HIA Victorian Awards Season has Begun!

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been travelling across the state presenting the 2022 HIA Regional Victoria Housing Awards. It has been absolutely fantastic to be able to present the awards in person this year, after a couple of COVIDinterrupted years.

The standard of the homes being recognised is absolutely exceptional, and HIA congratulates all of the winners and finalists, including:

• Scott James Builder, Northern Victoria Home of the Year winner
• Hudson Ridge Builders, Western Victoria Home of the Year winner
• Excelcon, Eastern Victoria Home of the Year winner

The HIA Awards are a showcase of the best of the best in the residential building industry, and of the absolutely outstanding quality of work done by HIA members. We’ll also be presenting the HIA-Stratco Victorian Apprentice Awards on October 14 and then the HIA-CSR Victorian Housing and Kitchen & Bathroom Awards on November 4. Stay tuned for more on those events soon!

National Construction Code 2022 Update – More time is needed

The Building Ministers met in late August and confirmed the national time frames for the National Construction Code (NCC) 2022.

The code is being published on 1 October 2022 with a start date of 1 May 2023. But Ministers also agreed to a transition period for the two major reforms, being livable housing and the 7-star energy efficiency and condensation provisions. This means these two parts of the code will not have legal effect until at least 1 October 2023.

Each state and territory can confirm whether they are adopting the livable housing and energy efficiency changes and when.

“Each state and territory can confirm whether they are adopting the livable housing and energy efficiency changes and when.”

HIA has requested from the Victorian Government a longer time frame for implementation and we have highlighted the many implementation issues home buyers, builders and suppliers will face.

This includes a redesign of all new homes – the amendments are not simple ‘tweaks’ of requirements and must be addressed holistically. New display homes will need to be re-designed and built to represent the new provisions. Fully functional energy rating tools are yet to be finalised and energy assessors need time to understand and become familiar with utilising the new rating tools. Building surveyors need to understand the changes and update their processes to ensure they fulfil their statutory duties and manufacturers need to supply new building products and run out stock which has been made redundant by these changes.

“New display homes will need to be re-designed and built to represent the new provisions.”

The changes contain three major reforms being energy efficiency and condensation amendments, together with the livable housing provisions and hundreds of discreet individual changes. To implement one of these changes in their own right would be very substantial, but to implement all three, plus the other changes at the one time, is unprecedented.

HIA is of the view that we need more time and we will continue to pursue a full 3 year transition period from the Victorian Government.