Monday's dramatic evacuation of about 200 people from a Melbourne apartment tower is a timely reminder jurisdictions across the country are battling problems with building quality and a legacy of problematic building materials.
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While much has been said about the problems that have plagued the ACT building industry, it is only fair to acknowledge the larger states have done little better.
The Spencer Street fire, which struck the 41-storey Neo 200 apartment block, was exacerbated by the fact it used the same cladding that fuelled the Grenfell Tower fire which killed 72 people in London in 2017.
While Canberra has yet to experience a residential building fail of this magnitude, the potential appears to be there.
An audit of ACT Government buildings conducted in the wake of the Grenfell fire found Canberra's Centenary Hospital for Women and Children, three buildings at the Canberra Hospital, the Health Protection Services building at Holder and the Belconnen Community Health Centre all had combustible cladding.
It cost just under a million dollars to remove the panels on the recently constructed women's and children's hospital.
The 2017 audit also found nearly 50 Canberra school sites and seven Housing ACT sites had some form of potentially combustible aluminium composite panels.
What is not well known is how many privately developed residential complexes across the Territory are in the same boat. A NSW investigation, carried out by that state's Cladding Taskforce, identified more than 400 buildings with the potentially dangerous material.
"I probably don't need to answer that, we saw what happened [in Grenfell] in London, back in 2017."
NSW has banned the use of aluminium composite panels with a core of more than 30 per cent polyethylene, the substance that can contribute to the rapid vertical spread of fire seen at the Grenfell Tower and Melbourne's Neo 200 block, on high rise buildings. The ACT is yet to followed suit, although the ACT has launched a review of the use of similar cladding.
"We already have strong processes with relation to the use of this material that other jurisdictions... do not have," an Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate spokesperson said.
The horror of the Grenfell Tower in London brought the potential danger of insulated aluminium cladding panels to the world. But a series of subsequent fires have demonstrated that it was not a one-off freak accident. Speaking after this week's Spencer Street tower fire MFB chief officer Dan Stephens noted the appartment block had the same cladding as the Grenfell tower. When asked about the potential risk the cladding posed, his answer was telling.
There are likely many buildings with similar cladding in the ACT, and indeed elsewhere in Australia. The fire risks are known, and we have had wake-up calls in this country.
While there has been some movement to assess and deal with the issue of cladding on public buildings in Canberra, not enough is yet known about the state of privately owned buildings. There is more the ACT could be doing to reassure apartment residents that they are not at risk of similar fires.
