Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I wish to raise the growing concern about some of the building products that we have in our country that fail to meet Australian standards. There has been an increase in reporting of this in the media. It is definitely something that I am hearing about from local manufacturers in my electorate. I am hearing the concerns that they have about cheap imported products, specifically from China, being dumped on the Australian market. In some cases these products are being used inappropriately. They do not meet Australian standards and they are being used in buildings, particularly high-rise buildings in the city of Melbourne.

I want to take a moment to highlight some of the media reports which are exposing and asking questions about this serious issue. One report in The Australianand it is something that most people would be concerned with—was that building authorities have admitted that they are powerless to determine how many skyscrapers are riddled with cheap, highly flammable aluminium cladding that has already killed apartment dwellers overseas. So, even our authorities admit that they do not know how much of this product is being used.

Of course, these reports come after the terrible fire that occurred in an apartment dwelling in Docklands. In this particular incident, cheap aluminium cladding from China did not comply with Australian standards. It was blamed for the rapid spread of fire, which took less than 11 minutes to spread to the top floor. After an investigation, the fire authority said it was the result of an un-extinguished cigarette. So, yes, there was fault, but the point is that the fire started on the eighth floor and reached the top floor within 11 minutes. They blamed the quality of the cladding as the fault.

This is a serious issue that I believe we should call on the government to look into. I believe that we need to monitor this and have a robust regime in place around antidumping. We need to ensure that products coming into this country do meet Australian standards. What these cheap products do is undercut our local industries. Being from an electorate that is still manufacturing, I am concerned that cheap products that are being dumped on our market not only put lives at risk and the property values of these apartments in Melbourne and elsewhere at risk but they are also putting manufacturing jobs at risk.

I call on the government to strengthen our antidumping regime, to strengthen compliance and to make sure that these cheap products are not being dumped on our markets.