1. i CHECK AGAINST DELI-VERY EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER
LAUNCH OF " BUILDING REGULATIONS AND STANDARDS
AN INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE"
CANBERRA 12 SEPTEMBER 1990
In March last year, an unusual event in Australian politics
took place.
A Special Premiers Conference was convened at my request, at
which the Commonwealth and States agreed to cooperate in a
task of critical importance for Australians. We had come
together in response to community concerns about the
shortage of housing; and our decision was to do what we
could to address the supply side of this problem.
In part, our concern was based on the plethora of
regulations and requirements surrounding the building
industry; we recognised the need to rationalise that
regulatory framework.
Regulation in principle is meant to serve an important and
legitimate purpose in protecting community interests.
But uncoordinated regulation has a habit of growing like
topsy, and can ultimately serve precisely the opposite
purpose. In Australia at present much of our regulation is too
complex, serves a narrow range of interests, stifles
initiative and innovation, delivers only a limited range of
benefits and creates unnecessary costs.
In short, we have too much red tape.
And in the building industry, you experience some of the
more frustrating and costly implications of that.
A standard development design could be submitted to each of
the 880 odd local councils in Australia and receive a
differing set of requirements from each council.
A proposal to develop a single parcel of land can routinely
require a dozen applications to different authorities each
of which can produce different, sometimes conflicting,
requirements.
Different interpretations of regulations can come from
different authorities but worse, they can come from within
a single authority.
So the problem that the Premiers Conference addressed is a
very real one.
As I observe in my introduction to this report, a simple set
of well thought out, complementary, clearly presented and
cost-effective national building regulations and standards
would assist all parts of the industry and bring significant
cost savings to the community generally.
This report is a major contribution to our understanding of
the problem, and the Master Builders' Construction and
Housing Association of Australia is to be congratulated on
its initiative in preparing it.
This report represents not only an important step forward in
presenting the industry's views on these matters, but serves
as a vehicle for focussing the industry's attention on the
part it can play in the process of regulatory reform.
Central to the report is the objective of reducing the costs
of non-productive processes in building and construction, by
the development of a streamlined and more efficient
regulatory system.
The Association represents some seventeen thousand firms
working across Australia in all sectors of the building
industry. So you are well placed to canvass, as you have
done, a wide spectrum of industry views on reform of
building regulations and standards.
It is essential for Australia's long-term growth and
prosperity for us to work continually to improve the
efficiency of all sectors of the Australian economy.
But micro-economic reform can only be achieved through
cooperation from all sections of the community, both private
and public. So contributions such as this, from an industry
such as the construction and housing industry which is so
critically involved in the infrastructure of our national
economy are not only welcome, but necessary.
As the " user" of the regulatory system, industry should
provide strong inputs into the reform process.
My Government was pleased to be able, through our Australian
Building Research Grants Scheme, to help the Association
undertake the survey on which this report is based.
This report is but one spin-off of the Special Premiers'
Conference on Housing. There has been a real boost in the
effort to achieve micro-economic reform in the building and
construction industry.
Programs are now in place, and agreements are being
translated into action, at the national, state and local
levels. Following the Conference, my Government announced the
establishment of the Housing Development Program.
Under this program, $ 2 million a year has been made
available for further cooperative State and Commonwealth
projects aimed at overcoming housing supply constraints,
including planning and regulatory processes.
We recognise, however, that regulatory reform is not a oneof
f exercise. To this end we established a Building
Regulation Review Task Force to undertake a fundamental
examination of the whole system of building regulation.
Having opened by mentioning one Special Premiers Conference
let me close with another.
In Brisbane next month, the Premiers and I will meet once
more in a Special Conference to take forward the work of
building a new cooperative partnership in our Federal
system. The problems that you experience within your industry are
felt more widely throughout the community; the frustrations
and inefficiencies of conflicting, unnecessary or outdated
Government regulations threaten to retard the progress of
the nation as a whole.
As you will all be aware, the members of the European
Community are moving towards the creation by 1992 of a
single market. Within that market there will be fewer
obstacles and impediments to the free movement of goods and
services between the nations of the European Community than
there is between the States of Australia.
Streamlining regulations, unscrambling unnecessary
requirements, lightening administrative burdens, loosening
our red tape are necessary reforms not just because of the
resulting convenience to individuals and organisations
within Australia, and not just because of the resulting
cheaper housing and more efficient allocation of the housing
dollar within Australia.
They are necessary as integral parts of our fundamentally
important task of increasing Australia's international
competitiveness. Within that broad perspective, it is a pleasure to launch
this report and to congratulate those responsible for it.
4.
You can be assured it will be very carefully studied by the
Federal Government and relied upon in our continuing program
of national economic reform.