Examination of Witnesses

Part of Building Safety Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 11:40 am on 9 September 2021.

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Dan Daly:

There is a lot to be admired in what other countries have done, and certainly in that particular example, but you have to remember that they were some way ahead of where we are and where we started from. There was already a single regulator in place in Victoria that was able to be instructed to take on some of this work. The number of buildings and the scale of the issue were much smaller than where we are. I think in total there were around 2,300 buildings, looking at a much broader spectrum of buildings—healthcare buildings and schools above two floors, and all other buildings above three floors. We know that, when we are looking in this country at buildings above 18 metres, we are already talking about 12,000 buildings—that is just high-rise residential. When we talk about buildings above 11 metres, we are probably closer to 100,000. If you take on the full range of where they were in Australia, the numbers just keep increasing exponentially.

There is something to admire in where they were—certainly the fact that sprinklers and alarm systems were in much wider use in those buildings, so that, in the fires that they saw, nobody died. There were measures in the buildings to tackle those instances early, and equally to alert people to the fires. It is certainly something that we have been talking about and pushing for: the wider use of sprinklers and alarm systems. It is good to see that there has been some change and movement in that, as part of the work that we have gone through so far. You cannot discount what has gone on. We should always look to learn, but there is something about scale and scope here that is different.