In one case, a carpenter-turned-inspector with 40 years experience in the industry said he had worked across Australia and never seen workmanship as bad as in WA. Blueprints for change Sandy Randall is building compliance director at WA’s industry watchdog, Building and Energy, and was the one responsible for pivoting its team of 11 inspectors from solely investigating complaints to doing more preventative compliance work. Ms Randall admitted the quality levels of construction in WA were “not that great” and needed improvement but said changes were in the pipeline. These changes are not concrete however and would require extensive consultation. Building and Energy will release three discussion papers outlining different law changes in response to recent state and national reports into the building industry.

Loading The biggest proposal will be mandatory inspections. Costs and other details are scant but Ms Randall was confident this would solve a lot of dodgy build issues. “With a building permit will come a requirement for inspections at certain stages of work,” she said. “We will have someone, not sure who that will be, but we will have people having a look at construction as it takes place at various stages of construction. “I would like it [introduced] yesterday but the wheels of government don’t turn that quickly.”

Under Building and Energy’s plan a residential building paper will be published in August, a commercial building paper will follow in November, and early next year a paper recommending the expansion of registered building occupations will be released. New laws that would stop directors of failed companies popping up under a different business name were also planned in response to a recent review into subcontracting in WA. One of the biggest complaints from customers and even some builders was that Building and Energy was a ‘toothless tiger’ and under-resourced. Ms Randall cited figures showing most complaints were dealt with within five months and only 13 per cent of cases went to the SAT. She also defended her decision to move inspection responsibilities away from her agency.

“What struck me is the sorts of disputes we get are things about what homeowners can see ... what’s going on beneath the surface with the quality of the slabs, the structural integrity of the building and the roof tie down? These are the high-risk areas of construction and nobody was out there monitoring those,” she said. Loading “Given we all operate in tight fiscal environments I’ve got a team of skilled inspectors, [I thought] what about if we take some of those and start to monitor and get ahead of these complaints and stop them from happening. “The only way I could do that was replace what they did with the owners having to obtain a private report. “I’m comfortable it’s a better use of our resources and consumers gain a far greater benefit by us actually going out and looking at high-risk areas of construction.”

Ms Randall also questioned claims building reports cost up to $7000. She said on average a report cost $1500 and if an inspection was substantiated they would order the builder to pay the cost of it. In cases of hardship Ms Randall said they had sent their inspectors out. Constructive criticism Neither of WA’s major builder advocacy groups, the Master Builders Association and Housing Industry Association, would comment on WAtoday's investigation and repeated requests for an in-depth interview with Attorney General John Quigley on these issues were refused. But one builder had plenty to say.

The owner of one of Perth’s biggest residential building companies, Craig Gemmill, said the SAT was too much like a court and he avoided going to Building and Energy. “Personally our business and the majority of building companies that value their reputation will try and not go there at all costs because it is time-consuming and costly and it’s not a very nice process,” he said. Craig Gemmill. “If something is wrong with a house outside your warranties or maintenance period you go in there and fix it because it’s your reputation. “I learnt my lesson with that with a period of two years where I went to independent contractors to do my maintenance. It was the worst thing I’d ever done as a business.

“We will use [Building and Energy] as an umpire if we have exhausted all avenues.” He sympathised with Building and Energy’s tough task of dealing with a sometimes volatile industry and said sometimes clients or builders made the process hard on purpose. “Building and Energy, they’re people in there, they’re public servants and I think they’re probably feeling the strain of it as well,” he said. “Whenever you end up with a disruptive client or disruptive builder on one side it doesn’t matter how many policies or processes are in place it’s just going to be a shit fight.” Social media pitfalls

Mr Gemmill and Ms Randall’s views of the industry aligned on two points. Both want greater registration of building inspectors to stop unqualified inspectors producing dodgy reports for homeowners. They also have reservations about the role social media is playing in the industry. The Shonky Builders WA page has 17,000 members and exposes building stuff-ups largely in the WA residential sector. It’s been heralded by building inspectors and customers alike as a tool to police the industry and improve builder behaviour in the wake of plunging confidence in agencies such as Building and Energy and the SAT.

Loading Mr Gemmill and Ms Randall aren’t against the page in general, but both worry about the opinions and advice given. “Oh my god some of the ill-informed comments, diatribe and venom that’s on there,” Mr Gemmill said. Ms Randall said she monitored the page. “What I see is in 95 per cent of cases the advice people are given is just wrong,” she said.