Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) | Hansard source

Today I also rise to speak on the Customs Amendment (Safer Cladding) Bill 2019, and I extend my support to Senator Patrick for the worthy endeavour of reintroducing this bill to the Senate and for his commitment to the safety of consumers in these houses and buildings—and, indeed, of workers. To Senator McGrath, I say: that was a load of rubbish. There's clearly a strong role for the Commonwealth in relation to these building products, and it's a responsibility that the Commonwealth government should live up to. If you won't do the job, then opposition senators are very pleased to join with Senator Patrick in pursuing this issue. I hope this legislation passes this place, but, clearly, we will always want it to pass in the other place, so we really do hope that government senators start to see their responsibilities more clearly in this regard.

Back in 2019, the economics committee of the Senate recommended the Australian government implement a total ban on the importation, sale and use of polyethylene core aluminium composite panels as a matter of urgency. During those hearings, stakeholders expressed support for a ban. These people included unions, building industry organisations and the Victorian Building Authority. We know that the government responded to that report and did not support that particular recommendation, which is of great concern.

This bill intends to do that job, to make up for that lack of action by government, with a new provision that explicitly bans the importation of polyethylene-core aluminium composite panels into Australia. And if the Customs Act is not the Commonwealth's responsibility, then what are we doing here at all? There is clearly a role for the Commonwealth in banning the importation of unsafe products, as it regularly and often does on many fronts. Asbestos is a building material, and we don't rely on the states to enforce a ban on asbestos; we ban its importation ourselves. Indeed, we have to work quite hard to keep asbestos out of our building products. Customs has a role in inspecting building materials, to audit them to make sure there is no asbestos in what comes in. But we know that asbestos frequently ends up in Australian building products and that it's picked up not only by Customs but also by state authorities when, rightly, they do their job in inspections. So the enforcement of these issues is not just a state responsibility; it's clearly also a Commonwealth responsibility.

It is the responsibility of all senators in this place to ensure that we legislate in the interests of public safety. It's very disappointing that a spokesman for Minister Andrews told Guardian Australia:

… a ban on aluminium composite cladding was rejected at the building ministers' forum in February because states agreed "that banning a legitimate product at the border is neither effective nor practical".

This is disappointing, because not only was Minister Andrews obfuscating her responsibilities and deflecting them to the states but, strangely enough, the minister's comments are actually a direct contradiction of the communique from that very meeting. According to the communique:

Ministers agreed in principle to a national ban …

Those two statements are chalk and cheese. Minister Andrews is clutching at straws, trying to find statements to justify her position. She shouldn't be making stuff up, essentially, to justify her position in public debate, but that's what she has done.

It is indeed the responsibility of government, both state and Commonwealth, to ensure the safety of Australians. This government and this minister must ensure the safety of Australians now and accept that the Commonwealth can and should make a difference here in the interests of safety. Customs is under the control of, and under the responsibility of, the Commonwealth government. If the government would like to push those responsibilities back onto the states then we might as well not be here at all as a federation—the federation the government so strongly supports.

In 2018, when we debated this bill as it was originally introduced in 2017, Senators Hume and Duniam rejected the import ban. We must police these products that have the potential to cause harm or injury, or to place people in catastrophic danger. These cheap and underregulated products are placing a strain on our manufacturers. Manufacturing is my shadow portfolio, and manufacturers have told me very clearly that they can't compete with the influx of cheaper products because they won't stoop to manufacturing products that they know are unsafe and that don't meet our standards.

We're seeing builders bidding for commissions who are being undercut by builders using lower quality and unsafe products. It happens all the time. We could give a real boost to jobs in Australia by supporting this legislation. It's not a matter of saying that this is just an extra cost to the Australian public. We can't actually put a price on this kind of safety. International competition in the importation of products is really important in making sure we're competitive, but the products have to be safe and they have to meet our standards.

Currently, the National Construction Code considers polyethylene aluminium composite panels to be safe for use in buildings of up to two storeys. It's important to note at this point that we have exceptional building standards. We don't usually see the kinds of disasters that we see in other parts of the world. However, if I were living in a building that had these panels on it, whether it was a 10-storey building or a two-storey building, I would prefer to know that we were doing everything we could to mitigate the risk of tragedies where people are trapped in their houses and can't be saved.

There are thousands of cases around the country where the National Construction Code, in relation to polyethylene aluminium composite panels, has not been adhered to in the proper manner, and we know we have to intervene to ensure public safety. It is going to mean the retrofitting of buildings all over the country. The Victorian Cladding Taskforce has conducted 2,200 inspections. They found inadequate compliance and enforcement, competitive commercial pressures which incentivised the taking of shortcuts, and the substitution of noncompliant products between the approval phase and the construction phase.

I want to highlight to the chamber today that these issues of compliance arise with not just cladding but also fire safety. A few weeks ago, in Victoria, I met with a manufacturing company who manufacture lighting safety systems for apartment buildings. They decried the fact that they'd come across cases of, frankly, inspectors taking shortcuts and signing things off because they had a convenient relationship with the builder, who was paying them to come and do the inspection. Their bread was buttered on the side of being asked to come and do the inspection. We have to find better ways of paying for inspections so that there is not a cosy deal between the inspector and the construction company. It's undermining public safety in our nation, including in relation to a whole range of safety standards in our buildings, not just for cladding but also for fire safety lighting. You also find, for example, instances where the noise barriers between apartments—the insulation—have not been built to the specified standard, which affects people's quality of life. That is simply not on in Australia, where people, when they pay good money for the dwellings they buy, expect to get what they paid for and what is in the Australian building standards.

As with the many good things the Victorian government have done, in this case they've created a $600 million fund to rectify the issues in 500 buildings identified by the audit. The fund is partly funded by a contribution from developers, but I'm disappointed that the federal government has not made a contribution. Again I say to the government: we must intervene to ensure the safety of the public.

I know the government went to the election with no plan for jobs and no plan for the economy, but I do hope that you have a plan for public safety. We went to the election with a policy to ban the import of polyethylene aluminium composite panels, and in our view this is the responsible thing to do. Nobody in this place wants to see the devastation of London's Grenfell Tower disaster repeated anywhere here in our nation. Sixty-two people lost their lives. Frankly, I wish I could say to this chamber that we haven't come close—that we were better than that—but the Melbourne apartment complex on Spencer Street that caught fire early this year caught the attention of Australians, who may well have already been rightly concerned about the use of these products in our buildings. It should serve as a strong warning to the government of just how important it is that they take the responsibility that they have for building safety and the safety of the public seriously.