December CEO update - Gary Rake

In late October, we advised users of the National Construction Code (NCC) that we needed to correct some typographical errors and hyperlinks within NCC 2022 national provisions and State and Territory variations. That work is now complete and you’ll find NCC 2022 here. We have published a list of all the corrections for those who downloaded a PDF of the NCC Volumes back in early October.

Talking about access to the NCC – we have worked hard to produce a fully linked electronic version of the NCC. This is the future and will enable users to access the NCC in new and more efficient ways. NCC Online is designed to make access easy across all your devices and we encourage all users to save this link so the NCC is always close at hand.

While we encourage you to use NCC Online first, we have also published PDF versions and will continue working with our publication partners for those who prefer a hard copy.

One of the most significant reforms for NCC 2022 is the introduction of a new Livable Housing Design Standard. This standard promotes the development of housing that better meets the needs of the community, including older people and people with mobility limitations.

Over the past 2 months, a small group of people including representatives from the building industry, design professionals, certifiers and accessibility advocates has been meeting as part of a Livable Housing Implementation Advisory Committee (LHIAC) to ensure that the new Standard is clear and compatible with existing provisions of the NCC. I am very (and I emphasise very!) grateful for the hard work and helpful contributions from the LHIAC over this period. It was a stunning display of collaboration and will make it easier for builders to deliver great outcomes for our community.

You can read the Livable Housing Design Standard here. The LHIAC is now helping us shape the focus of our guidance materials and education programs to support the new provisions. These additional materials will be available in early 2023.

Further to my short note last month about lithium batteries, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is asking for stakeholder feedback on product safety issues and potential hazard prevention strategies in relation to lithium-ion batteries. I encourage you to look at the issues paper – it is informative and very easy to read. The ACCC consultation is open until 3 February 2023.

At the November 2022 meeting, the Board discussed ways that we could improve visibility of our work into the future. One of the ideas was to start releasing a Public Record after each Board meetings – and the very first one is here. We will create a dedicated space on our website to share these records and will let you know through our newsletter each time we have an update. We hope this will give a bit more insight into the diversity of our work and the things that are on our agenda.

Before we break for the summer holiday season, on behalf of the Board, I would like to say thank you to everyone involved in our work.

2022 was a big year – with the biggest ever update to the NCC.

I’ll start by thanking the small team of people who work in the Office of the ABCB for their tireless work in updating and maintaining the NCC. I hope you find time over summer to recognise just how important and beneficial your work is for the people of Australia.

I’d also like to thank all of the industry professionals who helped us with this work through our formal committee structures and various working groups. You bring a powerhouse of capability to the table – more than we could have in our little Office team – and I’m grateful for that.

And finally I would like to recognise and thank the thousands, yes thousands, of stakeholders who read our consultation documents and share their feedback with us. These consultations are our connection to the community. Our work is shaped for the better by the views we hear from you.

I hope you all have an enjoyable and safe summer. See you in 2023!

Gary