Fire Protection Association (FPA) of Australia deputy chief executive and general manager of technical services Matthew Wright will be attending the Building Ministers’ Forum in Hobart.

The meeting is expected to focus on combustible cladding and the broader compliance problems in the Australian construction sector exposed by theNeo200 fire in Melbourne.

FPA Australia will renew its call for the recommendations of the Shergold-Weir Building Confidence report to be implemented in a nationally-consistent fashion.

Matthew says no affirmative action has been seen in relation to the problems with building compliance and this should already be at a consistent state and territory or national level.

“At the moment, every time Australians buy an apartment they are playing Russian roulette when it comes to compliance, even if that apartment is brand new. To stop that happening, we need the Shergold-Weir recommendations to be implemented consistently across the country,” he says.

“Someone in Sydney deserves their home to be as safe as someone in Melbourne or Perth or Darwin. Industry has to be part of the compliance fix, and we’re pushing ahead in a range of areas. But to truly address this issue and deliver the buildings Australians deserve, government needs to be as dedicated to this as we are.”

FPA Australia believes that the success of the Shergold-Weir recommendations is dependent on their nationally-consistent implementation.

The Association is calling on the Building Ministers’ Forum to establish a new National Construction Code Implementation Taskforce (NCCIT), drawing together government and industry to manage the development of a model NCC Administrative Code to harmonise requirements and compliance with the NCC across all states and territories wherever possible.