‘Duty of care’: Federal Government blasted over cladding location mystery
Flammable cladding has been found on Commonwealth buildings but the Morrison Government is refusing to say where, fearing they could be a target for arsonists.
National
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Flammable cladding has been found on Commonwealth buildings including at five military bases but the Federal Government has declined to say where, fearing they could come under arson attack.
Leaked documents have revealed there are at least 11 taxpayer-owned government buildings including five on defence bases wrapped in cladding, posing a fire and public safety risk.
This is despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his Industry Minister Karen Andrews shifting questioning on the matter to the states.
But during questioning in Senate Estimates today, Defence Department revealed officials had quietly done an audit of their buildings after the Grenfell Tower disaster in London in 2017 where cladding escalated a fire killing 72 people and injuring 70 others.
Despite the government declining to reveal where the buildings are, citing the potential for an arson attack, the buildings on the five defence bases were named by defence officials — HMAS Penguin in Sydney, HMAS Cairns, RAAF Townsville, Fisherman’s Bend in Melbourne and RAAF Edinburgh in South Australia.
Labor Senator Penny Wong pursued Defence Department officials as to why no one knew any of this to which she was told “we have not sought to telegraph publicly”.
She was assured however, that works had begun on the five and would be completed by the end of this year.
Defence Minister Linda Reynolds had to admit she had not had a briefing about Defence’s cladding audit which the department revealed identified 208 defence owned properties that were potentially non-compliant; five were found to be non-compliant and needing work.
These were defence owned but there could be Defence leased buildings too.
Remedial work included running more fire escape drills and putting in awnings to protect from falling flammable debris.
Shadow Industry minister Brendan O’Connor said the public had a right to know of all Commonwealth buildings.
“The Government has consistently shirked all responsibility and laid the blame on the states and territories saying that it is up to them to fix the problem,” he said, adding the Australian public deserved better.
“The pertinent question remains, beyond Defence, how many other Government owned and leased buildings contain flammable cladding?” he asked.
“The Federal Government owes a duty of care to the occupants, tenants and users of the dwellings in question to inform them about flammable cladding. They deserve to know if the Federal Government has their safety front of mind.”
In a letter to Mr O’Connor, Ms Andrews said public revealing of where buildings were was not appropriate.
“Information about building assessments can be made public at an aggregate level however, building ministers in all jurisdictions agree there are risks with publicly disclosing information that allows the identification of specific buildings by third parties. This includes the risk of arson.”