The dramatic crack that developed in a brand new Sydney apartment tower was the result of industry issues that “have been brewing for a long time”, according to experts.

On Thursday, the New South Wales planning minister, Anthony Roberts, announced two deans of engineering would lead the investigation into Opal Tower, which was evacuated on Christmas Eve.

Mark Hoffman from the University of New South Wales and John Carter from the University of Newcastle will investigate why the tower cracked, whether it is safe, and make recommendations for the future.

But as fallout from the evacuation continues, a poor compliance system in New South Wales and a “she’ll be right” attitude have been blamed for the high rate of defects in Sydney buildings.

The high-rise apartment block developed a crack on a wall on the 10th floor on Monday. Though the building was declared safe on Wednesday, 51 apartments were still blocked to residents on Thursday morning.

Prof Bill Randolph from the University of NSW’s City Futures Research Centre said there was “an industry-wide problem”.

“This sort of thing has been known about for some years now … The rate at which multi-units have been put up in the last four or five years has really stretched the capacity of the building industry to deal with it.”

A damning 2015 report from Engineers Australia found that 85% of new strata units were defective on completion and the certification system in NSW had “broken down”.

Randolph said the state’s compliance regime had been privatised in the early 2000s, which meant developers were now effectively “signing off on their own buildings”.

“The developer effectively walks away from the building once the last unit has been sold,” he said. “We call it split incentives. When you’re a developer, the incentive is to build it quickly, sell it quickly.

“The people who buy it then have to deal with anything that goes wrong [while] the developer can simply walk away from what they have built.

“It’s not that there isn’t enough regulation. There are plenty of regulations but they’re poorly enforced.”

Jonathan Russell, head spokesman for Engineers Australia, said members had told him that certifiers often did not have the qualifications or experience to make an informed judgment about the quality of works.

“This is most prevalent for engineering works, such as engineered fire safety systems,” he said. “Also, for those who want to do the right thing and engage an engineer, there is no government register of licensed or registered engineers.

“While the person who paints the structure needs to be licensed, the person who designs the structure does not.”

He said recommendations from the Engineers Australia report still hadn’t been taken up, three years on: “Full and swift implementation of all 24 recommendations is the single most important action that the NSW government can take.”

Phil Dwyer, the president of the Builders Collective of Australia, said there was a “she’ll be right” approach to building.

“There are many thousands of building failures, particularly in NSW and Victoria,” he said. “We saw this coming but without a doubt but never expected the dilapidation of our industry to continue for so long.”

On Wednesday the developer of Opal Tower, Ecove, declared the building was safe for habitation and was not affected by major issues.

Dwyer disagreed: “How one part can be at fault and the rest be OK? Give me a break. If one part is questionable, the whole building is questionable.”

But on Thursday Ecove denied that the fault in Opal Tower was part of a pattern.

“Any suggestion the building damage pointed to ‘a broader pattern in the industry’ is completely wrong,” said Ecove’s director, Bassam Aflak. “The city’s ‘development boom’ has not led to cutting of corners. There has been no cutting of corners.

“It’s too early to leap to any conclusions, for instance, to speculate on wider building issues because of what appears to be one failed panel.

“The requirement from the Sydney Olympic Park Authority was that the building be high quality and we have delivered on that. While this incident suggests otherwise, the contract with Icon specified that the building be of high-quality Australian design and construction.”

Randolph said it was surprising to see such a dramatic fault emerge in “what is normally thought of as a premium location”, and it pointed to further problems at the cheaper end of the market.

“It’s been brewing for some time,” he said. “Strata managers, the defects engineers, the lawyers who deal with the owners of units know this has been a problem for some time. I suspect the developer industry has been aware of it as well.”

On Thursday, Roberts promised the outcomes of his new investigation would be made public. The regulation minister, Matt Kean, also said renters who were affected could access support through Fair Trading.

“Renters might not know that they don’t need to give notice to leave a property should their property be damaged and wholly or partly uninhabitable,” he said.