ABR-Online Edition Two
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Dear Building Practitioner Welcome to the second edition of the electronic ABRB (ABR Online). The first edition was well received by practitioners and continues to be a good opportunity to keep you up to date with contemporary issues affecting our industry. Reform of the building regulatory regime remains a priority. In these times of economic slowdown, the ABCB is mindful that good regulatory practice is more important than ever to ensure that building regulations do not impact negatively on employment and housing affordability. Through its strong gatekeeper role, the ABCB strives to minimise the regulatory burden by working with the States and Territories to keep compliance costs associated with building and construction down. The ABCB has unanimously agreed to adopt the new national standard for construction of buildings in bushfire-prone areas, AS 3959-2009, to replace the 1999 Standard referenced in the Building Code of Australia (BCA). The new standard takes a risk management approach and aligns construction requirements more closely to the assessed level of bushfire exposure for new building work. The new standard, which will be formally adopted when the BCA is updated in 2010, is set at a stringency level that is expected to be more cost effective than the current requirements. Further information on the new bushfire standard is included in this edition of the ABR Online. On climate change related issues, the ABCB has been providing assistance to the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in its consideration of matters such as increased energy efficiency stringency levels for buildings and a proposed nationally consistent approach to hot water services. On 30 April 2009, COAG requested the ABCB to deliver more stringent energy efficiency measures for houses and for commercial buildings by 2010, subject to impact assessment processes. For housing the target is 6 stars, including measures for hot water systems and lighting. For commercial buildings, a significant increase in requirements has been requested. We will be engaging in stakeholder consultations in late May and the next edition of the ABRB will contain further detail on how we will be moving forward. A Review of the Inter Governmental Agreement (IGA) under which the ABCB operates is in its final stages. The ABCB remains ready to respond to Government direction resulting from the IGA Review, including a possible new National Construction Code (NCC) that could consolidate all on-site regulatory construction requirements. COAG, on 30 April 2009, released for public comment a regulatory impact statement on the proposed NCC. This edition also contains articles on our successfully completed National BCA Seminar Series with over 1600 delegates attending along with some information about our recent annual National Technical Summit, which proved a worthwhile exercise in our effort to reduce variations to the National code. I encourage you to attend our biennial Conference, Building Australia's Future 2009, which will be held at the Gold Coast on 20-23 September. The Conference is a great opportunity to hear experts from around the world present contemporary issues relating to the building regulatory environment. Further information about the Conference, including early bird registration rates, is detailed in this edition, or on our website at www.abcb.gov.au Yours sincerely Ivan Donaldson | BCA 2009 Hardcopy Symbol Errors... |
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| Copyright © 1999-2009 - Australian Building Codes Board - All Rights Reserved The views of this publication are not necessarily the views of the Australian Building Codes Board | |||
