Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and Financial Technology) Share this | Hansard source

The government definitely agrees that non-conforming building products are a very important issue. It was an issue that was well examined by the Senate Economics References Committee over the last couple of years. This particular bill was designed to capture directors who illegally phoenix a company, and that includes property developers who strip assets after building shonky buildings. However, phoenixing is certainly not limited to property developers, and as such this bill is intentionally industry agnostic. So we will not be supporting the amendments proposed by Senator Faruqi. I do want to emphasise that the safety and security of fellow Australian will always be a priority of the Morrison government. However, issues related to combustible cladding are more appropriately dealt with through the National Construction Code, implementation and regulation of which remains a matter for states and territories. The National Construction Code is the appropriate place to deal with these matters, not the illegal phoenixing legislation.

A significant achievement for Australia's building and construction industry has been securing agreement from the states and territories to work together on a national framework to restore confidence in the quality and safety of Australia's built environment. In fact, the Building Ministers Forum, the BMF, which is chaired by Karen Andrews, the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, has actually tasked the Australian Building Codes Board, the ABCB, with delivering a national framework that ensures a nationally consistent approach to implementing the Building confidence report recommendations. Significant progress has already been made by the ABCB implementation team in delivering on that national approach. In fact, building ministers received an update from the ABCB on this work at the last Building Ministers Forum in December 2019, just a couple of months ago, and a key milestone will be the release of an amendment to the National Construction Code next month, which will take steps to address several recommendations of the Building confidence report. That amendment will include a far more robust approach to documentation to strengthen design, consistency and quality. Indeed, this is intended to address the concerns that you have about the safety of high-rise buildings through greater safeguards for the design, construction and certification of these buildings. The government believes that this is a really terrific step forward, and it has been heralded by industry and by the community as the only way to improve compliance and trust in Australia's building and construction sector.