ASBEC Submission: South Australian Draft Ministerial Building Standard MBS 007 Modifications to the Building Code of Australia - Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council (ASBEC)

08 May 2024

Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council (ASBEC) welcomes the opportunity to provide comment to the Draft Ministerial Building Standard MBS 007 Modifications (the Standard) to the Building Code of Australia, which details how the energy efficiency and liveable housing provisions in the National Construction Code (NCC) 2022 would be implemented.

ASBEC supports the implementation NCC 2022 provisions for energy efficiency and liveable housing in South Australia as soon as possible. Similar provisions have already been implemented in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and the ACT and immediate implementation will align South Australia with its peers across the eastern seaboard to deliver comfortable, healthy, energy efficient homes for South Australians which are also cheaper to run.

In this short submission we wish to flag two issues with the Draft Standard, one relating to definitions and the other to timing.

In relation to the definition issue, we were particularly interested in understanding the quite substantive change in definition of the size of a small allotment that is exempt from the new energy efficiency requirements of NCC 2022 scheduled to be introduced to SA in October this year. Our understanding was that in Nov 2023 the Minister clearly defined a small allotment as having less than 10 metres frontage whereas the draft Ministerial Standard itself refers to it as a 10-metre setback. This would have huge implications for the number of new builds that would be exempt from the energy efficiency requirements of NCC2022.

Our second issue is one of timing of the roll out of concessions. We note the inclusion of concessions in Part H6 Energy efficiency of the Standard. We are concerned that the timelines for the concessions as stated could result in new homes still being constructed under NCC 2019 (Amendment 1) provisions for many years to come as the development timelines will also be subject to the extended planning and building regulations stated on the Department for Infrastructure and Transport website.