By Associate Professor Matthew Bell, Co-Director, Studies for Construction Law, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne
Dr Matthew Bell joined Melbourne Law School as an academic after several years in full-time practice as a solicitor, primarily as a non-contentious construction lawyer. Matthew is an Associate Professor and Co-Director of Studies for the Law School's Construction Law Program.
The push to deliver thousands of much-needed new homes across Australia carries an uncomfortable risk: speed and volume can come at the expense of quality.
This is particularly relevant in a system already struggling with compliance and cost pressures.
The catastrophic cladding-fuelled fire at Grenfell Tower in London in 2017 put the spotlight on devastating residential building defects.
Victoria’s response – the combustible cladding rectification program – is now regarded by the Government as all but complete.
It’s an instructive example of how to deploy a combination of public and private money to fix a massive problem caused by years of regulatory failure.
A 2024 report for the Victorian Building Authority (VBA) gave stark insights into what it is like to have to live with or litigate other types of defects, including water ingress, mouldy bathrooms and structural failures.
Now a new bill, being debated in the Victorian Parliament, aims to entrench occupant health and safety at the heart of the building system.
Is this bill a worthwhile addition to the already massive body of building regulations or does it contribute to making the business of building unviable?
What is the BPAE Bill?
Six months after the 2024 VBA report, the Victorian government released its March 2025 Building Statement, pointing to the need for holistic reform to ensure safer, higher-quality buildings.
A raft of reform legislation followed, now added to by the Building and Plumbing Administration and Enforcement Bill 2026 (BPAE).
The BPAE is both ambitious and immensely complex, running more than 600 pages and 75,000 words.
It proposes very substantial structural changes to the regulatory system, and makes significant changes to building compliance, including expansion of the criminal penalties for people involved in breaching the regulations.
A guiding star for better building quality?
In the early part of the BPAE is a new “building system objective”.
The objective is “to promote and protect the health and safety of building occupants and the public” through construction activities and the regulation of those activities.
The breadth of this provision is very wide.
It applies to the entire “building system”, which includes the building and plumbing industries, regulators, building surveyors, local councils and a range of other agencies.
What it also does is require that all building legislation must recognise and “have regard” for this objective.
This means that the promotion and protection of health and safety is intended to become the industry’s guiding star for how decisions are made.
Why objectives matter
The approach of the building system objective reflects principles for which I have long argued based on my research into effective construction industry regulation.
These principles include that occupant health and safety should be paramount; prevention is better than cure; and, in an industry prone to being a “merry go round of buck passing”, that buck of responsibility must stop with someone who is able to respond appropriately.
While the new legislation will take time to become operational once passed and brought into force, it will allow regulators, industry professionals and – ultimately – courts to look to this objective to guide them through difficult legal decisions.
This matters because many regulatory failures occur in grey areas: especially, when corners are cut based on interpretation of standards, codes or words in contracts.
A clear objective does not remove discretion, but it makes those grey areas harder to defend when they undermine health and safety.
And Victoria is not acting in isolation.
Since Grenfell, governments around the world have sought to rebalance construction regulation towards occupant safety.
The UK’s response was framed cautiously: the regulator must act “with a view to” securing safety.
Victoria’s “promote and protect” wording is stronger.
Whether that difference translates into better outcomes will depend on how assertively regulators and courts are prepared to apply it.
What’s the impact on the industry?
The deeper challenge is embedded in the culture of the construction industry.
The amount of risk taken on by developers and builders (usually, passed down to subcontractors and consultants) means that construction quality is always at the mercy of time and cost demands.
As risks materialise, so do costs.
This is always an issue for businesses across the supply chain – from multi-national construction firms down to individual tradies.
So, any well-meaning regulatory change needs to balance its goals against the burden it loads up on an already fragile industry – especially in the face of the current disruption from the war in the Middle East.
So it is unsurprising that industry peak bodies like the Housing Industry Association have called for a pause to the introduction of the already-passed reforms.
The Victorian Opposition also moved a motion calling for debate on the BPAE to wait for further consultation with the industry, which was then defeated. So the Bill will remain before the Parliament when it meets in mid-May.
Where to from here?
Ultimately, an express building system objective alone will not stop poor behaviour or guarantee better buildings.
But it may change incentives by making regulatory inaction harder to justify and sharpening accountability.
For now, everyone with an interest in getting the balance right in residential construction – and that is everyone – should also take an interest in the BPAE and its building system objective.
It could well turn out to be a game changer in the ongoing quest to restore the community’s confidence in the safety of the homes we live in.
This article has been republished from The University of Melbourne Pursuit under a Creative Commons license. Read original here.