Unit builders need incentives to aim for quality

Unit builders need incentives to aim for quality THE ACT's new Auditor-General, Maxine Cooper, is showing promising signs of being happy to take on issues that have for too long been either ignored or left in the too-hard basket. In particular, there is little recourse for unit owners who, a few years after moving into a new apartment, find rust stains coming through their balconies, a bathroom that may not be properly water sealed or windows not performing as expected. Evidence of possible illegality has been referred by federal police to the corporate watchdog. But there remain a small number of developments that have failed to meet what should be minimum standards of quality, including several that only a few years after construction are already starting to look shabby. A prominent state Liberal MP has been accused of misusing his position while campaigning against a wind farm. Australia's biggest military contractor, Tenix Defence, is under investigation for allegedly bribing officials and politicians across Asia to win massive contracts. Victorian Planning Minister Matthew Guy's contentious rezoning of farmland on Phillip Island last year followed the intervention of Liberal elder Rob Maclellan on behalf of a family friend. In a climate with such extremes of temperature as Canberra's, the case for high-quality construction is more compelling than in virtually any other Australian city. State government set to appoint its own construction industry watchdog. ABOUT 15,000 serving and retired university workers in NSW face the loss of nest-egg payments worth $2. Systemic failures exposed by murder of Carl Williams in Barwon prison. Senior paramedics claim patients have suffered cardiac arrests because Ambulance Victoria's computer dispatch system is struggling to cope with increased demand caused by the state's growing and ageing population. Quality comes at a price, of course, but value for money can also become an excuse for cost cutting and getting away with the use of materials and techniques that are not in the interest of long-term durability. With medium density housing increasingly becoming the norm in many parts of our city, we need making sure that what is being built today will not only be of higher quality than what is being knocked declining to make way for it, but that these new apartments will also stand the test of time. Stricter accreditation and licensing of some trades is one way to address poor quality work. Before tarring all the industry with the same brush, it needs to be acknowledged that several of the units presently under construction in the ACT are among the very best quality in the county, achieving energy efficiency and build quality standards unheard of just a few years ago. Several large Australian public companies provide federal police with information implicating themselves in possible foreign bribery offences. Unit builders need incentives to aim for quality Trade News selected by Local Linkup on 11/03/2012