1 July 2010

No Building Industry Inquiry

| johnboy
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Andrew Barr has put out a statement on why Labor killed off Liberal efforts to start up an inquiry into poor building practices in the ACT.

(Interesting that the voice of the property council that is the modern Liberals went for this, they must think it’s the pro-Labor developers and the CFMEU that will cop it the worst.)

Apparently investigating and assessing behind closed doors will deliver better results than a public inquiry if Mr Barr is to be believed:

“Today the ACT Legislative Assembly voted down a Canberra Liberal Party motion that would have put politics into planning under the guise of trying to reduce shoddy building,” Mr Barr said. “The Liberals’ proposed inquiry was all about politics, not about protecting ACT home owners.

“In contrast the ACT Labor Government is working with stakeholders on the problem and will continue to do so. This is a complex area of law for which there is no quick fix.”

Mr Barr said the Government is addressing the problem now and working with industry to develop longer term strategies.

We can only hope he’s right.

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verbal, I’m not sure that’s right. Stanhope is the best friend that the PCA could ever have. Any enquiry would not be about the planning laws as such, but would cover the regulation of builders and certifiers.

Given the chaos that is happening at Kingston Foreshores, and many other examples of shoddy and incompetent building and certification, one would hope that no good news for builders and certifiers would come out of such an enquiry.

That, of course, is provided that it is done independently, which is where the Greens have betrayed the Canberra community, by leaving it in Barr’s hands.

The CFMEU doesn’t have anything to do with little builders like the ones that would be targetted in this enquiry – they are a union of commercial construction workers, not cottage workers.

Seems to me like the Libs just wanted the assembly to have a say in planning decisions so that their good friends at the property council wouldn’t have to worry about consultation and planning laws and standards and just ram things through the assembly with the support of their heavily indebted friends at the Libs.

I find this quite extraordinary. The Greens are slowly but surely stuffing thdmselves up by showing themselves to be so closely aligned with Stanhope.

Caroline & Co, you have a parliamentary agreement only, you are not in a coalition with that party of losers. For God’s sake show that you have some independence and backbone.

This mess is of the making of Barr, and his predecessor, Simon Corbell. Can we trust Barr to come up with anything useful from this enquiry? Not on your Nellie.

So come on Greens, back Zed Instead and let’s have a proper, formal, independent enquiry into shoddy building and certifications.

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