Lovegrove & Cotton Lawyers Bulletin 

The early nineties heralded an unprecedented era of cooperative federalism in Australia. It was within this political dynamic that the National Model Building Act was crafted, forming the regulatory template for some of the Australian states and territories. The process was one of few instances where states and territories along with the commonwealth resolved to prioritise pragmatism in an effort to create cross-jurisdictional harmonisation in respect to the regulation of the building industry.

Over the last 20 years the effectiveness of building regulations has been severely tested in light of a litany of regulatory failures in a number of jurisdictions. When viewed in aggregate, one can conclude that building control in many jurisdictions is not delivering as building failures in one form or another have assumed a serial dimension. So there needs to be a rethink and a redesign of that which can lay claim to being best practice building control. Having been deployed as a law reformer in a number of jurisdictions, the writer has been afforded the opportunity to identify best practice regulatory systems that are worthy of consideration for reforming jurisdictions. This article provides some thoughts on point.

Changes and advances in the building industry demand appropriate correlating changes to building laws. Issues impacting Australia nation-wide are cannot necessarily be addressed by our state based construction law regimes. These include issues emanating from Globalisation and the importation of the likes of building materials. It is clear that for proper solutions to be crafted, a holistic and best-practice approach to law reform is critical to moving forward, and such an approach must not be governed purely by provincial drivers. Kim Lovegrove outlines some key elements that may be suitable for advancing such a regulatory dynamic.

This paper is a synopsis of a presentation that the writer used as an address to a combined World Bank and IFC forum at Washington in 2015. The writer traversed notions of that which succeeded vis a vis that which did not necessarily deliver on all fronts along with reasons as to why.