Dithering and do-nothing Richard Wynne has been promising for months that he would do something decisive to fix the mess that is the combustible cladding crisis in Victoria. With hundreds of dangerous buildings around the state, sitting as potential fire traps, today should have been the day that hundreds of fearful apartment owners would learn what their government was going to do to help them make their homes safe.
Richard Wynne has repeatedly declined to detail the Andrews Labor Government’s plan for the remediation of dangerous combustible cladding on private buildings.
Today’s shameful budget of only $165 million for the remediation of cladding from public buildings, like the Minister’s own office, which had its cladding removed very quickly, shows the government does not care about the residents who are currently living in unsafe buildings.
These taxpayers will now have to pay potentially hundreds of thousands dollars to have combustible cladding removed or be tied up in litigation for years. This is simply not fair, as these residents purchased their homes in good faith, and it was the Victorian Building Authority who, as the regulator of the building industry in Victoria, approved this combustible material for use.
Richard Wynne must listen to the concerns of thousands of Victorian owners and tenants of high rise buildings that are flammable and dangerous and explain to them why the Andrews Labor Government will not help them make their homes safe.
Are we going to wait for a Grenfell Tower style tragedy before the Victorian government does something to fix this mess?
Tim Smith MP
Shadow Minister for Planning and Heritage