Senator John Madigan spoke with passion about his own apprenticeship and showed empathy and a depth of understanding of the situation. Conspicuous by their absence were the 10 other invited political and regulatory figures who's photos (mug shots) nevertheless adorned 10 seats that faced the audience. For several of the 10, the Victorian situation has occurred on their watch .
Highly reactive soils and slab heave were not the main subjects, there are many areas of the industry where people have been let down.
V-CAT has gone off the rails. To hear of people spending $200k - $300k and then having to abandon their case when they have run out of money was gut wrenching. Wasn't V-CAT set up to take pressure off the courts and serve as a low cost alternative and why are people forced to spend large amounts of money when a proper regulatory system should be protecting them?
The building industry has many well organised and funded associations to protect their interests but new home owners have none. The BCRA needs support but public meetings like the one on Tuesday night should draw the support and expertise they need.
The new Victorian Building Authority (VBA) was set up without the regulatory power that is needed. Why?
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/the-n ... 3al87.html
The BCRA is a small group taking on a big job and it is important that the group grows in strength. It must be remembered that the founders are people who have being badly let down by the lack of consumer protection in the housing industry yet they have taken on this demanding task to try to help others with public education to help bring about needed reform. I would rather find myself next to those people in the trenches than the ones in the mug shots who seem to have deserted the cause.
http://www.bcra.asn.au/
Thanks for the update saveh2o.i think we need a meeting that specifically addresses slab heave.very interesting article from the age about the government backing down on reforms.have you ever noticed that the herald sun never has articles about slab heave well it's because they are in bed with metricon(advertising, home show etc) I have no doubt that the government back down will be in response to similar thing, big
builder lobbyists or money or both
On the reforms I can feel the goal post are about to be moved not in the owners favour.
We need a investigative journalist to expose what's really going on behind the scene between the government and commercial builders.maybe the government and relavent authorities are just panicking at the magnitude of the problem.