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Speaker 1: Let's talk homes and architecture, because there is a housing

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Speaker 1: roadmap out for South Australia and the Australian Institute of

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Speaker 1: Architects is concerned that it potentially risks quality long term.

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Speaker 1: Nicolette Dealernia is as a Exec director of Australian Institute

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Speaker 1: of Architects.

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Speaker 2: Nicolect good morning, Good morning, Matthew.

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Speaker 1: How are you all right? Thank you tell me your

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Speaker 1: concerns about the roadmap.

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Speaker 2: Look, the roadmap has got many good aspects. However, the concerns,

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Speaker 2: our chief concerns are about the statement that the South

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Speaker 2: Australian Government is going to put any future upgrades of

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Speaker 2: the National Construction Code on hold for South Australians for

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Speaker 2: ten years. So that means that we will be a

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Speaker 2: decade behind other states in the quality of our bills.

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Speaker 2: And given that South Australians spend eighty two million dollars

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Speaker 2: annually on rectifying defects on housing, that seems to be

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Speaker 2: a pretty retrograde step.

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Speaker 1: So the National Construction Code is that followed by builders?

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Speaker 1: Do they have to abide by that? And if it's national,

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Speaker 1: what difference would the essay position?

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Speaker 2: Aha? So it's a national document it's developed by the

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Speaker 2: Australian Building Code Board, but it is adopted by each

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Speaker 2: state and territory under their state and territory legislation. So

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Speaker 2: each we've got a local building Minister. In our case

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Speaker 2: it's Minister Champion, and so at a local level we

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Speaker 2: decide which bits of it we're going to take on board.

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Speaker 2: Most of the time, you know, it's the majority of

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Speaker 2: things that get adopted. What we're saying in South Australia

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Speaker 2: is that any further upticks in quality for residential construction

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Speaker 2: that come out in the next ten years will not

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Speaker 2: apply in South Australia, all right.

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Speaker 1: So that means we fall behind in the latest technologies.

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Speaker 2: I guess we do. So if you relate that to

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Speaker 2: your phone, or your car or medical technologies, we would

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Speaker 2: be pretty unhappy, I think, to say that we would

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Speaker 2: be using ten year old technology in any of those

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Speaker 2: other fields. But we're saying that when it comes to

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Speaker 2: our houses, we're happy for them to be ten years

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Speaker 2: out of date, and in fact longer than that. Because

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Speaker 2: there are parts of the states that are also being

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Speaker 2: an exemption given an exemption for the twenty twenty two

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Speaker 2: code upgrade, which means that they will be operating on

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Speaker 2: the twenty nineteen code for residential construction. That's a long

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Speaker 2: way out of date. That's getting on for fifteen years

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Speaker 2: of stagnation in the improvement of status.

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Speaker 1: So why would we want to not change it? Why

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Speaker 1: will well, why don't we want to update it? Is

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Speaker 1: probably the better question is it? Is it man power?

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Speaker 2: Is it?

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Speaker 1: What is it?

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Speaker 2: It's it's not manpower. Look, we have a we have

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Speaker 2: a shortage of skills, but the upgrade of the standards

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Speaker 2: is not going to be you know, it doesn't directly

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Speaker 2: relate to that that skills shortage, and in fact, we

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Speaker 2: could be training people in all these wonderful new colleges

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Speaker 2: that we've got for technical training skills to meet these

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Speaker 2: new standards quite happily. So it's it's it's fear mainly.

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Speaker 2: So we have people within the construction sector who have

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Speaker 2: said that if we adopt the new standards, no one

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Speaker 2: will be able to afford a home, and that is

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Speaker 2: that is unfair because what we're doing is saying to

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Speaker 2: people who have affordability concerns that we want them to

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Speaker 2: be able to buy home, but we want them to

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Speaker 2: have a home. That is bad for their health and

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Speaker 2: which will cost them a lot more in their day

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Speaker 2: to day you know, cost of living expenses, because it'll

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Speaker 2: be more expensive to heat, more expensive to cool. It

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Speaker 2: will probably have things that made repairing and maintaining more

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Speaker 2: regularly because they're not built as well. It's a really

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Speaker 2: it's nasty.

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Speaker 1: Really yeah, Okay, so you would think too, with the

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Speaker 1: skills and updating skills, if we made gradual changes and

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Speaker 1: that's what they would be, then people can keep up

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Speaker 1: to speak with that.

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Speaker 2: That's right. And the construction sectors stance that they need

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Speaker 2: constancy is an interesting one because the National Construction Code

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Speaker 2: gets updated every three years. We've known that for a

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Speaker 2: long time. All of the changes are consulted with, including

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Speaker 2: bodies like the HIA and the NBA and the Institute

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Speaker 2: of Architects. We all get asked our opinions about the

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Speaker 2: proposed chain at least eighteen months in advance. So to

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Speaker 2: say that we're not ready for them all. That these

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Speaker 2: things come as a surprise is a bit unusual. Like

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Speaker 2: why they are surprised.

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Speaker 1: Got an interesting comment here from k which you will

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Speaker 1: you will not enjoy as an architechnical efference. Says, what

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Speaker 1: architecture so called houses these days remind me of the

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Speaker 1: shoe box and cellophane aquariums we made at primary school.

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Speaker 1: They're all the same characteristic dog boxes.

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Speaker 2: And that's because ninety five percent of the housing in

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Speaker 2: Australia is not designed by architects. Okay, I'm quite happy

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Speaker 2: with that. Who designs it then, building designers, builders draft people.

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Speaker 1: Okay, all right, because you look at the planning and

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Speaker 1: K's got a point. Yeah, they do all look the same,

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Speaker 1: they do. Yeah, dog boxes, I can see where that

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Speaker 1: comes from. But you look at the lack of shading

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Speaker 1: on houses these days and think back to the days

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Speaker 1: where because of I don't know, things were more ornate

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Speaker 1: I suppose. But you have a beautiful veranda providing shade

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Speaker 1: over windows, particularly north facing, and these days it's just

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Speaker 1: a plain wall, skinny windows usually, and the sun hits

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Speaker 1: it full on, and of course the house is going

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Speaker 1: to heat up, which means you spend more than trying

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Speaker 1: to call it down, particularly in summer.

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Speaker 2: So look, there's some Really you've hit the nail on

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Speaker 2: the head. We have prioritized the size of our houses

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Speaker 2: over the quality of our construction, and things like building

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Speaker 2: eeds cost you a little bit extra, but people have

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Speaker 2: decided that taking away all of that depth and that

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Speaker 2: shading on the outside of our buildings, and sometimes even

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Speaker 2: you know, putting in the correct insulation is worth cutting

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Speaker 2: corners for to get an extra bedroom. But at the

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Speaker 2: same time as our houses now are the biggest in

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Speaker 2: the world on average in Australia, so average house size

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Speaker 2: in Australia is around two hundred and twenty five square meetings,

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Speaker 2: which is bigger than in America. In the nineteen fifties,

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Speaker 2: we had more people per household on average and our

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Speaker 2: houses were ninety square meters on average, So we have

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Speaker 2: made ourselves Affordability is being compromised by the fact that

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Speaker 2: our houses are so big. It costs us more to

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Speaker 2: build them because they are simply bigger. It also means

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Speaker 2: that we're building half as many because on average our

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Speaker 2: houses are twice the size. So we need to have

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Speaker 2: a really good think about what it is we need

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Speaker 2: our houses to do and what makes us happy. Of course,

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Speaker 2: if making ourselves happy means having a slightly smaller house,

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Speaker 2: that might be worthwhile, and having a really big house

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Speaker 2: that you don't get to spend any time in because

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Speaker 2: you're spending all your time at work, paying earning money

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Speaker 2: to pay your mortgage seems a little bit counterproductive.

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Speaker 1: Indeed, indeed, Nicolette, look fascinating discussion all up, but thank

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Speaker 1: you for your time today and that's certainly for thought.

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Speaker 1: All the best, Nicolette Delernier, who is an SA Executive

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Speaker 1: Director Australian Institute of Architects