Construction activity has helped power the ACT's fortunes, just as it helped lift NSW from its doldrums of the late 2000s to the top of the national economic leader board.

Despite its success, NSW's story bears a warning for Canberra and the nation.

Mascot Towers remains off-limits for people forced to leave their homes, apparently by faulty construction. It joins Opal Tower as a symbol for the rotten fruit of unscrupulous builders and an industry that is evidently beyond anyone's control.

For years the building sector has sullied its own reputation as subcontractors have gone unpaid and head contractors become insolvent and disappeared, often to re-emerge or "phoenix" with new companies.

A regulatory regime starved of funding and rife with serious compliance failures has created the climate needed for buildings like Mascot Towers to sprout.

The victims are those who can least afford the fall-out of a construction project gone awry: Subcontractors, which are usually small businesses, and home owners who watch their money disappear into an asset they may never be able to sell.

Canberra is part-way through a much-needed debate about building standards that looks destined to heap more pressure on developers to deliver new houses and apartment complexes at higher standards of quality.

The ACT government in May announced new rules forcing developers to submit more detailed design paperwork to secure building approvals.

Despite a shambolic to-and-fro, it also committed to adopting the bulk of the 2019 national construction code from June 1, although new requirements for fire sprinklers in buildings four storeys and higher won't come into force until September.

Developers may look anxiously at the growing momentum for another measure intended to bring them to the government's heel, this time with a licensing regime.

It would be hard indeed to find an ear in Canberra, let alone Australia, sympathetic to the cause of developer freedoms. They have influence and money, but not always popular opinion, on their side.

In the rush to appease legitimate concerns about the behaviour of developers, there is a risk the ACT government will adopt controls that do more harm than good.

Let's look at the licensing idea, then. Its main virtue is that it proposes transparency and control over a sector that puts too much of the risk burden on tradies, home buyers and property investors.

The proposal, pushed by Labor party members and the construction union, carries one vice that should give the ACT government pause.

While the Shergold-Weir inquiry into the construction industry in 2018 urged nationally consistent rules for the registration of building practitioners, Labor members are advocating a regime that could make the ACT an outlier.

Such a move would go against the agreement struck last week by state and federal ministers to pursue national consistency in building standards.

There's the potential for duplication, too. The ACT government needs to be sure it is not creating another extra, unnecessary layer of compliance.

It's tempting to posture given the revelations about poor building practices. The government needs to resist the urge to keep up appearances, if it risks adding to the damage.