The builders of the Lacrosse Tower are arguing in court that they should not be held responsible because its design plans had been approved by a building surveyor, fire engineer and the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, which "gave approval for the building including variations from specific requirements of the [Building Code of Australia], subject to certain recommendations being satisfied".
     Since those were satisfied, is the builder liable?  After all, the experts such as the building surveyor, fire engineer, fire brigade and council all signed off on it -- and we have those people and safeguards in place precisely because builders are not expert in those areas.

     However, in court, it is usually the people at the bottom of the chain who get punished -- and occasionally a politician has to resign.  But the building owners, builders are not expert, neither is the politician who has the ministry portfolio -- yet the layers of bureaucrats who are supposed to be experts are rarely held to account.  I would like to see the people up the chain get punished.

     The trouble is the whole system is broken.  Standards and regulatory bodies are controlled by those with vested interests. Public safety is paid lip-service but is sidelined by industry interests.  Standards meant to protect, fail the public and

instead become a defence along with 'industry best practice' (never mind that best practice might be absolutely flawed). Even when testing organisations know the standards themselves are faulty, the interests of their paymasters take precedence and nothing gets said.  Information on tests is blocked from being entered into the public domain because commercial interests are outside of the freedom of information act, so even a government department can refuse the request based on commercial sensitivity.

     Even when a standards organisation admits the standard is faulty and brings out a new one, the building  regulatory authorities can ignore the new one, decide they know better, and keep referencing the old one in standards. I know of this issue with standards from smoke alarms, to swimming pool pumps, to laminated beams and more.

     One way or another, we as consumers pay for these standards, we pay for the tests, we pay the regulators salaries, and when the standards, the testing, and the regulations fail, it is we who pay with the pain of injured and broken bodies and minds or even with out last gasping breaths.

     Surely it is time that our interests be accorded pre-eminence.

"The Trouble is the Whole System is Broken"

A word from:

World Fire Safety Foundation

Co-Founder, Karl Westwell

20 June 2017

Karl Westwell

More > > >

Have the Fire Industry and the Government Failed in their

Duty of Care to Adequately Warn the Public about the

Scientifically Proven Defects with ionization Smoke Alarms?

'A Special Duty of Care'

"The people and organisations that regulate, legislate, manufacture and promote fire safety products

 have a special contract with implicit responsibilities towards others in society and as such they are

 required to adhere to a standard of reasonable care because their acts could cause harm to others;

 and none more so than the standards, regulatory and fire safety organisations."

Karl Westwell, Co-Founder, World Fire Safety Foundation  |  Tauranga, New Zealand  | August 2009

"Public safety is paid lip-service but is sidelined by industry interests."

Karl Westwell, Co-Founder, WFSF  |  Tauranga, New Zealand  |  August 2009

GRENFELL TOWERS

The Latest Example of the Incredible Stupidity

and Corruption Within the Fire Safety Regulations

     There are serial killers and then there are serial killers. Some kill a few, some kill many and then there are those who kill hundreds of thousands and especially destroy the children.

     Our incredibly stupid and corrupted fire codes are the granddaddy of the killers. When the ways that the fire codes kill are examined the number one killer that comes to mind is the . . .

Richard M. Patton

Fire Protection Engineer, President,

The Crusade Against Fire Deaths

More > > >

Grenfell Towers: Beware the Culture of

Denial and Institutional Defensiveness

In the immediate aftermath of the terrible disaster

at Grenfell Towers Pete Weatherby QC provides

his view on what urgent steps must be taken next

Pete Weatherby QC