New draft NSW building legislation will aim to improve accountability in the building sector following a spate of accidents and incidents involving buildings and structures across the state, but one organisation has questioned if the legislation goes far enough to ensuring safety and compliance.
Design and Building Practitioners Bill 2019
The NSW Government has drafted the new building legislation “to improve the quality and compliance of design documentation and to strengthen accountability across the design, building and construction sector”
The new building legislation has proposed the following key reforms, including:
- Introducing the concept of ‘regulated designs’, which include designs for a building element and performance solutions for prescribed classes of building work or a building element;
- Requiring that design practitioners who prepare regulated designs issue a compliance declaration to declare that the designs comply with the Building Code of Australia;
- Requiring that building practitioners obtain, rely upon and build in accordance with declared designs, and issue a compliance declaration to declare they have complied with the Building Code of Australia;
- Requiring that any variations to declared designs are prepared and declared by a design practitioner if they are in a building element or performance solution, or in any other case, documented by the building practitioner;
- Introducing the optional role of a ‘principal design practitioner’;
- Requiring any design, principal design or building practitioner who intends on making a compliance declaration to be registered under a new registration scheme set out under the draft Bill; and
- Clarifying the common law to ensure that a duty of care is owed for construction work to certain categories of ‘owner’.
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Limited focus on designers and constructors
The Australian Institute of Project Management (AIPM) recently said that it acknowledges that the legislation is a major step forward in ensuring compliant building work but the new legislation currently limits its focus on designers and constructors and ignores broader project management and certifier compliance.
‘We need to ensure the Bill has adequate countermeasures that would actively discourage short cuts that are currently being taken in the building industry’, says Ms Elizabeth Foley, CEO at AIPM. The draft legislation currently defines practitioner as a ‘design practitioner, principal design practitioner or building practitioner’.
There would be various other practitioners involved in a typical building including project managers and certifiers, yet currently excluded in this definition, and therefore the compliance process, who need to ensure work is completed in accordance with a concept design and with building codes and standards.
‘There needs to be a commitment to compliance providing adequate coverage of the full design process, and this can’t be achieved by the current definition of “practitioner” in the Bill’, Ms Foley said. AIPM also believes education is a key issue within management and leadership in construction, causing the gap in accountability across building work processes, and compliance with the Building Code of Australia (BCA) ‘performance requirements’.
Potential impact for mining EPC organisations
It is likely the new building legislation may potentially have impacts on mining site structures and their associated designs. Companies undertaking EPC activities on mine sites may be affected.
Read more Mining Safety News
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