Quick wins for a faster PC:
Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →ThatPainter is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn More
There was no reliable Australia-wide count of dodgy or non-compliant building materials when Architecture & Design published Branko Miletic’s report on 6 July 2017. The available evidence was a collection of state audits, departmental estimates, warnings and building-specific incidents. Taken together, those examples showed a problem wider than combustible cladding, but they did not support a defensible national total.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
What the 2017 article actually established
Miletic’s article, Dodgy building materials are hardly a revelation, was written immediately after the June 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London. Its central point was chronological: Australian concern about questionable building products did not begin with Grenfell. Reports had already raised alarms about imported products in 2015 and substandard materials in Victorian developments in 2016.
What’s actually slowing this PC down?
Pick the symptom - the matching free tool is one click away.
The article was not a national building audit, a technical assessment of a particular tower or a current inventory. It asked how large the issue might be across Australia and answered cautiously: no hard, verifiable national figure was available. The numbers it presented belonged to particular jurisdictions or industry statements, and each had a different scope and level of certainty.
#1 Best Overall
Why a national number was unavailable
A national total requires more than adding isolated reports. Authorities would need a shared definition of “dodgy” or “non-spec,” a complete register of affected buildings, consistent testing and a way to distinguish a paperwork breach from an immediate hazard. The 2017 account described none of those conditions as existing across Australia.
Building control is administered through state and territory systems, while buildings use many product categories. A cladding audit can identify one class of façade material without revealing defective electrical cable, unsafe glazing or other concealed products. A departmental estimate may count possible locations rather than confirmed non-compliance. An industry estimate may cover only a particular building type, such as strata units. Those differences make a single national denominator impossible to infer from the figures below.
Victoria: a large audit, with an important qualification
The clearest numerical example came from the Victorian Building Authority (VBA). According to the article’s account of a February 2016 VBA audit, 170 buildings were surveyed and 85 had non-compliant cladding.
| Measure | What the article reported | How to interpret it |
|---|---|---|
| Buildings surveyed | 170 | VBA audit in Victoria, February 2016, as reported by Architecture & Design in July 2017 |
| Buildings with non-compliant cladding | 85 | 85 of the 170 surveyed buildings; this is an audit result, not a statewide prevalence rate |
| Immediate response described | One building was subject to an emergency order and evacuation | The article did not identify the building or describe the order’s later outcome |
The same account says the VBA stated that the non-compliance did not pose a risk to occupants at that time. That qualification matters. “Non-compliant” does not automatically mean that every occupant faced an immediate danger; it means the material or installation failed a requirement identified by the authority. Risk depends on the product, location, construction, condition and the way a building is occupied. The article also reported one emergency order and evacuation, showing that the authority’s overall qualification did not mean every case was treated identically.
Nor can the 85 buildings be treated as a sample from all Victorian buildings, let alone all Australian buildings. The audit’s selection method, the total number of comparable buildings and the technical findings for each site were not supplied in the article. The result demonstrates the scale that an inspection program could uncover, not the percentage of every building in the state that was affected.
New South Wales: estimates rather than a verified register
New South Wales illustrated a different problem. The article quoted a spokesperson for the NSW Department of Planning and Environment saying: “There is no known data source on the location of buildings with aluminium composite panelling.”
Against that absence of a location database, the article reported estimates of 1,800 metropolitan Sydney buildings, or possibly as many as 2,500, with aluminium composite panelling. It attributed those figures to an internal audit estimate reported in 2017.
| Jurisdiction and material | Historical figure reported in 2017 | Status of the figure |
|---|---|---|
| Metropolitan Sydney, aluminium composite panelling | 1,800 buildings; possibly 2,500 | Estimate attributed to the NSW Department of Planning and Environment’s internal audit; not a verified current count |
The range itself signals uncertainty. It may represent different assumptions about which buildings had the product, which were within the audit’s scope or which installations required further investigation. Without a known data source, neither end of the range can be presented as a confirmed inventory. It also covers one product category in one metropolitan area, not every form of defective material across New South Wales.
Rank #3
The issue was broader than external cladding
Focusing only on façades would miss the article’s wider argument. It cited an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission warning about faulty Infinity-branded electrical cable. The warning said the cable could crack and create a fire danger. Electrical products can be hidden inside walls or ceilings, so a façade inspection would not reveal that type of defect.
The article also referred to reports of glass panels breaking on high-rise residential buildings in Carlton, Melbourne. It did not present a national count of those failures or establish a single cause for them. The example instead shows why “building materials” is a broad category that includes glazing and other components, not just panels fixed to a tower’s exterior.
Asbestos was invoked as a historical example of a hazardous building material. That reference provided context for the recurring nature of material-safety concerns; it was not a new estimate of asbestos-containing buildings and should not be combined arithmetically with the 2015–2017 figures.
Queensland’s 50,000-unit estimate and the danger of extrapolation
The article attributed another estimate to Strata Community Queensland: up to 50,000 units constructed over the preceding few years could be involved in the state’s concerns. The wording matters. This was a sector estimate, not a government-verified count of defective units.
Miletic then discussed what a national extrapolation might look like, but the article explicitly treated that exercise as speculative. A projection from one state’s strata sector cannot establish an Australia-wide total unless the same building types, construction periods, products and reporting practices apply elsewhere. They may not.
| Estimate | Attribution and date | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 50,000 Queensland units | Strata Community Queensland, reported by Architecture & Design in 2017 | Sector estimate concerning units built over the preceding few years; not an established national count |
| 120 UK tower blocks reportedly failing fire-safety tests | Figure stated in the 2017 article | Historical UK comparison; the article did not provide a precise measurement date or an Australian equivalent |
Using the 50,000 figure as if it were a measured national total would therefore overstate what the source supports. The responsible conclusion is narrower: Queensland’s estimate demonstrated that the potential population of affected dwellings could be substantial, while leaving the national magnitude unresolved.
Grenfell changed attention, not the start date
The Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017 made façade materials and fire performance an urgent public issue. The article’s chronology was designed to prevent a misleading before-and-after story. Australian reports about imported products and substandard materials had appeared before the London tragedy, and the Victorian audit had taken place in February 2016.
South Australian senator Nick Xenophon was quoted as saying: “The London building tragedy demonstrates how critical it is to ensure that Australian building products comply with all Australian standards and regulations.” In context, the quotation was a call for compliance and oversight, not evidence that every Australian building shared Grenfell’s characteristics. Different buildings, products, regulations and evacuation conditions must be assessed separately.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Audits reveal one risk while leaving others outside scope
The article reported criticism from the Building Products Innovation Council that cladding audits could miss other non-compliance. That is a scope issue, not proof that audits are useless. An inspection designed to find aluminium composite panels may not examine electrical cable, glazing, waterproofing, structural connections or products concealed behind finishes.
A useful way to read the 2017 discussion is as a distinction between targeted detection and system-wide assurance:
- Targeted detection asks whether a specified product or installation is present and meets the requirements being checked.
- System-wide assurance asks whether all significant products in a building have reliable records, compliant design, correct installation and an identified response when evidence is missing.
The figures in the article came mainly from targeted activity or estimates. They cannot answer the system-wide question by themselves.
Outdated Drivers Are Slowing You Down
One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchWindows Errors? Fix Them Before They Spread
Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstallHow to interpret the figures without overstating them
- Keep the date attached. The 85-of-170 audit result describes a February 2016 Victorian audit as reported in July 2017. It is not automatically a 2026 statistic.
- Keep the owner attached. The Victorian numbers are attributed to the VBA; the Sydney range to an NSW departmental internal-audit estimate; and the Queensland figure to Strata Community Queensland.
- Separate confirmed findings from possibilities. The Victorian audit reported identified non-compliant cladding in surveyed buildings. The Sydney and Queensland numbers were estimates with stated uncertainty.
- Do not merge unlike units. Buildings, units, product types and test failures are different measures. Adding them produces a number with no clear meaning.
- Distinguish non-compliance from immediate danger. The VBA qualification about occupant risk shows why a breach needs technical interpretation rather than an automatic claim of imminent harm.
- Ask what was outside the audit. A cladding review cannot, by itself, establish the condition of electrical cable, glazing or other materials.
What a building owner or resident can reasonably ask
The 2017 article does not provide a current inspection procedure or certify any particular building. For that reason, a reader should not diagnose a property from these historical numbers alone. If a building’s materials are a concern, the useful first questions are documentary and specific:
- Which authority, engineer or qualified building professional assessed the product?
- What material, location and installation detail were examined?
- Was the finding a confirmed non-compliance, a suspected product presence or a general estimate?
- What date, standard or regulatory requirement applied to the assessment?
- Was an order, evacuation, remediation plan or follow-up inspection issued?
- Which parts of the building were not included in the inspection?
Those questions do not convert a 2017 article into a present-day safety certificate. They help prevent the opposite error: treating a historical headline or an uncertain estimate as proof about an individual property.
The defensible answer to “how big was the problem?”
As of the article’s publication on 6 July 2017, Australia had evidence of significant and varied building-material concerns but no reliable national total. Victoria supplied a documented audit result; New South Wales supplied a wide estimate in the absence of a known location database; Queensland supplied a sector estimate; and warnings about cable, glazing and asbestos showed that cladding was only one part of the picture.
The evidence supports concern, investigation and better records. It does not support a single Australia-wide number, a claim that every non-compliant building was dangerous, or a conclusion that the historical estimates remain current today.
Quick wins for a faster PC:
Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
