Premier, actions speak louder than words on dilapidated towers

The ugly underbelly of Sydney’s explosive development boom has been laid bare for all to see with a number of defective apartment blocks being exposed. Insiders fear this is only the tip of the iceberg, writes Anna Caldwell.

• Zetland apartment building evacuated
• Mascot Tower unit owners told to pay $5m to fix damage

Who would have imagined that in one of the greatest cities in the world, I wouldn’t dream of buying an apartment off the plan because it might fall to pieces?

Yet, here in Sydney, we have this year watched people forced to wait like dogs out in the rain for allotted appointments to get inside their homes for the sliver of a chance to retrieve clothes while the very roof over their head is threatening their life.

The ugly underbelly of Sydney’s explosive development boom has been laid bare for all to see, and ­industry insiders fear this is only the tip of the iceberg as two decades worth of corner-cutting comes home to roost.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian must take action on NSW’s building industry Picture: Terry Pontikos

This looks far uglier than the sight of dilapidated buildings.

It’s the agonised faces of residents of Opal Tower sleeping in their cars on Christmas Eve and the panicked rushing of Mascot Towers victims schlepping around suitcases bursting with all that would fit in the dead of winter as they were banned from going home.

And then, this week, we saw rev­elations of a third abandoned building in Zetland.

In fact, crumbling buildings and all the problems that go with them loom as one of the single biggest problems that could face the government this term.

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It is state government policy settings that have led to this problem and it is the state government that must fix it.

It is not good enough for Gladys ­Berejiklian to come out this week and “assure the community” that she “knows there is a problem”.

In the heat of the crisis, it’s easy to forget that the government was well aware of the industry’s problems ­before buildings started becoming ­uninhabitable.

The government has spent 18 months sitting on a report which tackled the problems in the industry.

The Shergold-Weir report was ­ordered after the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London amid concerns about the standards of construction at home.

In October last year, before the Opal Tower crisis elevated the problem in the public consciousness, senior ­Berejiklian Minister Matt Kean ­declared almost prophetically that it was “ridiculous that developers can choose their own certifiers”.

Opal Tower in Homebush. Picture: Dylan Robinson

Kean indicated as early as February that the government would ­implement the Shergold-Weir Report’s recommendations. Then the election happened and Nationals MP Kevin Anderson, who lives in Tamworth, took over the ­portfolio.

In May, post Opal tower but pre-Mascot, the new minister said, bizarrely, in a newspaper interview that it was “too early” for him to say where the government might land on the recommendations in the report it had been sitting on for more than a year.

A month later, in words that have already come back to bite him, he said: “I don’t believe there is any great cause for alarm for other apartment buildings across Sydney.”

Really?

There have been more than 100,000 apartments built in Sydney in the past five years, and close to ­double that in new dwellings expected over the next five.

As Kean rightly hinted last year, we know no industry will self-regulate effectively. If there is a chance to cut corners and not get found out, they will.

Homebuyers have to trust that the buildings will be properly certified, waterproof and sturdy, but are left dealing with a system that is opaque and tilted in the developers’ favour.

The Premier must not underestimate the impact of this issue on her government. In Sydney, everyone ­either lives in an apartment or knows someone who does. It is often their parents or their children.

Voters will not tolerate mums and dads being saddled with multimillion-dollar levies through no fault of their own while builders, certifiers and developers disappear like cowboys into the dust.

A Mascot Tower resident tried to get into the building to collect her belongings. Picture: Darren Leigh Roberts

We know for a fact the government has not done enough so far to stop these bad buildings before they happen. What they do next matters and so does the fact that they do it quickly.

One option to consider is whether every person in the construction chain becomes responsible and liable for the work that they do.

This would be highly controversial and would put cost back on industry, but surely it should be explored.

It is almost ironic that this week there has been excitement that housing affordability is at a 20 year high. What good is that if you can’t be confident your apartment won’t crack down the middle within years?

One of the great risks this government faces as it moves into its third term is complacency.

This is made worse by a lame duck Opposition. Even now that state Labor has finally elected a leader in Jodi McKay, it remains in no man’s land with limited talent in the parliament and a limited track record in holding Berejiklian and co to account.

The government must not forget the goodwill of the people who voted it back in.

This week, when the next stage of WestConnex opens, there will be no toll free period. Do you think if the road had opened ­before the election things would have been different? Of course they would, with tolls the biggest concern of voters in Western Sydney.

In a third term government, it’s easy to become complacent, but you can spend the good will of people very easily and very quickly.