Workmanship and defects in housing in the state of Victoria, Australia

The incidence of defects and the quality of housing have been the subject of extensive research internationally for decades. In the State of Victoria, Australia, various voluntary schemes have been adopted and discarded by industry-based organisations and government legislation in an attempt to improve the quality of housing. A constant source of debate has been that of acceptable standards of workmanship. In an attempt to provide defined standards for acceptable levels of workmanship, “Guide to standards and tolerances” was first published in 1990. These were purportedly introduced to cover areas not included in the building regulations and the Australian Standards. This paper reviews the evolution of these guides to standards and tolerances in the context of their impact on the incidence of defects and the quality of housing in Victoria. An extensive survey of building inspection reports over a period of two decades and two Acts of Parliament enacted specifically for the purpose of improving the quality of housing found that the incidence of defects increased significantly. The increase in the incidence of defects is analysed relative to these guides becoming more comprehensive. The findings indicate that the increase in the incidence of workmanship defects is not attributed to the level of comprehensiveness of the guides but attributed to other reasons.  These include large increase in volume of work, skill shortages and better informed consumers in respect of the building process and their rights.