NEWS Workers to reject cladding

CONSTRUCTION workers across Australia will refuse to fit cladding to buildings without proof it meets safety standards, declaring they don’t want to be “complicit” in causing deadly fires.

Meanwhile, surveyors may start “destructive testing” of newly finished high rises by pulling off panels and burning them to ensure they are what was specified and not cheaper substitutes.

The independent moves reveal both a growing desperation and lack of co-ordination in the local response to the London inferno that killed at least 80 people.

The more dramatic measure is the union-led ban on installing some types of cladding, which could hold up work on sites and hence be illegal.

The ban applies not just to polyethylene-core panels similar to that on London’s Grenfell Tower but to higher-grade products – unless they are backed by testing from an accredited Australian lab.

“Our members are saying to us they don’t want to be complicit in building buildings that later could catch fire and potentially kill people,” Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union national secretary Dave Noonan told the NT News.

“If that means banning, then ban it we will. We think this is an important issue.”

Fire Protection Association chief executive Scott Williams said the union’s action would hold up building work.

“And there are probably circumstances where it should be held up,” Mr Williams said.

But it was not the union’s role to do the checking. It was the responsibility of the building certifier or building surveyor, he said.

Australian Institute of Building Surveyors vice president Wayne Liddy said all players in the supply chain had to step up.

He described the CFMEU ban as “extreme action” but “not unhelpful” because it would assist in ensuring what was installed was safe.

Mr Liddy said surveyors were considering a push for “more rigorous” final inspections to weed out substitution.

The most extensive recent audit of building cladding was done in Melbourne after a 2014 fire tore through a Docklands apartment complex covered in polyethylene-core panels.

That audit found more than half of buildings were noncompliant, in many cases due to substitution.