Opinion: A Grenfell Towers blaze could happen in Queensland

Do you live or work in a building with flammable cladding that a State Government taskforce has identified as a potential death trap? It might not be safe, writes Des Houghton.

NEARLY four years after a State Government taskforce identified hundreds of apartments as potential death traps, more than 2500 privately-owned Queensland buildings have yet to be declared safe.

There are fears those buildings contain flammable cladding like that found to be the cause of London’s deadly Grenfell Tower blaze in which 72 people died in June 2017.

The 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London which spread through cladding wrapping the building left 72 dead.

Strata title experts are also questioning the worth of compulsory building safety audits with much defective cladding hidden behind other building materials.

It’s hard not to conclude that the state’s so-called safer building program has bogged down, with thousands of Queenslanders still at risk.

It’s another black mark for the Queensland Building and Construction Commission, the dithering government regulator responsible for building safety.

It is already facing a Crime and Corruption investigation after independent experts reported buildings had been approved in breach of building codes.

I’m told by strata experts that homeowners are turning a blind eye to safety checks because they cannot afford the steep cost of removing combustible cladding they know will be found.

The owners were willing to take the risk after being warned it may cost between $20,000 and $80,000 to rectify a single unit found to have non-compliant cladding made in China.

It generally comprises polystyrene panels enclosed in aluminium sheets.

If cladding is detected in external high-rise walls a crane may have to be hired and police contracted to close streets while the sheets are removed and replaced.

A body corporate in Victoria was quoted more than $200,000 to remove external cladding from an apartment block there.

Highly combustible cladding which ignited in the Lacrosse apartments building in Melbourne's Docklands district in 2014 caused enormous damage.

Decent people who have already paid for their units are facing large payout through no fault of their own.

Questions remain: Were any buildings approved and certified after this type of cladding was banned in Australia?

It seems to me that State Governments of all political persuasions encouraged a unit development boom in recent decades in a mad rush to solve housing shortages. And the building regulators have fallen down on the job.

A total of 2558 suspect buildings had failed to register in the compulsory Safer Building program, Parliamentary Estimates hearings were told recently. There was no detail provided about how they came to be certified in the first place.

QBCC Commissioner, Brett Bassett, told the House: “To date, 182 (buildings) have been identified as a potential cladding fire risk, and these buildings will require further assessment to determine the extent of any rectification that may be required.”

Confusion remains. Bassett also told the hearings of the uncertain fate of 4243 owners who attempted to register online, but failed to do so. “(These) registrations were abandoned, that is, they were either registered in error or they were removed as a result of error or they were removed as a result of, for example, duplicate registrations.”

It is a self-regulation system that relies on the owner’s honesty.

Ominously, Bassett said the Safer Building program was about building owners taking responsibility for their own safety. Good luck there.

Bassett added: “It is important to note the QBCC has not had a role in checking the individual buildings that have gone through the program.’’

He was still considering what “regulatory approach” was needed to force owners to complete the checklist by the May 31 deadline.

There are other problems for unit owners. Many buildings contain defective glass and tiles from China. Concrete cancer is prolific in older buildings. And now we know that 5000km of defective electricity cables were imported from China a decade ago for use in Australian buildings.

A 2013 report by the State Government and Master Builders Queensland pointed to trouble ahead:

“The cabling doesn’t comply with safety criteria and will deteriorate over time, creating a high risk of electric shock from direct contact, and the potential for fire,” it said.

“In Queensland, the safety risk could start as soon as 2018.”

Another report to the federal government warned bad cables could cause electrocutions, shocks, toxic fumes and fires and burns caused by electrical “arcing” from overloaded or damaged circuits.

The main public entry at the Princess Alexandra Hospital was boarded up as components of the external cladding are removed in September 2017.

The QBCC declined to answer specific questions and would not identify buildings suspected of containing flammable cladding.

Public Works Minister Mick de Brenni declined to be interviewed or answer specific questions.

It is known that 174 government buildings have been checked and defective cladding removed.

The PA hospital was among the first found to feature combustible external cladding in 2017.

The Princess Alexandra Hospital was the first site flagged by the audit in 2017, with work to remove 24,000 square metres of the cladding expected to cost tens of millions of dollars and completed last year.

Cladding had also been found on the Logan Hospital, a Queensland Rail building in Brisbane and the former Children’s Court on Quay Street.

Eight other Queensland Health facilities feature on the list including the Royal Brisbane and Women’s, Redcliffe and Gold Coast University hospitals.

The Ascot State School, Queensland Academy for Creative Industries and Mount Gravatt TAFE also feature, along with the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre and Gallery of Modern Art at South Bank.

De Brenni and the QBCC would not name the other buildings or say whether rectification work was continuing.