It would only happen in Cambodia

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Duncan
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It would only happen in Cambodia

Post by Duncan »

Cambodia has a excuse for some things that happen here, like corruption, uneducated people and the fact that it is classed as a third world country. So whats the reason these things happen in a ''First World '' country with well educated and qualified people.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/vic-state-mp- ... --spt.html



https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=Awr9Jhe ... OPiCZLeT8-
Cambodia,,,, Don't fall in love with her.
Like the spoilt child she is, she will not be happy till she destroys herself from within and breaks your heart.
hiway5
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Re: It would only happen in Cambodia

Post by hiway5 »

There is more

An Erskineville apartment development remains a ghost town more than 12 months after it was completed, with the City of Sydney refusing to allow owners to move in over fears the developer did not properly clean up toxic land underneath it.

The Herald's revelation that owners have been prevented from living in a fourth Sydney apartment building over safety concerns comes less than 24 hours after an emergency meeting between the state and federal governments over the country’s building standards crisis.
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Duncan
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Re: It would only happen in Cambodia

Post by Duncan »

hiway5 wrote: Fri Jul 19, 2019 8:52 am There is more

An Erskineville apartment development remains a ghost town more than 12 months after it was completed, with the City of Sydney refusing to allow owners to move in over fears the developer did not properly clean up toxic land underneath it.

The Herald's revelation that owners have been prevented from living in a fourth Sydney apartment building over safety concerns comes less than 24 hours after an emergency meeting between the state and federal governments over the country’s building standards crisis.
Yea, I couldn't find the link. Looks like someone in office knew of the toxic landfill but let a developer build anyway ..
Spoiler:
after a fee was paid ?
Cambodia,,,, Don't fall in love with her.
Like the spoilt child she is, she will not be happy till she destroys herself from within and breaks your heart.
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SternAAlbifrons
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Re: It would only happen in Cambodia

Post by SternAAlbifrons »

Duncan wrote: Fri Jul 19, 2019 8:47 am Cambodia has a excuse for some things that happen here, like corruption, uneducated people and the fact that it is classed as a third world country. So whats the reason these things happen in a ''First World '' country with well educated and qualified people.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/vic-state-mp- ... --spt.html



https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=Awr9Jhe ... OPiCZLeT8-
That is very true Dunc, and I agree - it is not only Cambodia.

What the Australian and Cambodian building failures have in common is the low quality Made in China building materials.
AND, the imported "skilled labor" from china. Even if the developer is not employing temporary chinese workers themselves, they are forced to compete with those that do - by cutting corners.
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Clutch Cargo
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Re: It would only happen in Cambodia

Post by Clutch Cargo »

Below is an extract from Alan Kohler's latest weekly Eureka Report newsletter which addresses the issues of poor building standards in Australia as per the OP's post. To non-aussie members, Alan Kohler is a well known face on ABC TV and reports on finance/investment issues and is also Editor-in-Chief at the Investsmart Group.

Whilst this is OZ focused, I would imagine some/a lot of the issues would be similar in other developed countries? Sorry if a bit long as I can't provide a link to it as it's a subscription service.


Cracks and Taxes

As you know, I recently spent some time in Edinburgh, which is beautiful. But why, exactly, is it beautiful? Mainly because the buildings are really old.

The place is full of tourists, to the point of madness. Some days walking along the Royal Mile was like leaving the MCG after the Anzac Day game. The tourists are partly there for the Scottishness of it all – the history, the bagpipe buskers, the overpriced cashmere scarves, the whisky and even the appalling haggis – but I think they’re mainly there because of the rows of magnificent 500-year-old buildings, most of which look like they’ll be there for another 500 years.

Then I returned to Australia where 20-year-old buildings are falling down, and the ones that aren’t falling down are covered in plastic that, if someone strikes a match nearby, will incinerate the occupants.

Forget about 500 years – none of the buildings that have been chucked up in Australia in the past couple of decades will be there in 50 years.

This realisation – not to mention the actual cracks, of course – is causing a national building crisis, partly to do with insurance and partly to do with duck-shoving over who’s going to pay for remediation.

The flammable cladding problem isn’t, or at least shouldn’t, be a surprise. CSIRO first sounded the alarm on this back in 1995, and even when the outside walls of Melbourne’s Lacrosse Tower burst into flames in 2014 nothing was done.

When the Grenfell Tower fire in London killed 72 people, an inquiry was finally set up, but it quickly emerged that there was more to the problem than cladding. The Opal Tower in Sydney had to be evacuated last year after cracks started appearing, and likewise with the Mascot Towers in June.

The Australian Financial Review revealed that Mascot Towers owners had been battling structural flaws like faulty gas meters and leaks since 2011. These leaks were attributed to "poor sealing practice at construction and in the construction joists".

It’s clear that builders and surveyors responsible for certifying the buildings are under huge pressure to keep costs down and agree to shoddy materials and corners being cut.

Certification used to be done by council employees who possibly weren’t the sharpest chisels on the toolbelt, but at least they weren’t paid by the developers. The privatisation of surveying, so that those issuing the certificates are employed and paid by those being certified, has resulted in a fundamental conflict of interest.

State Governments also have a conflict of interest because of the stamp duty and other taxes they collect every time an apartment block is built.

There is no legal builders’ warranty for residential buildings more than three storeys high. The AFR reports that a 2014 High Court judgment brought an end to a six-year legal stoush - and extinguished one hope for protection for owners - when it declared builder Multiplex owed no duty of care to residents of a defective tower in Sydney's Chatswood.

Professional indemnity insurance for surveyors and architects is drying up because it hasn’t been profitable for years.

And politicians are queueing up to go on TV and shake their heads over the dreadfulness of it all, and to promise that their number one concern is their own jobs, er … whoops, I mean peoples’ safety.

Underlying this crisis is Australia’s practice of build-to-sell rather than build-to-rent.

In other countries apartments are built by institutions, usually pension funds and endowments, which then rent them out. Naturally they make sure they are well built, because these are long term investors who want to make sure the buildings last.

Australia’s apartment blocks are built by short-term speculators (we call them developers) who plan to sell the apartments individually. In fact, the aim is to sell each of them before they are built.

They have no ongoing interest in the dwellings beyond maximising the profit and moving onto the next one. The banks won’t lend them money, so the projects are financed with expensive mezzanine debt that puts further pressure on other costs. That’s why they use cheap concrete and put plastic on the outside.

And the reason the rent-to-sell system is so prevalent in Australia is tax: negative gearing encourages individual investors to buy the apartments, and prohibitive land taxes discourage institutions from investing in them, or in residential real estate at all. There is no asset allocation to residential real estate in Australian super funds’ portfolios.

In other words, the reason so many of Australia’s apartment buildings are falling down, or are covered in cheap flammable cladding, is the tax system.

And Labor’s plan to only allow negative gearing on new buildings would have made matters worse, not better.

Better regulation is necessary, preferably government or council run, with no conflicts of interest … that is, once the politicians have worked out who among them is going to slug taxpayers to fix up the buildings – is it federal, state or both?

But the problem won’t be properly fixed until the tax system is fixed, so that those who build the apartments end up owning them and renting them out.

And that means ending negative gearing and reforming land tax.
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AndyKK
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Re: It would only happen in Cambodia

Post by AndyKK »

Quote - I recently spent some time in Edinburgh, which is beautiful. But why, exactly, is it beautiful? Mainly because the buildings are really old.

It would be more to fact that the materials used such as granite will make the buildings last, that combined with builders skills and years of their maintenance.
Always "hope" but never "expect".
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