers, the designers and going, we wanna work with you to fix this problem because ultimately the best solution for us is not to have an expensive litigation piece. We just want the building fixed so that when the homeowners move in, they've got confidence that the building that they're moving into is trustworthy and safe. And so we very much focus on what is the most effective way to deliver that?

So we obviously have our orders and I know that you've spoken about the powers of the building commissioner a lot, and that's gotta be part of the conversation, but it's also about the way we undertake audits is it's a conversation of going, well, we've identified this issue, what are you gonna do about fixing it? Rather than going straight to, we're gonna stop the issuance of an occupation certificate, where we see a willingness to work with us, we embrace that and I think we've got better results as a consequence of that.

Jimmy

Do you feel under any pressure because of the terrible housing shortage that we're all aware of, are you under pressure to move things along? And I know you would never turn a blind eye, but just to be, let's say, pragmatic in your decisions?

Angus

If we go back to when the premier and the minister get up and espouse the government's commitments around housing delivery, they've set very ambitious targets and that's what's required to kind of meet the needs of New South Wales housing. But in the same breath, they make very clear that quantity should not come at the expense of quality. And that's almost etched on everyone's heart in the building commission is that we are absolutely lock stock behind the idea of increasing the supply of housing in New South Wales, but it will not come at the cost of quality.

We will always take a proportionate, targeted, justified intervention in regulation that that's what every good regulator should do. But we can't lose sight of this is someone's home and there's probably no more important investment that people will take. And we need to make sure that where the shelter that people are living in, working in, occupying, that they have confidence in it.

And that's, I suppose, that's the pressure that we take is every day we know that we're contributing to that really important vision. And we take that job very seriously.

Sue

Fantastic. And are you aware, are the other states and territories kind of watching what's happening in New South Wales? Because you are kind of leading the way.

Angus

Yeah, I think there's something to be said about the window of opportunity that we have. And I think the bipartisanship that's been around for a number of years, the buy-in from industry and community organisation has given us this unique window of opportunity to really fix the problems. We've embraced that opportunity.

And I think across the board, we are seeking to consistently set the high watermark of building regulation in Australia. We have really productive conversations with our colleagues in other jurisdictions. I just recently had really good conversations with our New Zealand counterparts about looking across the ditch to see what we're doing here in New South Wales.

And the same way our Victorian colleagues are invested in the conversations that we're having. And if you have a look at the expert panel reports that are coming out and the consultations that they're having, a lot of it is emulating what New South Wales has been doing over the past few years. We've got a lot of promise in that engagement.

What we can't do though, is push simply for kind of that national harmonisation for the sake of it. It's gotta be, this is the best quality regulatory framework and we think it will work in all jurisdictions. So we're gonna go for that rather than aiming for that lowest common denominator.

And that's always that risk with federal systems is that we go down that pathway. We haven't had that pressure to date. And I think a lot of our colleagues in other jurisdictions, they're not only talking to us about how can they emulate New South Wales, but they're also sharing insights that we're gonna look to put into the new building act when it comes before the parliament is some of the great ideas that other jurisdictions have embraced and we think can be a really important part of the New South Wales ecosystem.

Jimmy

One of the things that strikes me is looking interstate. We don't hear about building defects in high rises in Victoria or Queensland. Is it that their buildings are so much better or is it just that they're not being reported?

Angus

When we did some customer sentiment tracking and some conversations with strata managers, we identified very low rates of reporting. And we also saw that the defects, yeah, you'll have your minor defects coming out in the first few years, but those major defects often take a while to come to fruition. In conversations with our Victorian counterparts, for example, and I think, Queensland is obviously a large jurisdiction, but they probably don't have as many apartment buildings so probably Victoria's a better comparator for that basis.

And we see that they've got similarly high rates of complaints and disputes coming through the tribunals. I think they're experiencing the same problems and they're looking at how can the regulator get more invested at an early stage to prevent those defects. I'd say the scale of the problem is proportionate across each of the jurisdictions.

It's just that New South Wales is probably ahead of the curve of reversing that trend of defects.

Jimmy

Right, that was gonna be my next question. You're effectively driving dodgy developers out of business in New South Wales, but are you just driving them out of New South Wales and into Victoria?

Angus

One of the great innovations that the Building Commissioner has really pushed and championed is the ISERT ratings. So obviously ISERT is a specific brand and we wanna create a market where ratings agencies offer different types of products, but ISERT's kind of the current operator in the market. And what they're able to do is offer a scalable market transparency measure.

So they're able to assess the kind of the trustworthiness of a developer in New South Wales, in Victoria, in Western Australia, it doesn't matter. They can provide that level of information. And I think that's probably one of the things that's been missing that the building reforms over the past few years have been able to achieve is empowering consumers to make better decisions by giving them more information.

At the end of the day, a consumer does not know how to construct a building. They cannot tell you what the building code is and what this and that is. And nor is that their responsibility to, that's why they pay significant money to capable skilled people to produce these buildings.

So what we need to do is, how are they going to be empowered to make a decision about who a trustworthy operator is and who's someone who's not? And I think that's the thing that we need to focus on is not so much that we're pushing them out of New South Wales and pushing them to other jurisdictions. It's that we're pushing them out of the industry full stop, that we are looking at scalable options so that obviously we are primarily focused on New South Wales, that's our remit, that's our responsibility.

But we are having good conversations with our counterparts in other jurisdictions as they are with us about how can we make sure that we keep a line of sight on these people so that they're not popping up in other places or that they're phoenixing and opening up shop that's doing the same thing. We've got to protect consumers wherever they are and I think the reforms in New South Wales have been, as I said, that circuit breaker, which is allowing consumers to get back in control.

Sue

Fantastic. And while the future looks quite rosy, we've still got a problem of past defects, I guess, haven't we? The Strata Community Association New South Wales just had a new report out saying that half, well it was about 53% of all strata buildings had serious defects between 2016 and 2022.

And owners' corporations are having to spend around $79 million to rectify the issues. I mean, is there anything that can be done about retrospectively about these past defects as well for buildings?

Angus

Yeah, I think that the findings of that research were quite harrowing and says we still have a lot more work to do. I think one of the promising parts of that data was that for buildings that came to occupation since the reforms have started, they saw a significant drop off in the rates of defects, which kind of says that we are seeing the green shoots of hope, which are that industry is taking more accountability and the products that are coming to market are higher quality. But your point is absolutely bang on.

What do we do about those people who didn't get the benefit of upfront design by registered practitioners, who didn't get the benefit of pre-occupation audit? So that's where David Chandler's Project Intervene is such a key part of that conversation. It provides an opportunity for those strata buildings in the past six years where they've still got those warranties available to them, to have someone to come in as a third party to help the developer, the builder and the owners corporation to negotiate to remediate those defects.

What we're seeing in that collaboration is that it's taking matters out of court. And again, it's not focusing on compensation. It's about fixing the problem.

And that's really what owners corporations want. They wanna live in a building that functions as it's supposed to. And that's what Project Intervene has been really effective on.

The commissioner has looked at more broadly, how do we make sure that we have confidence in the stock over a longer period of time outside of those warranty periods? And that's definitely some of the thought leadership he wants to inject into the market is not only about bringing more stock to the market every year which had to be part of the housing strategy, but how do we effectively maintain the stock that we have so that we're not constantly having to build twice as much as we need where we're retaining those older buildings in a way that people wanna buy into them. They wanna live in them. They wanna rent to them.

And that's gotta be part of the agenda for building reform in New South Wales. It's not just looking at the new builds. It's about making sure that people who are buying into those buildings that are a few years old or even older have confidence to do so.

Jimmy

Okay. I guess that's been pretty comprehensive. I'm hoping our various bits of recording equipment have worked.

But thank you so much for coming on to the flat chat wrap and explaining what the surge in the building commission is all about.

Angus

Not a problem, thanks for having me.

 Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.