I congratulate Senator Patrick for bringing this legislation before us today
The Greens strongly support it. It is about saving lives.
And we've just heard the most extraordinary speech from the Coalition representative Senator Hume.
She set out that the government will refuse to support a bill that is absolutely essential.
We've seen the tragedy that can unfold. You feel that we're on the verge of more tragedies
happening in this country, where people are burnt to death because of the state of the
building industry. So we've heard the government set out so clearly that they will not come
on board with this legislation, that they in fact reject the need for a ban which has
been set out so clearly even by our own Senate committee inquiry into this.
What we've heard from the government today will potentially cost lives. It sounds like
it's just a matter of time, if the government will not move on this, because there is overwhelming
evidence that it is time that the ban was brought in. We've seen the evidence in such
a dramatic form, with the tragedy of the Grenfell Tower. We just escaped a similar tragedy
at Docklands in Australia. And we know that there are so many buildings with this cladding on
—highly dangerous and highly flammable, according to so many reports. So this is something that
really does need to be taken on.
But we also need to identify what we're talking about here. It's not just about individual
buildings and it's not just about the cladding on those buildings; it's why has it come to
this point. It's come to this point because the building industry is effectively deregulated now.
And increasingly, we're seeing these products come onto the market. They can often
make a building look good, and that was part of the tragedy with the Grenfell Tower in London.
It was a social housing complex in the middle of what had become a gentrified area, and
many of the neighbours wanted the area to look good. So the quick way to achieve that was with cladding
Unbeknown to the unfortunate people living in that building, they were living in a firetrap—and
what a most terrible firetrap it was, as we saw so dramatically.
And again, it's to emphasise the private market has been deregulated. Again, an example of the dangers of
neoliberalism and what privatisation means when the regulation system is just left up to the
private marketplace. Which means it's not effective. How does this system work? It benefits the
dodgy developers, the private-market speculators—those who are looking to make money. Because their job—why
they're on this planet—is to increase their profits. How do you increase profits?
By cutting corners in terms of labour and cutting corners in terms of the products that are used.
So we have a very clear situation before us that needs to change, but I did want to
speak a little bit more about the British situation because the evidence is so clear
about the pressures that are on. In some cases what we see is that the developers are making
the decisions themselves to go with this cheap form of cladding. But also, in the case Grenfell
Tower, what we saw there is that the contractors themselves were under pressure to go with
the cheapest option because of the severe cuts that have been made to social housing
in Britain. And so the contractors are forced to cut corners when it comes to quality and safety.
Now the Grenfell Tower investigation found that the contractor had the option of installing
the fire-resistant version of the cladding but did not. The fire-resistant version costs
just two pounds per square metre more. Imagine that. Those 71 people would still be alive.
Their families would not be suffering, still grieving. All the people injured would still
be living productive, happy—you would hope—healthy lives. But there was that terrible cost cutting.
How minimal is that? Two pounds per square metre more, and we could have had the safer cladding used.
Social housing in Australia faces similar pressures. And despite record homelessness,
rental insecurity and unaffordability, the government has not increased real spending on social housing.
And this is where the pressure comes from. When the government is building social housing,
there is a real worry that we could have a similar situation to what we saw in
Grenfell Tower. So again, let's be clear that the money also for social housing, for public
housing across this whole country, is there. It shouldn't have happened in the first place
that the benefits given to those who are so wealthy to have many homes to be able to
increase their own wealth, but now we know it's robbing the public purse of badly needed money for
public housing. There were $7.6 billion in capital gains discounts and about $4 billion
in negative gearing benefits in one year.
That's effectively what the government is giving away to those
who already have housing benefits. Surely that's money that should be put into our social
and public housing across the country.
And again, it is relevant to what we're talking about here, because so often what happens
with this very dangerous cladding is that it's used on public and social housing, with
potentially tragic impacts. But we also know that it goes beyond those who are disadvantaged.
This is a serious crisis that can affect all of us and our loved ones, depending on where
they're living. And the evidence about this issue is now so clear. I do refer you, when
you're considering your position on this bill, is to look at the Senate Economics References Committee
inquiry into the bill. The evidence was really overwhelming, very clear, and the recommendations
and the findings from the report set out a case that very much backs up Senator Patrick's
bill that is before us today.
It was the committee's report on aluminium composite panels that came down in September
last year, and it recommended that the Australian government—these are the words from the committee;
you couldn't have had them clearer—'implement a total ban on the importation, sale and use
of PE Core ACP's as a matter of urgency.'
Now that's referring to the PE Core ACP's (polyethylene core aluminium composite panels)
so that's a terminology we hear quite a bit in this.
But, again, total ban. Very clear
And again, what we've just heard from the government just
ignoring the Senate report that sets out the case so strongly.
The government, therefore, has rejected the need for an import ban.
Because PE core ACPs can and are used in a way which does not breach the National Construction
Code, in addition to being used in a non-compliant manner. Now, that's their argument, but, again,
it's a worthless argument. It is an argument that puts lives at risk.
Also from the Senate committee was this additional finding:
In light of the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy, the committee does not consider there to be
any legitimate use of PE core ACPs on any building type. The committee believes that
as there are safe non-flammable and fire retardant alternatives available there is no place for
PE core ACPs in the Australian market.
Again another emphatic statement from this inquiry.
It is a reminder about what's going on with the government here. Why have they been so
blatant in their rejection of this most important bill that we have before us? That has been a
responsible action by Senator Patrick, responding, firstly to the crisis that we have in the building
industry and responding to this most important inquiry. Why has the government gone to this
length of protecting the dodgy developers and the property speculators? Because they're
the people that they protect. That's where their interests lie in working with corporate Australia, so
that they can maximise their profits, even when it is actually risking lives, and we know that's real
because lives have been lost in the tragedy that we have before us.
The CFMEU has come out very clearly with a position of support for the recommendations
from the inquiry. This construction union has actually advised their members to refuse to install
PE core ACPs on high-rise buildings. But interestingly that advice
which again is about saving the lives of the public, of residents, of homeowners and
of people staying in hotels. It's about saving lives. But what do we get from the government?
Again, they don't want to know about it. We saw that very blatantly
from the former minister, and that's worth sharing with you, because often there's some
very ugly debates in this place about the work of the CFMEU.
Here you have very clear evidence of this union taking a responsible position in support
of what we now have heard from the recommendations from the inquiry, but where did the government
stand? It wasn't just Senator Hume—she is clearly speaking from the government—let's
look back at what former Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister Cash, said, and the former
head of the Australian Building and Construction Commission.
They've said that they would state the refusal by workers to install
would be considered an illegal industrial action.
So no backup there. No backup there from the minister, from the Commissioner of the ABCC,
for workers taking the responsible position of refusing to install this material.
That would be the responsible position.
Where, yes, we might have our severe fights here about unions, etc, but what we're talking
about here is about saving lives, about ensuring that buildings don't get burnt down, putting
more people at risk. Surely that's where we should have a common position. But, no, the
government is always working with corporate Australia to put profits first even when it
comes to risking lives. That's simply unacceptable, and it needs to be exposed at every turn.
The National Assistant Secretary Dave Noonan for the CFMEU has said:
Fire authorities, unions, and even property developers support a ban on these combustible
cladding products entering Australian ports, which is the most effective way of ensuring
they don’t end up in Australian homes and workplaces.
So it's good to hear that some property developers are on side, working with the union and working
with the fire authorities on this.
So there is this growing awareness, and growing building of alliances, and meanwhile we have
the government just refusing to give national leadership on this most important question. And it needs
a national response, because, as we heard from Senator Carr earlier, the evidence again is
well and truly out there. The extensive privatisation we've seen in the industry, particularly
with regard to the Australian building code, where neoliberalism has ripped through it.
The weakness of that code makes it one that doesn't provide protection to residents, to
builders or to the workers in this industry. It has become so worthless and the job has
become so much harder because of the imports of building materials.
The development of building materials is going ahead in leaps and bounds. It's just changing
the whole nature of building construction. You can see that in our cities, where the
rate of development is just going ahead so fast, largely driven by the new products on
the market. Not all those products are safe. It's going ahead so quickly. I acknowledge
it's often hard for the authorities to keep up to speed with it, but something needs to
be done, and that particularly means the issue with regard to imports.
That's why I again draw your attention to what Mr Noonan has said about the need to
ensure that these products are not entering Australian ports. Because that's where we need to
be giving added attention, because, once these products are in the country, they're often
classified in incorrect ways, and they end up on our building sites. I imagine that some
developers are not even sure what they're putting into their buildings. Workers have
very little information, and certainly the residents—when they buy a new home, or if
somebody is lucky enough to get a public housing place these days—have no idea as to what
their building has been constructed with and to what degree it is a fire hazard.
So we're left with a system now where, with the government adopting the position it has,
that thousands and thousands of lives are at risk in this country because this dangerous form
of cladding is being used. It's being used, as we speak, in many of the buildings that
are going up, buildings that we might live in or that we might stay in when we're working,
let alone the rest of the population of Australia being put at risk on a regular scale.
So this bill needs to be passed, but we need to commit to is a much more thorough regulatory
system for building in this country. Yes, that is a state matter, but increasingly there
is a role for the federal government, largely because of this importation issue, but also
we need to get rid of the privatisation aspects that have crept into so much of how building
is managed in this country. It's to the detriment of residents. It's to the detriment of what
our neighbourhoods look like. It's to the detriment of workers. And now we know that
lives are being put at risk.
We need to change how we operate in this country and ensure that people's well-being is put
first. We've seen, in a most blatant, crude way, with the way the government has rejected
this bill, that that's not how the government judges important legislation that comes before
this house, like the bill we're considering today.