From costly electrical upgrades to delicate strata politics, electric car owners are up against it when it comes to installing chargers in apartment car parks.
Putting in charging infrastructure during construction, or at least accommodating future installations in the design, is billed as a far simpler and cheaper option.
Preparing new developments for an anticipated acceleration in EV drivers are the sort of “sensible” tweaks to the national construction code Energy Efficiency Council chief executive officer Luke Menzel wants to see continue.
“If we don’t have those sorts of sensible ideas incorporated into code on a regular basis, we’re just loading up additional costs and additional burdens on the occupants of those buildings down the track,” he tells AAP.
This week, the rather dry, highly technical document found itself at the centre of a government-run economic reform roundtable attended by heavyweights from politics, business, civil society and unions.
At more than 2000 pages long, some argue the construction code is too unwieldy, slowing delivery of much-needed houses and apartments.
Yet as a “floor” for quality and performance, others see it as a necessary tool to keep the next generation of homes safe, comfortable and not wasting energy.
At the end of the three-day summit, Treasurer Jim Chalmers confirmed “reducing complexity and red tape” in the construction code would be pursued by his government.
The measure sits alongside other ideas to get homes built more quickly, including accelerating planning approvals and doing more to kickstart modular, efficient construction.
Exactly how Housing Minister Clare O’Neil will go about streamlining the construction code is not yet clear.
A simplification and tidy up has broad support, with few disputing the need for standards that work together better and are easier to navigate.
But putting the code in deep freeze – that is, a hiatus on updates that usually occur every three years – has proven less of a slam dunk.
Ms O’Neil has kept the door open to a temporary hold though distanced herself from a Peter Dutton-era coalition policy to keep the code on ice for 10 years.
“The balance we are trying to strike is how to maintain high standards, but not create, effectively, a moving target for builders,” she told ABC TV on Thursday.
The housing minister also pointed to a Productivity Commission report that identified red tape, including the construction code, as a key reason for a slower rate of home building than in the past.
The Housing Industry Association and the Master Builders Association favour a freeze, with the latter’s chief executive Denita Wawn, specifically calling for a review and pause on “non-essential” changes, including energy efficiency requirements, out to mid-2029.
This is the duration of the Housing Accord period, a national target of 1.2 million new homes that’s in danger of falling short.
The head of the Australian Council of Social Service, Cass Goldie, was the most critical of all the roundtable participants of a possible construction code freeze.
She was open to streamlining the code but warned households least able to afford home retrofits for a changing climate and energy future “have a lot to lose” if reforms miss the mark.
It’s a sentiment shared by Solar Citizens chief executive officer Heidi Lee Douglas, who says renters and apartment owners are already largely locked out of clean energy and efficient, electric homes.
Renew board president and architect Dick Clarke believes there are opportunities to strip complexity from the construction code without dumbing it down.
“I would agree, absolutely, that the construction code is overly complex, but it doesn’t need to be as complex to maintain high standards,” he tells AAP.
Going on hiatus until 2029 would forgo opportunities to keep chipping away at housing sustainability and energy efficiency, problems he sees as pivotal in the context of ever-increasing temperatures, including days above 50C in Western Sydney.
He also views wasted energy as a drag on household budgets, and by extension their productivity and ability to invest.
“Any kilowatt of energy drawn in by a building has to be paid for, and who pays for it?”
Homes and other buildings are also attached to an electricity grid undergoing transformation away from emissions-intensive coal power, as per national climate goals.
Mr Menzel says it’s becoming increasingly important for buildings to interact cleverly with the energy grid to better co-ordinate household and business electricity demand with solar and wind generation.
“If you don’t have buildings playing nicely on the grid, that means you need to build more network infrastructure, you need to build more generation infrastructure, and that pushes up prices for all Australian businesses and households,” he says.
“This is not some esoteric issue.”
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