 My thanks to the organisers for arranging this video. Over 25 years ago, I accepted an invitation to be part of the Building Regulation Review Task Force. And as a direct result, I'm making this presentation today. Be careful of what you wish for. Now, it's always tricky to look back on what you've done a long time ago. I've been around long enough for some of my projects to have now been demolished in the interest of progress. So looking back can be a challenge. But the question I think we have to ask today is, have we, the Australian building industry, because we're in this together, have we missed the point of performance-based approaches to building regulations? To answer that question, we need to be clear what the point is. So indeed, what was or indeed what still is the point? To gain some insight, I googled performance-based codes. And I'd have to say that what I read online, and this wasn't necessarily Australian, certainly misses the point. I'm not going to repeat that nonsense here. Nor am I saying that what was written there was wrong. It just misses the point of what is possible with performance-based regulations if one takes a different perspective. So what is the point? From my perspective, the point of performance-based codes is to achieve a quantified outcome by logical and repeatable processes while allowing the outcomes to be achieved with increasingly innovative skills, techniques and materials, or dealing with the changed circumstances as they evolve. Prior to putting performance-based approaches into place, most, maybe all, codes were based on often quite painful experiences of what worked and indeed often what did not work, methods and techniques derived from that experience. These often constitute the so-called deemed-to-satisfied provisions of our current regulations. Very often, but not always, these were part of knee-jerk reactions to disasters. Moreover, while these responses may have been logical and testable when they were first applied, there is no way of knowing whether they remain overly conservative or indeed even safe as circumstances change over time. I will come back to that point a little later. I think the first point to be made about performance-based regulations, there are not just about one aspect of what is really quite a complex process. It is a system of components that are interdependent, a system of components that will either break down or perform poorly if any one of those parts is missing or doesn't quite fit. The parts may be technical or they might be processed or they might be administered. It is a partnership or collaboration of governments, including the regulators and the private sectors. At times, those collaborations will be adversarial. At times, they will be quite collaborative. Frankly, I think we need more collaboration than adversarial behavior in formulating what is the best way to proceed. Moreover, it involves people and their organizations with their own objectives and their own agendas, often which are malaligned. At a detail level, performance-based systems usually involve some of the following. Explicitly stated performance requirements, often but not solely the technical part. It should be noted that in the building regulations we have, those performance requirements are mandatory. It includes details of how the system will be run or administered. We clearly also need to educate all the parties, particularly as the system changes and evolves. This is very much a cultural change of our industry and indeed of our organizations and ourselves. We need a process for accrediting those involved in the building regulations, both in the private and the public sector. We need processes to check out and to credit new and innovative systems. And we need supporting and complimentary insurance products. Interestingly, I did not mention deemed to satisfy requirements. I will come back to that a little later. If we look at the Australian building regulatory system, the components of the system are provided by a number of key players. The ABCB, government and industry, with an independent chair, the regulators, also usually from government, the educators, mostly in the private sector, those that accredit the industry players, the regulators, those that provide insurance products, which are usually the private sector and those involved in product accreditation, a mixture of all three. No doubt you could argue with my distribution of accountability, but that would merely reinforce my point that it's a system and the components are interdependent. Above all else, I would suggest we need leadership. That is why one of the reasons you delegates have given up three days of your lives to be here, and I thank you for that level of interest, and I wish you well in your deliberations. Now, as you no doubt know, and probably better than I, in the period up to 1997, building regulations and most particularly fire safety design in Australia, like elsewhere in the world, had largely been based on compliance with prescriptive or deemed to satisfy requirements. Even then, a limited number of projects used performance-based design through variations, modifications to deemed to satisfy provisions for those specific projects. However, from the end of the 1980s, there was a growing interest in performance-based building codes as part of the various government's microeconomic reform agendas. The Warren Centre in 1989 suggested that a risk and engineering-based approach to fire safety design should be adopted to allow for more cost-effective design. From 1989 to 1991, the Building Regulation Review Task Force reviewed and then reported on building regulations in Australia. In 1991, we had the creation of a draft national building fire safety code using a risk-assessment-based methodology. In 1994, we had the establishment of the Not-For-Profit Fire Code Reform Centre, coordinating fire research in support of a performance-based building code of Australia and use of risk assessment for fire engineering analysis. As it happens, I wrote the first business plan for the fire reform centre. In 1994, we had the creation of the Australian Building Codes Board to develop the first performance-based building code of Australia. 1997 through 1998, we had the adoption of the Building Code of Australia into legislation in states and territories. And in parallel, we had the introduction of private certification for building approvals in building regulations of some states in Australia. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The Building Regulation Review Task Force was established by the 1989 Special Premiers Conference to review technical regulations affecting buildings and to recommend improvement to those regulations. There was, at the time, a clearly recognised need to reform the system for regulating land development and building activity in Australia. This photo, taken at a very early task force meeting, is black and white, showing just how long ago it was. At least it seemed a long time ago. My role was Deputy Chair of the Task Force. At the time, I was head of public works in the ACT. I was invited by Dr John Knutt, who chaired the task force, to join as his deputy for a range of reasons. They included not only my background as a consulting engineer, but also to provide some understanding of the likely political and public-served mindsets that we're likely to encounter. As it happened by the time the task force reported in 1991, I had rejoined Aaron. The need for reform of building regulations was defined in terms of a range of problems that were perceived with those existing regulations. Those problems included a lack of a clear objective for building regulations and the transparent link to social goals. That regulations appeared to restrict industry from applying the latest design skills and construction techniques. That there was a clear lack of uniformity of administration of the building regulations and application between the states and territories and indeed within local government areas in various states. That the approvals process was complex and non-transparent. That there was a lack of predictability for applicants under the approvals processes. That many regulations were outdated and not related to current social goals. That there was a lack of incentives for approving bodies to improve efficiencies. That there was a lack of any incentive to introduce quality assurance programs. And at the end of all, end of it all, there was the potential for significant cost savings without the reduction or indeed perhaps with the improvement of the social outcomes that we were seeking. Now as far as I can recall, no one thought that reform was unnecessary. On the other hand, if they did, they remain silent. At the time in 1991, it was estimated that some $1 billion was wasted on unnecessary regulation. And that of that, at least $250 million could be saved through the reform of technical regulations alone. That was in 1991 dollars. Probably a lot more today, but I'll leave that to others and more qualified than I to say. The building regulation review task force carried out an extensive work program and research program to review and investigate our building regulations. I probably spent more than half my time on building regulation review task force activities. Included in those activities was an extensive consultation process, a national industry survey, building regulation reform forum in all capital cities, circulation of some 5,000 copies of our draft report in March 1991 and the analysis of all the submissions, the many submissions that we received. The key point that derived from all this was the need to reform not just the parts of the system, but that we needed to reform the whole system of development approval. A narrow focus on a particular element was not seen, not seen to realize the benefits that we were seeking. We suggested a strategic approach to reform building regulations within a five year program to say 1996, 97 and the review after that for further actions. I'm not sure that all of that in fact happened. The task force key recommendations were for the establishment of a national body, the Australian Building Regulation Corporation, for management of building regulations and a council of relevant ministers to drive the process. The ABRC, as it was called, to be owned by the federal, state and territory governments as management shareholders and funding from a levy collected by each state and government. That state and territory governments agree to a set of principles to promote consistency in building control, including adoption of the BCA nationally, adoption of national, consistent dispute resolution processes, a national system of accreditation for building products, system and techniques, a 10 year liability limitation, that the crown be bound by the building code of Australia, uniformity and transferability of qualifications. Further recommendations included the creation of a model administrative code to promote nationally consistent administration of building regulations, the provision of private certification of design, construction and occupancy of buildings, the provision of support to achieve the technical reform of building fire regulations based on an appropriate fire risk modeling and including the development of a national building fire safety system code. And in housing, the development of a separate system of construction, including a national housing code, a national housing standard and a national home building manual, provision of streamlined buildings approval process through a one stop shop approach whilst maintaining quality safeguards and consumer protection and the licensing of home builders and subcontract tradies. There were a range of further recommendations. So how have we done? The establishment of a national body essentially achieved the Australian Building Code Board. Although, as I understand it, ministerial oversight remains ad hoc at the very least. The ownership and funding of that body, I think only Victoria has a building levy. In terms of the principles that we were seeking to adopt, the adoption of the BCA nationally, that's been achieved. The Building Code of Australia, the BCA 96 and the National Construction Code, although state and territory variations remain. Really? Why? Nationally consistent dispute resolution procedures? No progress. A national system of accreditation for building products, systems and techniques achieved although state systems remain. Really? Why? A 10 year liability limitation. Initially achieved, but not in all jurisdictions and now understood generally to be unavailable. Binding of the crown. Sort of, although there are ministerial waivers still in place. And the uniformity and transferability of qualifications, no real progress. On the remaining key objectives, a model administrative code, not achieved. Independent private certification, generally achieved, although I think the application of it is problematic and the role of, for example, the fire brigades remains problematic. Technical reform of the Building Fire Safety Regulations. Real progress made here. The fire engineering guidelines were published by the Fire Code Reform Centre in April 96 and were later revised in 2001. In 2005, these guidelines became the international fire engineering guidelines through a partnership with Canada, New Zealand and the USA. In terms of housing, the national housing code, standard and building manual, only the code was developed as volume two of the BCA. In terms of streamlined building approvals, partly achieved. In terms of licensing home builders and subbies, there is no national system in place. So how have we done overall? I would give it a three out of 10 and that's probably generous. But we have introduced performance codes, particularly the fire safety engineering and the national construction trade. All major achievements, so all is not lost. In looking back at what we did as a task force, what would I change? The big thing for me is probably the deem to satisfy requirements. I know why we did it. I think it's called real politic. We did it so as not to alienate those wedded to existing deem to satisfy requirements. We retain the emphasis on the deem to satisfy because to jump to straight to performance based codes with adequate quantification would have been a great deal of work, particularly as most, maybe all, deem to satisfy requirements have no quantifiable justification. But of course that has its downside with unquantified deem to satisfy requirements. We don't know where we are. We don't know whether we're safe or unsafe. We don't know if we're conservative. How conservative? And then if something goes wrong, we have the very real threat of a knee-jerk political reaction. Perhaps we should have been braver. On the other hand, there have of course been very many notable successes. Most notably, successful projects. One, Shelly Street in Sydney. Fire engineering on this project enabled a large open atria through the building that in turn gave connectivity within the business and also enabled the building to achieve six star green star performance rating. It also reduced the extent of passive fire protection to the building, allowing extended travel distances to an exit that enabled greater building efficiency. The North Shore Hospital, the Royal North Shore Hospital is a building over 25 meters, which means it needs both sprinklers and zone smoke control system under prescriptive requirements. Zone smoke control systems are highly complex in a hospital as the building is broken down into many fire and smoke compartments. The result is a very expensive system that are also very hard to commission, expensive to maintain and unreliable due to their complexity. This project developed a rationalised smoke control system designed around evacuation and firefighting approaches. That saved New South Wales health many millions of dollars, dollars that can be used on a wider distribution of our healthcare. It also allowed compartment sizes based around the functionality to assist the staff with staff efficiency and better health outcomes for patients. The WaterCube in Beijing, completed for the 2008 Olympic Games, highlighted Australia's innovative architecture and engineering skills to the world. Its design used a performance-based approach to allow the use of ETFE facade and unprotected structural steel. It also avoided a firewall down the centre of the main pool, which while innovative would have probably made a great episode of the Games for those of you who are old enough to remember it. Even the Sydney Opera House, renewal projects since 2003 have been undertaken using performance-based fire engineering, allowing safe design without the need to try and make the building comply with prescriptive provisions that would have ruined the iconic building. So that's where we are, many successes and some challenges. There are many remaining concerns. Private certification. Is it really working? How do we resolve the potential conflicts of interest? What are the clarity of the roles and how do we enforce those rules? Fire Safety Engineering Standards, which started out so well, seem to be falling back. We need to change that. The lack of fire safety engineering accreditation, which is an essential component of a proper regulatory system, is not keeping up. The BCA, Lacking Measurable Performance Requirements, this remains a major problem. Refer also to my regrets. Limited hazard analysis and risk assessment, also an essential component of a performance-based system. And little audit or enforcement of professional practice. This is clearly an issue that requires attention. Further concerns surround major fires, primarily losses with deemed-to-satisfied designs. Despite the general falling of the number of incidents and specifically the loss of life incidents, there remains major building fires generally associated with deemed-to-satisfied solutions. Issues around sprinkler and detection systems, poor inspection regimes and inadequate maintenance to serve attention. The conflicts between the building code objectives and the fire brigade legislation conflicts, that exists. And there is a misalignment that continues to be a major political failure. The fire brigade's lack of fire safety engineering resources, most fire brigades are under-resourced, but particularly as far as fire safety engineers go. And the lack of accreditation, audit, and enforcement. There also proceed to be many barriers to these. The risk of not obtaining an approval. Delays due to lack of resources and lack of understanding costing many millions of dollars. Design costs of alternative designs are seen to be prohibitive. Design, delays and costs due to referral to the fire services are problematic. Many regulators are seen to have a poor opinion of alternative solutions, which are certainly related to the education of proponents and of regulators. Risk averse certifiers and the whole issue of insurance cover for building remains a problem. And of course the lack of quantified performance requirements remains an issue. So there's a lot to be done. The ABCB needs and I believe has a strategy to enable performance-based designs to become the first choice in the processes. The ABCB strategy comprises four components. A recommitment to performance-based national construction code. The quantification of the performance requirements that we wish to have. Resolution of the role of other institutions, including their objectives. For example, the fibregarde and building capacity of practitioners. That recommitment must come from the whole of our industry. The government, the regulators and the private sectors. Recommitment from the delegates to this conference will be a great start. I urge you to recommit. To be successful, we need to promote flexibility and innovation. We must ensure that alternative designs achieve and are seen to achieve the necessary performance. This would also deal with the unquantified deemed to satisfy requirements. One example of the institutional impediments is the role of the fibregarde. Together with the appropriate resourcing and skills to fulfill that role. This remains an objective. This doesn't mean that the fibregarde's objectives are wrong. Just misaligned with building regulations. And it requires a political decision to align those two. Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, we need to improve the capacity and capability of all the practitioners involved in the process. So to conclude, in the 25 years since the Building Regulation Review Task Force, we have done some things very well. Setting up the Australian Building Construction Board, introducing and refining the Building Code of Australia and the National Construction Code, the advances in fire safety engineering and the related performance-based codes. But there are still many things that we get to achieve. And our regulatory system is limited by its weak links, especially the education of all practitioners, the quantifying the deemed to satisfy provisions and resolving the misalignment of building regulations and other institutions. I commend to you the pursuit of those weakest links. Once again, my apologies for not being with you and all the very best for the conference. Thank you.