Mr Kean added that where a dangerous product has been used, the legislation will allow for rectification orders as well as prosecution for people caught supplying, selling or using them.
What is included in the 10-point plan?
- A comprehensive building product safety scheme that would prevent the use of dangerous products on buildings
- Identifying buildings that might have aluminium or other cladding
- Writing to the building/strata managers or owners of those buildings to encourage them to inspect the cladding and installation of cladding, if it exists
- NSW Fire and Rescue visiting all buildings on the list, as part of a fire safety education program. This will allow them to gather information they need to prepare for a potential fire at that building, and provide additional information to building owners
- Creating a new fire safety declaration that will require high rise residential buildings to inform state and local governments as well as NSW Fire and Rescue if their building has cladding on it
- Expediting reforms to toughen up the regulation of building certifiers
- Reforms to create an industry based accreditation, that will ensure only skilled and experienced people can do fire safety inspections
- Establishing a whole of government taskforce that will coordinate and roll out the reforms
- Instructing all government departments to audit their buildings and determine if they have aluminium cladding, with an initial focus on social housing
- Writing to local councils to follow up on correspondence they received from the state government, after Melbourne’s Lacrosse Tower fire, in 2016.
Mr Kean said many of these elements were already underway, including the establishment of the taskforce.